Meaningless Communication : Toward an Understanding-First Approach
Dahl, Niklas LU
(2025)
In The Journal of Philosophy
122(11).
p.607-636
- Abstract
- In this paper I explore how we can conceive of communication without recourse to the notion of meaning. The first step is to decouple linguistic understanding from its usual characterization as knowledge of meaning. Instead, I argue that we should think about understanding as a kind of skill or knowledge-how with both a practical and cognitive component. Further, we need to account for the different roles which an expression can play. Essentially, one expression can be understood in different ways with respect to different communicational functions it can fulfill. With the notion of understanding of expressions—competence—in hand, I explain how it relates to the understanding of utterances—comprehension. Since the former is a skill, the... (More)
- In this paper I explore how we can conceive of communication without recourse to the notion of meaning. The first step is to decouple linguistic understanding from its usual characterization as knowledge of meaning. Instead, I argue that we should think about understanding as a kind of skill or knowledge-how with both a practical and cognitive component. Further, we need to account for the different roles which an expression can play. Essentially, one expression can be understood in different ways with respect to different communicational functions it can fulfill. With the notion of understanding of expressions—competence—in hand, I explain how it relates to the understanding of utterances—comprehension. Since the former is a skill, the latter can be explained as the deployment of that skill to a particular conversational context. Finally, I give an account of communication and discuss the advantages which come from adopting this perspective. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/e262549b-3c22-400e-bf57-1c246ef280fa
- author
- Dahl, Niklas
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2025-11
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- The Journal of Philosophy
- volume
- 122
- issue
- 11
- pages
- 30 pages
- publisher
- Philosophy Documentation Center
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:105042295432
- ISSN
- 0022-362X
- DOI
- 10.5840/jphil20251221127
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- e262549b-3c22-400e-bf57-1c246ef280fa
- date added to LUP
- 2026-05-31 21:13:09
- date last changed
- 2026-08-23 04:00:28
@article{e262549b-3c22-400e-bf57-1c246ef280fa,
abstract = {{In this paper I explore how we can conceive of communication without recourse to the notion of meaning. The first step is to decouple linguistic understanding from its usual characterization as knowledge of meaning. Instead, I argue that we should think about understanding as a kind of skill or knowledge-how with both a practical and cognitive component. Further, we need to account for the different roles which an expression can play. Essentially, one expression can be understood in different ways with respect to different communicational functions it can fulfill. With the notion of understanding of expressions—competence—in hand, I explain how it relates to the understanding of utterances—comprehension. Since the former is a skill, the latter can be explained as the deployment of that skill to a particular conversational context. Finally, I give an account of communication and discuss the advantages which come from adopting this perspective.}},
author = {{Dahl, Niklas}},
issn = {{0022-362X}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{11}},
pages = {{607--636}},
publisher = {{Philosophy Documentation Center}},
series = {{The Journal of Philosophy}},
title = {{Meaningless Communication : Toward an Understanding-First Approach}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/jphil20251221127}},
doi = {{10.5840/jphil20251221127}},
volume = {{122}},
year = {{2025}},
}