Proceedings of the XXII World Congress of Philosophy

Volume 39, 2008

Philosophy of Language

Vibhas Chandra
Pages 31-34

The Linguistic Self
Appropriation of Meaning

The account of meaning has remained unsatisfactory within the western philosophical tradition. Thus, a radically new approach that spotlights the semantic transaction has now become imperative to broaden our understanding of the issue. Drawing on leads from contemporary thinkers, but essentially guided by the insights of Indian savants of yore, this paper attempts to crack the riddle of meaning by offering a language metaphysics which extends the scope of self in this process. At the core lies the interplay of the transcendental and the empirical which constitutes the total speech complex. There exists a linguistic self which is also the stratum of thought. Meaning is the experience of this linguistic self.