Kent Bach
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198240778
- eISBN:
- 9780191680267
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198240778.003.0011
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Mind
One of the themes of this book is that the notion of denotation is tangential to the semantics of singular terms. This thesis has been supported by defending Russell's theory of descriptions, by ...
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One of the themes of this book is that the notion of denotation is tangential to the semantics of singular terms. This thesis has been supported by defending Russell's theory of descriptions, by developing a version of the description theory of names, and by arguing that pronouns do not denote, not even relatively to contexts of utterance. This chapter suggests that occurrences of singular terms in belief (or other attitude) contexts do not pose the problems that arise for those views that rely on the notion of denotation. The account of the occurrence of singular terms in such contexts will be rather straightforward. That will not prevent it from being controversial, however, for the distinction between referentially transparent and opaque occurrences will be interpreted pragmatically. The theoretical benefit of drawing this distinction at the level of speaker intention rather than of sentence grammar is that, contrary to popular opinion, belief sentences are not systematically ambiguous. As for occurrences of singular terms in fictional contexts, in the final section a pragmatic account will be given of them as well.Less
One of the themes of this book is that the notion of denotation is tangential to the semantics of singular terms. This thesis has been supported by defending Russell's theory of descriptions, by developing a version of the description theory of names, and by arguing that pronouns do not denote, not even relatively to contexts of utterance. This chapter suggests that occurrences of singular terms in belief (or other attitude) contexts do not pose the problems that arise for those views that rely on the notion of denotation. The account of the occurrence of singular terms in such contexts will be rather straightforward. That will not prevent it from being controversial, however, for the distinction between referentially transparent and opaque occurrences will be interpreted pragmatically. The theoretical benefit of drawing this distinction at the level of speaker intention rather than of sentence grammar is that, contrary to popular opinion, belief sentences are not systematically ambiguous. As for occurrences of singular terms in fictional contexts, in the final section a pragmatic account will be given of them as well.
Saito Tamaki
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816654505
- eISBN:
- 9781452946108
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816654505.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
From Cutie Honey and Sailor Moon to Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, the worlds of Japanese anime and manga teem with prepubescent girls toting deadly weapons. Sometimes overtly sexual, always ...
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From Cutie Honey and Sailor Moon to Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, the worlds of Japanese anime and manga teem with prepubescent girls toting deadly weapons. Sometimes overtly sexual, always intensely cute, the beautiful fighting girl has been both hailed as a feminist icon and condemned as a symptom of the objectification of young women in Japanese society. This book offers an interpretation of this alluring and capable figure. The beautiful fighting girl is a complex sexual fantasy that paradoxically lends reality to the fictional spaces she inhabits. As an object of desire for male otaku (obsessive fans of anime and manga), she saturates these worlds with meaning even as her fictional status demands her ceaseless proliferation and reproduction. Rejecting simplistic moralizing, this book understands the otaku’s ability to eroticize and even fall in love with the beautiful fighting girl not as a sign of immaturity or maladaptation but as a result of a heightened sensitivity to the multiple layers of mediation and fictional context that constitute life in our hypermediated world—a logical outcome of the media they consume.Less
From Cutie Honey and Sailor Moon to Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, the worlds of Japanese anime and manga teem with prepubescent girls toting deadly weapons. Sometimes overtly sexual, always intensely cute, the beautiful fighting girl has been both hailed as a feminist icon and condemned as a symptom of the objectification of young women in Japanese society. This book offers an interpretation of this alluring and capable figure. The beautiful fighting girl is a complex sexual fantasy that paradoxically lends reality to the fictional spaces she inhabits. As an object of desire for male otaku (obsessive fans of anime and manga), she saturates these worlds with meaning even as her fictional status demands her ceaseless proliferation and reproduction. Rejecting simplistic moralizing, this book understands the otaku’s ability to eroticize and even fall in love with the beautiful fighting girl not as a sign of immaturity or maladaptation but as a result of a heightened sensitivity to the multiple layers of mediation and fictional context that constitute life in our hypermediated world—a logical outcome of the media they consume.
