Philosophy of language is fundamentally about how we can communicate and what we mean by sounds and symbols. Why does a sentence mean what it does and not something else? What makes a name denote a particular person or thing? How does our language affect what we believe and how does what we believe affect our language?
These are the kind of questions which the course will be discussing. To do so, we will look at different theories about what linguistic meaning and reference is as well as how communication depends on social factors and conventions. At the end of the course we will also discuss how philosophers of language have analysed phenomena like metaphor and derogatory language.
The course runs for five weeks with ten classroom meetings. Each meeting consists of a lecture followed by a seminar with a 15 minute break in between. There is assigned reading for each meeting, consisting of material from the course book as well as original articles which will be discussed at the seminar. The lecture is intended to provide an overview and additional explanation of the material, while the seminars are there for an in depth discussion of the theories covered. At each seminar there will be a set of questions to help guide the discussion. See below for a more detailed schedule and reading instructions.
Lecture 1: Introduction
This lecture consists of an overview of the course contents and structure, which topics will be discussed, and basic notions used in philosophy of language. The course will consist of three main parts, discussing the theory of reference, theory of meaning, and pragmatics respectively. What this means is also a part of this lecture.
Handout: 1. Introduction.
Reading: Chapter 1 of Lycan, W. (2018) Philosophy of Language.
Lecture 2: Definite Descriptions
Here we will begin with a particular kind of singular terms: definite descriptions. These are noun-phrases used to talk about specific persons or things. Apart from being one of the earliest types of expressions discussed by modern philosophy of language, definite descriptions also play a central role to how theories of singular terms have developed. During the seminar we will discuss a view proposed by Strawson in On Referring and the distinctions Donnellan makes in Reference and Definite Descriptions.
Handout: 2. Definite Descriptions.
Reading: Strawson, P.F. (1950) On Referring,
Donnellan, K. (1966) Reference and Definite Descriptions,
Chapter 2 of Lycan, W. (2018) Philosophy of Language.
Lecture 3: Descriptivism
Next, we will move on to discuss proper names and how to understand the connection between their meaning and what they refer to. We start from the descriptivist view which emerges from the work of Frege and Russell and discuss how it avoids the issues which Frege raises for the Millian view of proper names. During the seminar we will take a closer look at Frege’s On Sense and Reference, which is a foundational text for the debate on singular terms, as well as Kripke’s causal criticism of descriptivism.
Handout: 3. Descriptivism.
Reading: Frege, G. (1892) On Sense and Reference,
Kripke, S. (1972) Excerpt from Naming and Necessity,
Chapter 3 of Lycan, W. (2018) Philosophy of Language.
Lecture 4: Direct Reference
This last lecture on reference will be about the main alternative to descriptivism: Direct reference. This movement of theorists both offer criticism of descriptivism and attempt to defend the Millian view of proper names against Frege’s objections. We will also discuss the closely aligned causal-historical view of reference determination. The seminar will be about two seminal papers on the relationship between meaning and facts about the external world: Putnam’s argument that meaning and reference determination “ain’t in the head” and instead depends on how the world is and Evans’ proposal for how descriptive content and causal reference determination can be combined.
Handout: 4. Direct Reference.
Reading: Putnam, H. (1973) Meaning and Reference,
Evans, G. (1973) The Causal Theory of Reference,
Chapter 4 of Lycan, W. (2018) Philosophy of Language.
Lecture 5: Early Theories of Meaning
Having reached the part of the course which concerns theories of meaning, we will begin with an overview of traditional views of meaning and the verificationist theory which dominated philosophy of language during the first half of the 20th century. During the seminar we will discuss Quine’s Two Dogmas of Empiricism, which is often said to be the paper which ended the dominant position of both verificationism and logical empiricism.
Handout: 5. Early Theories of Meaning.
Reading: Quine, W.V.O. (1951) Two Dogmas of Empiricism,
Chapters 5 and 8 of Lycan, W. (2018) Philosophy of Language.
Lecture 6: Davidson and Grice
Next it’s time for two more modern approach to meaning: first, Davidson’s proposal that meaning should be explained in terms of the truth-conditions of a sentence and then Grice’s psychological theory of meaning. Davidson’s view is one example of what’s often called truth-conditional semantics, but, as we will see at the lecture, a somewhat pragmatist version of it. Grice, on the other hand, attempts to explain meaning in terms of intentions and context. During the seminar we will discuss Davidson’s classic Truth and Meaning and Grices Meaning, where he makes the distinction between semantic meaning and speaker-meaning.
Handout: 6. Davidson and Grice.
Reading: Davidson, D. (1967) Truth and Meaning,
Grice, H.P. (1957) Meaning,
Chapters 7 and 9 in Lycan, W. (2018) Philosophy of Language.
Lecture 7: Intensions and Context
We will continue with truth-conditional theories and discuss possible-worlds semantics, which tries to unify external truth-conditions with our intuition that meaning is not exhausted by extensions. Additionally, we will discuss how this kind of theories can deal with context-dependent language. During the seminar, we will look at Szabo’s overview of contemporary views of compositionality, which is one of the major arguments in favour of truth-conditional theories, and Borg’s paper on the different ways to approach context-dependent meaning.
Handout: 7. Intensions and Context.
Reading: Szabo, Z. (2012) The Case for Compositionality,
Borg, E. (2012) Semantics without Pragmatics,
Chapters 10 and 11 of Lycan, W. (2018) Philosophy of Language.
Lecture 8: Use-Theories of Meaning
This lecture is about what’s known as use-theories of meaning, which attempt to explain meaning in terms of the patterns or rules that our use of language conforms to. We will also discuss pragmatist views of language like the ones proposed by Sellars and Brandom. The seminar will look att Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, which might be the most influential work when it comes to discussing how diverse our use of language actually is, and a paper by Brandom, where he roughly describes and defends his contemporary use-theory of meaning.
Handout: 8. Use-theories of Meaning.
Reading: Wittgenstein, L. (1953) Utdrag ur Philosophical Investigations,
Brandom, R. (2007) Inferentialism and Some of Its Challenges,
Dahl, N. Study Guide to Brandom
Chapter 6 of Lycan, W. (2018) Philosophy of Language.
Lecture 9: Implicature and Speech-Acts
Having discussed meaning, we move on to a lecture on pragmatics. First, we will discuss performative language and Austin’s theory of speech-acts, when we don’t just say something but also perform an action by doing so. Then, we will discuss Grice’s theory of implicature and indirect communication, which is about how we use utterance to convey more than their semantic content.
Handout: 9. Implicature and Speech-Acts.
Reading: Grice, H.P. (1975) Logic and Conversation,
Chapters 12 and 13 of Lycan, W. (2018) Philosophy of Language.
Lecture 10: Pejoratives and Metaphor
For the last lecture, we will discuss metaphorical and expressive language. We will look at the contemporary debate about how to understand slurs, but also consider questions about irony and metaphor. The seminar will be a discussion about how to understand politically significant terms and slurs based on Saul’s and Camp’s influential texts on the topics.
Handout: 10. Pejoratives and Metaphor.
Reading: Saul, J. (2012) Politically Significant Terms and Philosophy of Language,
Camp, E. (2013) Slurring Perspectives,
Chapter 14 and 15 of Lycan, W. (2018) Philosophy of Language.