Philosophy 154: Philosophy of Language

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Thought Before Language? Spelke's Study

Administrative:

• Philosophy of Language Syllabus

Presentation:

• Topics
• Procedures and Expectations
• Grading Form

Essay:

• Paper Topics and Procedures

Final Exam:

ExtraCredit:

Overheads:

Week 1:

• Descartes and Hume on Dualism
• Descartes and Kant on the Gap
• Descartes, Hume and Kant on Dualism

Week 2:

• Whorf's Linguistic Relativism
• Chart: Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics

Weeks 3 and 4 (Direct Reference - Ch3):

• Direct Reference: Quantified Statements
• Direct Reference: Why We need Propositions
• Arguments Against Direct Reference
• Russell's Theory of Descriptions
• Russell on the Informativeness of Identity Statements

Weeks 5 and 6 (Mediated Reference - Ch4):

• Introduction to Fregean Senses
• Frege: How Reference Occurs
• Frege's Puzzle
• History of Theories of Meaning: Dichotomy, Trichotomy
• Theories of Meaning: Russell and Frege
• Frege's Proof of the Referent in Opaque Contexts
• Theories of Meaning, Compared
• Possible World Semantics

Week 7 (Truth Theoretic Semantics - Ch5):

• Davidson's Truth Theoretic Semantics
• Davidson's Modified Theory

Week 8 (The Idea Theory of Meaning - Ch6):

• Against Mental Images as Meaning
• Grice on Meaning
• Meaning: Types, Tokens and Speaker
• Desiderata for a Theory of Meaning

Week 9 (Language Knowledge Issues -Ch8):

• Arguments for Innateness of Linguistic Capacity
• Nonnativist Replies
• Chomsky's View of Linguistic Knowledge
• Quine's Argument against Linguistic Knowledge

Chapter 9:

• Meaning As Use: Introduction
• Arguments for Meaning Nihilism

Chapter 10:

• Introduction to Grice's Cooperative Principle
• Communication by Implicature
• Grice: Deriving Implicatures
• Nonliteral Vs. Indirect Chart

Study Questions:

• Stainton, Chapter 1
• Stainton, Chapter 2
• Stainton, Chapter 3
• Stainton, Chapter 4
• Stainton, Chapter 5
• Stainton, Chapter 6
• Stainton, Chapter 7
• Stainton, Chapter 8
• Stainton, Chapter 9
• Stainton, Chapter 10
• Stainton, Chapter 11