This book criticizes current philosophy of language as having altered its focus without adjusting the needed conceptual tools. After the critique, a new conception is presented with new semantic tools. The first edition presented the part of the theory which introduced for formal predicates partial explanatory structures, filled in varieties of ways by context. It also presented the human mind as seeking primarily explanation and understanding, with information processing taking a second conceptual place.

In the second edition, a new theory is presented that replaces the formal semanticist's singular reference with the notion of identication that singles out elements for linguistic communities so that descriptive terms can be attached to the identification without existential import. Identification in our sense brings with it also leaving as much implicit in a communication as possible. Thus identifications are contextualized. Given the indeniteness of the contexts, an identificational use can be expanded to cover identifications in new uses.

Julius M. Moravcsik (1931–2009) was Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University.