Ebook: Concepts and Objects

Preface

The title of the present study may remind us of the title used by Quine, viz. Word and Object. The similarity, albeit unintended,
is not absolutely contingent. Quine’s book could be construed as one of the works manifesting a shift from semantics to pragmatics, from a priori to experience, from abstraction to mere generalization. The present study tries to show that this
shift, if intended as replacing semantics by pragmatics etc., is unjustified, and that the respective theories are, in the best case, a kind of misunderstanding. Thus the slogan don't ask for meaning, ask for use is here confronted with ask for meaning before asking for use.