[ai rảnh dịch dùm - một khóa về tranh luận trên coursera] As in the examples in the lecture, the phrase my car does refer to the object that is my car, but the MEANING of the word or phrase is still not the same as the REFERENT or the object to which the word refers. The meaning is not my car. Heres why: If the meaning and the referent were exactly the same, then the word would have no meaning when there is no referent or no object for the word to refer to. But then it would be meaningless to say “I do NOT own any car” when it is true that I do not own any car, because then there would be no car to refer to. However, this sentence—“I do not own any car”—is not meaningless when I do not own any car, because then it is true. Therefore, it has meaning without a referent, so reference is not the same as meaning. The difference between REFERENCE and MEANING can also be shown by the fact that two phrases can have different meanings even if they refer to the same object. For example, the phrase my car and the phrase the car parked over there might refer to the very same car on one occasion when my car is parked over there. Nonetheless, these phrases do NOT have the same MEANING in general, because one phrase (my car) is about ownership, whereas the other phrase (the car parked over there) is about physical location. They describe different aspects of the same object. Moreover, even if both phrases do happen to refer to the same object on this one occasion, the phrases do NOT ALWAYS refer to the same object. They do not refer to the same object on other occasions, such as when your car is parked over there instead of mine. When cars move (or when I sell my car), these phrases still have the same meaning as before even though the phrases do not refer to the same objects as before. The point is that the meaning of the phrase does not vary whenever the object varies, so the meaning cannot be identical with the object. That is why the meaning of the phrase “my car” is NOT the object that is my car.
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 16:08:25 +0000
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