Philosophers have been concerned with language since the early beginnings of the enterprise of philosophy.  This is unsurprising because the possession of language seems to be one of the things that makes humans so special, and is closely bound up with our ability to reason.  If philosophy involves the pursuit of truth, then we need to know what truth is, and with that question come related questions about meaning, metaphor, logic, reference, translation and interpretation, for example.  Philosophical work on language, however, exploded in the Twentieth Century, and this course will focus on the work of such great recent philosophers as Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, J.L. Austin, W.V.O Quine, Donald Davidson, and Saul Kripke, the latter three of whom are still living.  The contemporary nature of the debate, along with the comparative abstractness of some of the issues together mean that this class will be a demanding one, but indispensable to anyone interested in Twentieth Century Philosophy.

Course Requirements:
1. Regular study questions on the reading material (20%: 20 questions, 1% each)
I will regularly ask a study question at the beginning of class on the assigned reading.  These will be graded
 + (3 points: exactly right),
 / (2 points: obviously did the reading, but did not answer the question) or
 - (1 point: showed up to class, but no evidence of having done the reading).
The purpose of these questions is to ensure that you are adequately prepared for in-class discussions.
2. Papers (60%)
There will be 4 short papers, each worth 15% of the course grade.  The topic sheets for each paper will be handed out at the time (see schedule over for planned paper dates).  Each paper will be about 5 pages long, and there will usually be a choice of paper topics.
Paper 1                  Paper 2                           Paper 3                              Paper 4

3. Final (20%)
The final will be a cumulative, in-class exam consisting of short essay questions.

Texts:
Required:
A.P. Martinich, The Philosophy of Language, 3rd edition (Oxford)
Robert M. Martin, The Meaning of Language, (MIT Press)
Recommended:
A.C. Grayling, An Introduction to Philosophical Logic, 3rd edition (Blackwell)
George Lakoff & Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago)

Schedule:
1. Intro: The Nature of Language (Weeks 1&2)
What is a language?  Is language just an expression of ideas that we already have, or can there be no such thing as a “private” language?
Reading:    Wed 5 Jan, Martin 7-28
                    Fri 7 Jan, Locke (#35) 500-505             (all # readings are in Martinich)
                    Mon 10 Jan, Martin 29-52
                    Wed 12 Jan, Cook (#36) 506-524
                    Fri 14 Jan, Kripke (#37) 524-537

2. Meaning I: Logical Positivism and its Critics (Weeks 3&4)
Logical Positivism was a very influential school of thought in the early part of the last (!) century.  According to this view, the meaning of a sentence depends upon its criteria of verification.  This view met with devastating criticisms, however, notably from Quine.
Reading:    Mon 17 Jan, Class cancelled: Martin Luther King Day
                   Wed 19 Jan, Grayling 12-32
                    Fri 21 Jan, A.J. Ayer “The Principle of Verification” (handout)
                    Mon 24 Jan, Quine (#2) 39-52
           Wed 26 Jan, Grayling and Searle (handout)
                    Fri 28 Jan, Wittgenstein “Meaning as Use” (handout)    [FIRST PAPER DUE]

3. Meaning II: Speech Acts (Weeks 5&6)
Another influential school of thought, in the mid 20th Century, was the “ordinary language” philosophers, who argued that meaning was something that speakers do with words.
Reading:    Mon 31 Jan, Martin 83-95
                    Wed 2 Feb, Grice (#5) 85-91
                    Fri 4 Feb, Austin (#8) 120-129
                    Mon 7 Feb, Searle (#9) 130-140

4. Reference I: Descriptions (Weeks 6-8)
One very intuitive way to understand meaning is in terms of reference.  That is, what the word “dog” means involves the actual dog to which it refers.  However, does that mean that “the King of France is bald” is meaningless because there is no King of France?  Russell’s theory of descriptions addresses this problem.
Reading:    Wed 9 Feb, Martin 111-132
                    Fri 11 Feb, Russell (#14) 199-207
                    Mon 14 Feb, Grayling 88-109     [SECOND PAPER DUE]
                  Wed 16 Feb, Russell (#15) 208-214
                    Fri 18 Feb, Martin 133-142
                    Mon 21 Feb, Donnellan (#17) 231-244
                    Wed 23 Feb, Grayling 109-119

5. Interlude: Necessity and Possibility (Weeks 8&9)
Some sentences supposedly have to be true (“bachelors are unmarried,” for example) whereas others merely are true but do not appear to be necessarily so (“there are no diamonds as big as the Ritz”).  How can we explain the difference?
Reading:    Fri 25 Feb, Grayling 49-81
    [W I N T E R    R E C E S S]
                    Mon 6 Mar, Martin 143-160

6. Reference II: Names and Naming (Weeks 9&10)
According to one theory (Frege’s) a name like “Clinton” refers because of its meaning, which is a kind of description.  But that description can vary among persons using the name - “that guy who was impeached,” “the first Democratic president since Carter,” etc..  Also, the phrase “the first person to die of AIDS” can be thought of as a name, but nobody has a description in mind independent of the name, so can that name refer?  According to a new theory expounded by the great living philosophers Hilary Putnam and Saul Kripke, yes it can.
Reading:    Wed 8 Mar, Martin pp. 161-176
                    Fri 10 Mar, Grayling 188-202
                    Mon 13 Mar, Searle (#18) 249-254
                    Wed 15 Mar, Kripke (#19) 255-270
                    Fri 17 Mar, Evans (#20) 271-283

7. Truth (Weeks 11&12)
The analysis of truth is one of the most technical topics in philosophy of language, interwoven both with meaning and reference.  In this section we examine why Tarski’s claim that “snow is white” is true if and only if snow is white is more important than it sounds!
Reading:     Mon 20 Mar, Grayling 122-146
                  Wed 22 Mar, Martin 201-215      [THIRD PAPER DUE]
                    Fri 24 Mar, Tarski (#4) 61-84
                    Mon 27 Mar, Grayling 147-160
                    Wed 29 Mar, Grayling 160-184
                    Fri 31 Mar, Davidson (#6) 92-104

8. Interpretation and Translation (Week 13)
Imagine you are dropped in the middle of a remote part of China with no knowledge of the local dialect.  Eventually you would “learn” the language.  But how would you know you’d learnt it?  How would you know that when you said a word you meant the same thing that native speakers did?  Quine argues that you can never know and that translation is “radically indeterminate”.
Reading:    Mon 3 Apr, Quine (#31) 446-455
                    Wed 5 Apr, Martin ch. 6 (53-63)
                    Fri 7 Apr, Whorf, Evnine in handout
                  Mon 10 Apr, Davidson in handout ("Conceptual Scheme")
                    Wed 12 Apr, Searle (#34) 476-490

9. Metaphor and Everyday Speech (Weeks 14&15)
Metaphors are tricky things to analyze for philosophers because they work by not meaning exactly what they say.  “Life is a bowl of cherries” does not mean that life is breakable or fruit-filled.  Does that mean that metaphors should be left out of a theory of meaning?  But what if they’re central to the way we actually use language?
Reading:    Fri 14 Apr, Martin ch. 23 (217-224)
                    Mon 17 Apr, Grice (#11) 156-168     [FOURTH PAPER DUE]
                  Wed 19 Apr, Davidson (#29) 415-426

FINAL:  Monday 24th April, 10:30AM