The Metaphysics of Content

This thesis is about how the nature of meaning and mental content bear on every area of philosophy, from the philosophy of mind, to the philosophy of science, to literary theory and the philosophy of action. That meaning is holistic, that meaning and translation are indeterminate, that they are interpreter relative, and that hermeneutic and semantic discourses are irreducible to the discourse of the non-intentional sciences are among the most characteristic doctrines of philosophy, both Anglo-American and Continental, during the last fifty years of the 20th century. Accordingly, recent challenges to these doctrines, which purport to provide atomistic and reductionistic foundations for semantics, have provoked some of the liveliest discussions in recent philosophy. This text brings together both classic and new papers in which these and related issues are examined. The editors provide an introductory essay to each major section of the book. In addition, the book reprints all the papers discussed in Fodor and Lepore's "Holism: A Shopper's Guide", to which it is a companion volume.