Denis Villeneuve's Prisoners does not go that route. It opens with a shot of a snowy forest, where a deer quietly noses around for food. Into the frame comes the barrel of a shotgun.
Just so, semantic theories and foundational theories of meaning are, pretty clearly, different sorts of theories. The term âtheory of meaningâ has, in the recent history of philosophy, been used to stand for both semantic theories and foundational theories of meaning.
theory. n, pl-ries. 1. a system of rules, procedures, and assumptions used to produce a result. 2. abstract knowledge or reasoning. 3. a speculative or conjectural view or idea: I have a theory about that. 4. an ideal or hypothetical situation (esp in the phrase in theory). 5. a set of hypotheses related by logical or mathematical arguments to explain and predict a wide variety of connected phenomena in general terms: the theory of relativity.