Reply to “Why Does a Word Mean What It Does?” by Axel Barceló

Abstract

Two answers to the question about the nature of linguistic understanding —the community view and the interpretive stance—, which I discuss in my book Escepticismo del significado y teorías de conceptos, are criticized by Axel Barceló in his short commentary. Here, I address his objections by showing that, within the community view, distinguishing between a deviant understanding and no understanding at all is possible, and that the interpretive stance does not require previous knowledge of the speaker’s communicative intentions in order to explain how an interpreter could determine the meaning of his words.