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.
What theory means in ordinary speech: The term theory means a very different thing when used in everyday conversation and in science. In our day to day speech, we often use theory to mean a guess or unsubstantiated idea about how something works (as in I have a theory that gremlins are hiding my car keys).