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This chapter argues that in sharp contrast to established opinion, the linguistic evidence arising out of propositional-attitude attributions strongly supports Millianism (the doctrine that the entire contribution to the proposition content of a sentence made by a proper name is simply the name's referent) without providing the slightest counter-evidence. This claim is supported through a semantic analysis of such de re attributions as ‘Jones believes of Venus that it is a star’. The apparent failure of subtitutivity of co-referential proper names in propositional-attitude attributions is shown to be evidentially irrelevant through consideration of analogous phenomena involving straightforward synonyms.

Discussing synonyms started with Prodikos of Keos (c.470 bc), but modern research can be traced back to Abbé Gabriel Girard (1718). In the 18th century, there was a Europe-wide interest in the subject, leading in England to a number of word collections (Trusler, Piozzi) and dictionaries (Crabb, Perry). It amalgamated with the use of synonyms in explaining dictionaries (hard-word dictionaries, Dr Johnson). Topical glossaries and dictionaries had earlier become popular, above all for language teaching (dialogue books, Withals, Comenius). P. M. Roget fused the two, using contemporary conspectuses of human knowledge as given in the Encyclopaedia Britannica and in scientific publications. In fact, he made new use of two old lexicographical designs. The development of synonymy prepared the way for scholarly semantics with the emergence of a new text genre, the comparative definition of word meanings.

Obviously, the human mind stores words in series. A typology of such is set up: strict seriality, natural seriality, script seriality, schematic seriality, semantic fields, frames, prototypical seriality, and seriality by feature distinction. Such series can be found in thesauri but not in alphabetical dictionaries.

This chapter presents a semantic classification of co-compounds based on the semantic relationship between parts and whole, drawing mainly on material from central Eurasian languages. A distinction between basic and non-basic co-compounds is made, and how different types of co-compounds can develop from each other diachronically is discussed. Several phenomena similar to co-compounds are discussed, viz. appositional compounds, ideophone compounds, reduplication, and echo-words, and how these are related to co-compounds is considered. Co-compounds are an ideal field for the study of lexico-semantic relationships and processes in real language use. It is argued that synonymy has usually to be considered as contextual synonymy rather than complete synonymy. The chapter discusses how the meaning of parts of co-compounds are sharpened in the context by contextual sharpening processes, such as pair sharpening and synonymic sharpening. Characteristic contexts motivating the use of co-compounds, such as generalization, non-referentiality, and distributivity, are explored.

Chapter 4 examines the teaching on divine simplicity of Aetius and his disciple Eunomius of Cyzicus, the principal opponent of Basil and Gregory of Nyssa. An initial section looks at Aetius' claim that ingeneracy is God's essential attribute. It critically examines Raoul Mortley's thesis that Aetius is dependent on the fourth‐century Neoplatonist Dexippus. The bulk of the chapter focuses on Eunomius, arguing that his account of simplicity is based upon his epistemology, which is driven by the desire to ‘repay the debt’ humans owe to God of describing God exactly as God is. For Eunomius to know truly is to know what something is, that is, to know its essence‐a theory labelled the ‘priority of definition’. For Eunomius, divine simplicity implies that ingeneracy, if truly said of God, is neither a product of mere human conceptualization, nor a merely negative title, nor a ‘part’ of God. Rather it names the essence of God. According to Eunomius, simplicity also implies the ‘synonymy principle’: all titles used for God are semantically equivalent with ‘ingenerate’.

A final problem left over from the previous chapter is that of substantive necessity. How are we to distinguish substantively necessary sentences from analytic ones? This problem arises because we have attempted to characterise analyticity in modal terms. This chapter proposes a more fine-grained ‘metaphysical picture’ of analyticity to underlie the rougher modal approximation developed in Chapter 2.

Definitions have often thought to be crucial to the debate over the analytic/synthetic distinction. They have seemed to provide clear examples of synonymy which are well-entrenched in scientific and mathematical practice. This chapter re-examines the properties of definitions in the light of our rejection of the Language Myth. The resulting account allows us both to explain Quine's sometimes puzzling views on definition, and to defend the analytic/synthetic distinction against his doctrine of the transience of definition.

A semantic theory must account for both how words are related to other words (intralinguistic connections) and how words connect to the world. Semantic field theory, which is appropriate for intralinguistic relations, is applied to wine words in this chapter. The semantic relationships most commonly found among wine descriptors are synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy (class inclusion), and incompatibility. Association, a weaker connection, also plays a role in understanding words. Four classes of descriptors are discussed: natural kind terms, gradable adjectives, evaluative words, and metaphors. The role of experts is discussed, but there are different kinds of wine experts, not all of whom use the same terminology. For example, wine writers use and generate metaphors (brawny, decadent) which the wine scientists consider silly or meaningless.

Quine's ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’ and ‘The Problem of Meaning in Linguistics’ treated meaning in a sceptical, dismissive fashion, in very much the same way that analytic philosophers themselves had relied on the notion of meaning to dispel the pretensions of metaphysics. In ‘Two Dogmas’ the topic of meaning is approached indirectly, by way of criticism of the analytic/synthetic distinction, in the first instance. Analytic truths are those that can be reduced with the aid of definitions to truths of logic. What, Quine enquired, are the criteria of synonymy implied by the claim of such definitions to correctness? In ‘Meaning in Linguistics’ the thesis of ‘Two Dogmas’ that ‘meanings themselves, as obscure intermediary entities, may well be abandoned’ is developed further. This chapter raises a number of questions about details in the complex fabric of Quine's arguments in order to draw attention to what seems to be unfinished business or holes that need to be stopped.

Wedin argues, against prevailing opinions, that Aristotle's account of homonymy, synonymy, and paronymy, with which the Categories begins, must be understood as an integral part of the treatise. The three ‘onymyies’, as Wedin calls them, are grouping principles, or one‐over‐many principles, that each collect a number of items under a single term. Wedin focuses on synonymy in particular, because it enables Aristotle to construct a theory of the fundamental kinds of things that are, and as such provides the basis for the system of the categories. For Wedin, the Categories is not just concerned with classification but also with ontology and semantics: it offers a theory about the underlying ontological implications of standard categorical statements, with the aim of determining what must exist, and in what relations these things must stand, in order for the statements to be true.

The aims of this chapter are, firstly, to understand homonymy, or multivocity; secondly, to reveal the theoretical foundations of homonymy; and thirdly, to reflect on the cogency of the general framework of Aristotle's approach to homonymy. Shields discusses Aristotle's introduction of homonymy in the Categories and how it contrasts with synonymy; this distinction is exhaustive, in that every definable term is either homonymous or synonymous. Shields argues that Aristotle implicitly relies upon different conceptions of homonymy in different contexts. Aristotle recognizes discrete homonyms and associated homonyms, and, of the latter, he reserves a special philosophical role for core‐dependent homonymy among the latter. Shields argues that Aristotle appeals to functional determination to establish homonymy or non‐univocity; however, functional determination cannot show that distinct homonyms are associated.

A conception of language use is developed according to which an unambiguous, noncontext‐sensitive sentence may be used to assert and convey more than one proposition in a single context, and different propositions in different contexts, depending on the presuppositions of conversational participants. The meaning of such a sentence in the language of which it is a part – the proposition it semantically expresses – is information that is included in what would be asserted and conveyed by an assertive utterance of it in virtually any normal context in which competent language users speak literally, nonmetaphorically, and without canceling conversational implicatures. On this conception, the meaning of a linguistically simple proper name – that which it contributes to propositions semantically expressed by sentences containing it – is simply its referent. Hence, two sentences that differ only in the substitution of coreferential names mean the same thing, and semantically express the same proposition. Nevertheless, these (synonymous) sentences may frequently be used to assert different things and convey different information.

Argues for postulating an inner ‘language’ in which thinking takes place, and proposes a means by which this postulate can be construed on functionalist lines. The functional theory is a purely causal one, and makes sense of only the syntactic and conceptual role properties of the inner language; and it is argued that, while the representational semantics of the ‘inner language’ might conceivably be construed functionally as well, this would require a broader theory whose nature is not obvious, and the functionalist construal would not remove the need of theories of reference‐like relations to show how the functional theory is physically realized. It is argued that much of the explanatory work of mental representations is done by the syntactic/conceptual role theory (which includes causal input and output laws), though suggestions are made about a possible explanatory role for the representational semantics. There is also a discussion of the distinction between intrapersonal and interpersonal synonymy, with a characterization of the former in terms of conceptual role, and sceptical remarks about the clarity of the latter. Includes a long new postscript focusing largely on questions about the explanatory role of representational semantics.

Attempts to motivate and clarify a radically ‘deflationist’ view of the relations of ‘meaning that’ and ‘having the content that’, and to defend it against many of the arguments that are widely viewed as decisive against any such view. One of its claims is that standard work in the theory of reference (for instance, that of Kripke and Putnam) can be reconceived so as not to be primarily about reference at all. Includes a long postscript that, among other things, includes an account of how the degree to which behaviour is successful can be explained within a ‘deflationist’ framework.

Is concerned with the special epistemological status possessed by attributions of meaning to sentences we understand: such attributions seem a priori, in a strong sense that includes empirical indefeasibility. What explains this special status? One explanation involves the idea that attributions of meaning (and of belief, etc.) express relations between an expression (or an agent) and a linguistic item in one's own language; in the special case of a meaning attribution to one's own language, the attribution is trivial. Argues that this linguistic view of attributions can be defended against well‐known objections. Also argues that alternatives in terms of propositions are perfectly acceptable, if suitably understood; they can even be developed in a way that accommodates Quinean doubts about interpersonal comparison, by viewing the propositions as ‘local entities’. But (whether or not one accepts the Quinean doubts), it is essential to view the assignment of propositions in a somewhat deflationary spirit, not altogether removed from a linguistic view of them, if the special epistemological status is to be explained.