Abstract: How should we go about trying to identify which particular underlying property of a given word is responsible for its meaning? And what sort of property will that turn out to be? The answers elaborated in this chapter are that the meaning of a word, w, is engendered by whichever non-semantic feature of w is the one that explains w’s overall deployment; and that this will turn out to be an acceptance-property of the following form: ‘that such-and-such w-sentences are regularly accepted in such-and-such circumstances’ is the idealized law governing w’s use (by the relevant experts, and given certain meanings attached to various other words). Some notable features of this theory are: (i) that it rebuts Quine’s scepticism about meaning, (ii) that it rejects the idea (due to Grice) that the meanings of public-language terms derive from our intentions, (iii) that it focuses on idiolects, but can also accommodate communal meaning (i.e., social externalism), and (iv) that (a la Dummett) it embraces a limited form of meaning-holism.

Keywords: acceptance-property, idealized law, use, Quine, Grice, intentions, social externalism, Dummett, meaning-holism,