Word.ws English Dictionary

intensionalism

intensionalism noun: the belief that language acquires meaning from thought or belief, which is fundamentally non-linguistic, and that propositions are therefore independent of language.

Noun

intensionalism (uncountable)

  1. The belief that language acquires meaning from thought or belief, which is fundamentally non-linguistic, and that propositions are therefore independent of language.
    • The first step in showing the irrelevance of Mates's problem is to separate Frege's intensionalism from intensionalism per se .1986, Ernest LePore, Truth and Interpretation, page 62
    • Intensionalism in modern logic and linguistics begins in the way he demonstrated the point. For as "the Morning Star" and "the Evening Star" have different senses—i.e., objective linguistic content—so do statements.1999, William C. Dowling, The Senses of the Text, page 47

Origin of intensionalism

From intensional + -ism.

Questions about intensionalism

What does intensionalism mean?
Intensionalism means the belief that language acquires meaning from thought or belief, which is fundamentally non-linguistic, and that propositions are therefore independent of language.
What part of speech is intensionalism?
Intensionalism is a noun.

Words near intensionalism in the dictionary

  1. intensional definitions
  2. intensional fallacies
  3. intensional fallacy
  4. intensional logic
  5. intensional logics
  6. intensionalism
  7. intensionalist
  8. intensionalists
  9. intensionalities
  10. intensionality
  11. intensionally

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: intensionalism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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