Central and East European
Society for Phenomenology

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The meaningfulness of meaning questions

Claudine Verheggen

pp. 195-216

Abstract

Contra an expanding number of deflationary commentators onWittgenstein, I argue that philosophical questions about meaningare meaningful and that Wittgenstein gave us ample reason tobelieve so. Deflationists are right in claiming that Wittgensteinrejected the sceptical problem about meaning allegedly to befound in his later writings and also right in stressing Wittgenstein's anti-reductionism. But they are wrong in taking these dismissals to entail the end of all constructive philosophizing about meaning. Rather, I argue, the rejection of the sceptical problem requires that we abandon the questions that philosophers have traditionally addressed and that we replace them with more appropriate ones, to which constructive answers are forthcoming. However, though quietism is not the only alternative to reductionism, the rejection of reductionism does oblige us seriously to revise our sense of what constructive philosophy can achieve.

Publication details

Published in:

(2000) Synthese 123 (2).

Pages: 195-216

DOI: 10.1023/A:1005243504897

Full citation:

Verheggen Claudine (2000) „The meaningfulness of meaning questions“. Synthese 123 (2), 195–216.