Wandering Significance (WS)

We will read Mark Wilson's Wandering Significance. Shortly put, Wilson is famous for trying to understand science through the role of applied math within it (rather than embracing the standard approach which focuses on logic). In his book, he discusses several cases carefully and excessively. He uses his results to argue for a dynamic view of the semantics of theoretical terms. Crudely put, his view implies that the meaning of such terms "wanders" whenever new contexts of application are discovered and coped with. Moreover, he thinks that this picture can be generalized to the meaning of terms outside of science. The book may be of interest to philosophers of science, those of mind and language (concept identity, fixity of meaning), and people working on conceptual engineering.

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