I don’t see the distinction between connotation and denotation as an effective way of carving this muddle. The problem with signaling theory of meaning is that it explains communication of meaning as communication of truth, mixing up these different things. But meaning is often communicated using the whole palette of tools also used for signaling truth. In particular, communication of meaning (that is the kinds of things used to construct models and hypotheses) with utterances that look like vague reasoning by association shouldn’t in itself make it more difficult to reason lawfully and clearly about that meaning.
So the method I’m proposing is to consider any utterance in either capacity in turn, with separate questions like “Which idea is this drawing attention to?” and “What weight is implied for relevant assertions about this idea?” But at this point I’m not sure what the essential difficulty is that remains, because I don’t perceive the motivation for the post clearly enough.
I don’t see the distinction between connotation and denotation as an effective way of carving this muddle. The problem with signaling theory of meaning is that it explains communication of meaning as communication of truth, mixing up these different things. But meaning is often communicated using the whole palette of tools also used for signaling truth. In particular, communication of meaning (that is the kinds of things used to construct models and hypotheses) with utterances that look like vague reasoning by association shouldn’t in itself make it more difficult to reason lawfully and clearly about that meaning.
So the method I’m proposing is to consider any utterance in either capacity in turn, with separate questions like “Which idea is this drawing attention to?” and “What weight is implied for relevant assertions about this idea?” But at this point I’m not sure what the essential difficulty is that remains, because I don’t perceive the motivation for the post clearly enough.