A Metalogical Theory of Reference: Realism and Essentialism in Semantics - Tapa dura

The book presents a well worked out theory of reference starting from a model theoretic theory of meaning. It is particularly to be recommended for its lucid exposition of H. Putnam's attempts to come to terms with the realism issue and it will be of as much interest to specialists as to students working in the field because much care is taken to make the book as relatively self-contained as possible. -- Herman Roelants, Institute of Philosophy, Catholic University, Belgium The book presents a well worked out theory of reference starting from a model theoretic theory of meaning. It is particularly to be recommended for its lucid exposition of H. Putnam's attempts to come to terms with the realism issue and it will be of as much interest to specialists as to students working in the field because much care is taken to make the book as relatively self-contained as possible. -- Herman Roelants, Institute of Philosophy, Catholic University, Belgium

Roger Vergauwen seeks to provide an answer to the question, "How does language connect to the world?" He begins with the recent developments in formal semantics and from them constructs his own 'theory of reference' with which he considers the nature of the correspondence of the world. The author locates his metalogics between the philosophy of language and epistemology while he covers a range of models from Plato to Wittgenstein. Vergauwen assumes no previous technical or logical study. Contents: Introduction: The Temperature of a Hot Topic; The Tarski Program: Hijacking the Truth about Reference; Reference and Theory of Reference; Inside Out: Reference and Metalogic; Outline of a Logic with Non-Standard Meanings.