Breaking out of the Gricean vicious cycle: Let’s divorce semantics and just agree that there is no meaning in language

The existing theories of meaning are classifiable into semantic and foundational categories. After a brief overview of these categories, the current paper will dwell on a discussion of what has urged pragmaticists to endorse a dovetailing of semantics and pragmatics in their attempts at presenting a comprehensive and exhaustive account of meaning. The paper then uses Balkhi’s analogy of ‘the elephant in the dark room’ to argue that (a) all of the existing theories of meaning are inadequate, and that (b) the Gricean vicious cycle is also the product of pragmaticists’ mistaking complimentary distribution for inclusional distribution. Arguing in favor of a physiological theory of meaning, the paper concludes that a comprehensive theory of meaning has to be a theory of human brain and/or mind and should be foundational.