Natural Background of Meaning

In this text, the author argues that meaning in language is an outcome of the evolutionary development of forms of animal communication, and explains this process by naturalizing the Locke-Grice approach. The roots of meaning are contained in observable regularities, which are manifestations of objective connections such as essences and causal relations. Denkel's particularistic ontology of properties and causation leads to a view of time that harmonizes B-theory with transience. Time's passage, he argues, is a necessary condition of communication and meaning. The book connects some central topics in the philosophies of language, science and ontology, treating them within the framework of a single theory. It should be of interest not only to professional philosophers doing research on meaning, universals, causation and time, but also students, who can consult it as a textbook examining Grice's theory of meaning.