Aboutness
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Aboutness is a term used in library and information science (LIS), linguistics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. In LIS, it is often considered synonymous with subject (discourse). In philosophy it has been often considered synonymous with intentionality, perhaps since John Searle (1983).
R. A. Fairthorne (1969) is credited with coining the exact term "aboutness," which became popular in LIS since the late 1970s, perhaps due to arguments put forward by William John Hutchins (1975, 1977, 1978). Hutchins argued that "aboutness" was to be preferred to "subject" because it removed some epistemological problems. Hjørland (1992, 1997) argued, however, that the same epistemological problems also were present in Hutchins's proposal, why "aboutness" and "subject" should be considered synonymous.
While information scientists may well be concerned with the literary aboutness (John Hutchins, 1975, 1977, 1978), philosophers of mind and psychologists with the psychological or intentional aboutness (John Searle, 1983) and language of thought (Jerry Fodor, 1975), and semantic externalists with the external state of affairs (Hilary Putnam, 1975). These seminal perspectives are respectively analogous to Ogden and Richards' literary, psychological, and external contexts (1923), as well as Karl Popper's World 1, 2, and 3 (1977).
In linguistics, aboutness is simply meaning, the end of language. In psychology, it is intentionality. In psycholinguistics or cognitive linguistics, it is language of thought in vogue, or something like that.
See also
