Keelefilosoofia raamat
previously been said. Let us call this the Inferential Theory of Meaning.
It is hard to see how a theory that took "Hello" or "Slab" as its para-
digms could succeed in explaining the more refined of the meaning facts.
Meaningfulness, synonymy, and ambiguity are not a problem; but what of
entailment between complex sentences? The Inferential Theory's appeal
to inferring helps, for what might seem to be the static abstract relation of
"entailment" between two sentences can be reconstrued as a rule-governed
practice of inferring the one from the other. "Harold is fat and Ben is stupid"
entails "Ben is stupid" because, if someone asserts the former but denies the
latter, we apply severe social sanctions; indeed, we at least raise eyebrows if
someone asserts the former and then does not go on to behave as if the latter
is true. According to Use theories, it is this practice itself that makes the
inference valid, not (as logic books would have it) any independent guarantee
annaabi.ee 
