Questions and Topics We Can Help You To Answer: 

INSTRUCTIONS: 
The response is focused on the following skills: providing examples, explaining key concepts, and explaining the motivation for an argument.

This is not testing your mastery of the material, but rather asking you engage with the reading.

PART ONE: Dretske begins his paper by discussing two sorts of meaning: “natural” meaning and “functional” meaning. Do the following:

(i)  Briefly (no more than three sentences) define each of these sorts of meaning in your own words (do not give Dretske’s technical formulation);

(ii)  Give two plausible examples: one of an object or property that naturally means something (and explain what it naturally means) and one of an object or property that functionally means something (and explain what it means). You do not need to explain why they mean these things.

PART TWO: In your own words, explain what Dretske is interested in, in this paper. Why is he so concerned to show that some meanings can be accounted for without adverting to other semantic notions? This answer should be around a paragraph in length.