A Survey of the Logical Geography

Abstract

In an investigation of meaning it is best to begin from the strongest thesis. For, although some hedged and qualified version is more likely to be defensible as true, the understanding of the meaning of any such weaker thesis presupposes the understanding of the meaning of its stronger relative. For example, although the guarded and cautious ‘It looks to me like a b-52’ commits the speaker to less than the categorical and unqualified ‘It is a b-52’, the former is both semantically more sophisticated than the latter and logically parasitical upon it. You could not, that is to say, understand what is meant by ‘It looks to me like a b-52’ if you did not already know the meaning of ‘It is a B-52’.