Phi 415 Philosophy of language
Jeff Speaks
jeffrey.speaks@mcgill.ca
919 Leacock
MWF 9.30-10.25 Office hours: Monday, 11-12; Wednesday, 11-12.
Topic. The course will divide into three parts. In the first, we will be concerned with the task of constructing a theory of meaning -- sometimes called a semantic theory -- for a natural language. We will discuss questions like: What sorts of things are meanings? What are the meanings of certain constructions in English -- e.g., proper names, definite descriptions, and propositional attitude ascriptions? What is the distinction between what an expression means and what speakers can use the expression to communicate? We will discuss, among others, the work of Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, Keith Donnellan, and Saul Kripke.
The second part of the course concerns the foundations of language. Even given a complete semantic theory for a language, one can still ask: What makes it the case that certain expressions have those meanings? What is it for an expression of a language to have a meaning? On this topic we will look at the work of Paul Grice and Donald Davidson, and the ‘sceptical paradox’ presented by Kripke in his work on Wittgenstein.
The third section of the course will be devoted to examining the relationship between the
philosophy of language and three other areas of philosophy: ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics.
We will do this via case study, by considering three prominent arguments which use premises from
the philosophy of language and attempt to derive conclusions for these other areas of
philosophy.
Requirements & grading. Students will be required to attend and participate in class, do the assigned reading, and write three essays. The first two will be approximately 5 pages in length, and will be worth 25% of the grade each; the third paper, which will be due on the last day of class, will be worth 40% of the grade, and will be approximately 8-10 pages in length. 10% of the grade will be based on class attendance and participation. There may also be one or two ungraded ‘worksheets’; completion of these will figure into the class participation grade.
Currently, the course is scheduled to meet Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at the same time. Depending on student interest and scheduling issues, we may replace the Friday meeting with several small discussion groups, to be scheduled in the first few weeks of class.
The required readings are not long, but are often quite difficult. The readings listed as
‘supplementary’ in the detailed syllabus below will not in general be required.
Prerequisites. This class will be difficult without some knowledge of introductory logic. Some
prior experience with analytic philosophy may be helpful, but is not required, and students with
more experience in other areas of philosophy are most welcome. If you’re unsure as to whether you
should take this class, or have any other questions, you should feel free to contact me by
e-mail.
Texts. There are two required texts: Saul Kripke’s Naming and Necessity, and a coursepack.
Both will be available from Paragraphe. You may also, if you wish, buy Saul Kripke’s Wittgenstein
on Rules and Private Language, which should be readily available in bookstores or online; a copy
will also be on reserve at the library. (The passages we will be reading cannot be included in the
coursepack for copyright reasons.) The other items on the syllabus will also be placed on reserve in
the library.
A more detailed syllabus follows.
3-5 September What are meanings?
Main reading. None. But it would be a good idea to begin working on the Frege. |
Supplementary reading. John Locke, “On Words” (¤III.1-2 from his Essay on Human Understanding); Gottlob Frege, “Thought”; Richard Cartwright, “Propositions” |
Two pictures of the subject matter of semantics: meanings as ideas private to individuals, and meanings as abstract objects independent of individual language users. |
8-12 September Frege’s view of language
Main reading. Gottlob Frege, “Thought” (again) and “On Sense and Reference” |
Frege’s distinction between the sense and reference of linguistic expressions, and his application of this distinction to explain various linguistic facts about singular terms, ascriptions of beliefs and other mental states, and indexicals. |
15-19 September Russell on meaning and reference
Main reading. Bertrand Russell, “On Denoting” |
Supplementary reading. Russell, “Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description” |
Russell’s distinction between logically proper names and descriptions, and his corresponding distinction between two ways of referring to an object. His claim that descriptions are disguised quantifier phrases. The dissociation of the logical forms of sentences from their surface forms. |
22-26 September Donnellan’s challenge to Russell
Main reading. Keith Donnellan, “Reference and Definite Descriptions”; Saul Kripke, “Speaker’s Reference and Semantic Reference” |
Supplementary reading. Paul Grice, “Logic and Conversation” |
Donnellan’s criticism of Russell raises the important issue of the distinction between the meanings of expressions (‘semantics’) and what speakers of a language use those expressions to convey to other speakers (‘pragmatics’). Paul Grice was the first to develop this distinction in a systematic way, and his ideas form the basis of Kripke’s response to Donnellan’s criticism of Russell. |
29 September-3 October Kripke’s attack on descriptivism
Main reading. Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity, Lecture 1 |
Kripke’s attack on descriptivism: the theory that the meanings of names are the same as the meanings of definite descriptions associated with those names by speakers. |
6-10 October The dilemma posed by Kripke’s arguments
Main reading. Kripke, “A Puzzle About Belief” |
Kripke’s attack on descriptivism leaves us with the puzzles which originally motivated descriptivism: Frege’s problem about cognitive significance, and Russell’s problem of negative existentials. Kripke’s “Puzzle” raises some interesting questions about the former. |
10 October First paper due
13 October Thanksgiving
15-17 October Indexicality
Main reading. John Perry, “Frege on Demonstratives” |
Supplementary reading. Perry, “The Problem of the Essential Indexical” |
A brief introduction to issues surrounding context-sensitive, or indexical, expressions. Perry gives a number of powerful arguments against the idea that such expressions can be accommodated within a Fregean view of language. |
20-24 October Mentalist theories of meaning
Main reading. Paul Grice, “Meaning” |
Supplementary reading. Stephen Schiffer, Meaning, ch. 5; Grice, “Utterer’s Meaning and Intentions |
An influential statement of the view that the meanings of expressions in public languages are fixed by the contents of the thoughts of users of the language: that thought is, in this sense, more fundamental than language. |
27-31 October Interpretational theories of meaning
Main reading. Donald Davidson, “Thought and Talk” and “Radical Interpretation” |
Supplementary reading. Davidson, “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme” |
Davidson’s idea that the contents of thoughts and of language are interdependent, and determined by the interpretation which maximizes the truth of an agent’s utterances and beliefs. |
3-7 November A ‘sceptical paradox’ about meaning
Main reading. Saul Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language, Chapter 2, “The Wittgensteinian Paradox” |
Supplementary reading. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations ¤¤184-243. |
Kripke’s attempt to show that Wittgenstein’s discussion of rule following poses a problem for the view that there are facts about the meanings of words. |
7 November Second paper due
10-14 November Language & ethics: emotivism and the Frege-Geach problem
Main reading. C. L. Stevenson, “The Emotive Meaning of Ethical Terms”; Peter Geach, “Ascriptivism” |
Supplementary reading. Scott Soames, “Emotivism and Its Critics” (ch. 14 of Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century, v. 1). |
Emotivism is the theory that evaluative claims (like claims about ethics, aesthetics, or politics) are neither true nor false, but are disguised expressions of attitudes of speakers. We will consider an important criticism of emotivism from the philosophy of language. |
17-21 November Language & epistemology: Putnam’s response to skepticism
Main reading. Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth, and History, ch. 1 |
Supplementary reading. Rene Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy, Meditation 1 |
Putnam’s attempt to refute skepticism about the external world on the basis of considerations from the philosophy of language and the philosophy of mind. |
24-28 November Language & metaphysics: the debate over essentialism
Main reading. W.V.O. Quine, “Three Grades of Modal Involvement”; Kripke, Naming and Necessity, pp. 39-53. |
Supplementary reading. Locke, ”Of the names of substances” (Essay on Human Understanding, III.6); John Burgess, “Quinus ab omni naevo vindicatus” |
Quine’s attempt to show that the traditional doctrine that individuals have essential properties is incoherent, and Kripke’s response. |
1-3 December Catching up and summing up
Final paper due: 3 December