Semantic Tradition

1.0 INTRODUCTION At the mention of the word “semantic”, our mind tends to focus on the philosophy of language. Although “semantics” is a concept in philosophy of language but it has a connotative relationship with the theory of mind, since language is a faculty of the mind.
Accordingly, philosophy of language thus mingles with the philosophy of mind, since it needs an account of what it is in our understanding that enables us to use language. Semantics on its own is the study of meaning of words, and the relation of signs to the objects to which the signs are applicable. This brief write-up is my concern to identify the historical epoch of the semantic tradition, thus identifying its meaning and relevance in solving the problems associated with the mind. 2.0 SEMANTIC TRADITION: HISTORY AND MEANING Alberto Coffa in his book, The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap, identified semantic tradition as an early nineteenth century current through its incarnation in the work of the Vienna circle. Semantic tradition with other two currents-positivism and Kantianism are different currents that are distinguished by their attitudes toward the a priori. It is an imperative to note here that both epistemic and linguistic problems sprang up from mental issues. Therefore the semantic tradition is the tradition that is characterised by a particular concern for meaning which accepts the a priori while rejecting Kant’s explanation of how a priori knowledge is possible. While the logical positivism denies that there were a priori truths, Kantianism would explain the a priori using “pure intuition and constitutive power of the mind.” A priori is a concept in the theories of knowledge and mind, which cannot be derived from experience, but which are presupposed in any mode of thought about the world; time, substance, causation, number and self. It is pursued for its own sake. It is obviously the central theme in Kant’s critique of pure reason. Thus, a priori knowledge is consequentially derived from pure intuition and constitutive power of the mind. Semantic tradition rejected pure intuition and constitutive power of mind as the source of a priori knowledge. It is on this regard that semantic tradition forms an aspect of philosophy of mind because it possesses a lot of critical view about pure intuition and constitutive power of the mind as a source of a priori knowledge. SEMANTIC TRADITION VIS-À-VIS ITS REJECTION OF PURE INTUITION AND THE CONSTITUTIVE POWER OF THE MIND. David Hodgson sees the nature of mind as an abstract noun referring collectively to each person’s mental events, or, on the other hand referring to the subject of such mental events. Thus, pure intuition is an approach to a priori concept as the constructive mental activity of human. Mathematics which consists of abstract phenomenon does not consist of analytic activities, instead, logic and mathematics are the application of internally consistent methods to realise more complex mental constructs. In the philosophy of Kant, pure intuition is one of the basic cognitive faculties equivalent to what might loosely be called perception. Kant held that our mind casts all our external intuitions in the form of space and all our internal intuitions (memory, thought) in the form of time. In semantic tradition, of which logical positivism derives its root, pure intuition and constitutive power of mind receives their obvious criticisms. Fichte, who is one of the first German idealists, argued that the categories of the mind such as cause and effect, could not be used to give us knowledge about the noumenal world. Kant contradicts his own rule for limiting the use of the categories of our judgements about the object of sense experience when he says that the thing-in-itself is the cause of our sensations. The German idealists generally wish to transform Kant’s theory into the theory that every object is a product of the mind. Furthermore, John Mill and Bentham both rejected the role of rational intuition in our quest for knowledge instead; they refined techniques for sorting and assessing sense experiences. Logical positivists of which Comte and Rudolf Carnap are among, generally played down intuition, thus applauding the character of experience in forming knowledge. CONCLUSION Just as Descartes initiated mind and body problem and was responded by Kant’s critical philosophy of synthetic a priori, semantic tradition became a reaction to Kant’s transcendental idealism. In Kant’s transcendental idealism, he identified the mind as constitutive phenomenon in building our knowledge.