PHIL3804 Philosophy of Language
Schedule
The following is a tentative schedule of topics for our lecture/discussion sessions.
Links take you to some notes or other material relevant to the session.
Please note that we shall be looking at a sequence of rather different topics in the tutorial sessions.
Our prescribed texts are:
Lycan, W. Philosophy of Language
Ludlow P. (ed.) Readings in the Philosophy of Language
References below are to relevant chapters therein. There are also references to
relevant material in the books on overnight reserve:
Martinich = Martinich A.P. (ed.) The
Philosophy of Language
Moore = A.W. Moore (ed.) Meaning and Reference
H&W = Bob Hale & Crispin Wright (eds.) A Companion to the Philosophy of Language
D&S = Devitt & Sterelny Language and Reality 2nd edition
- Tuesday 24 Jan 6-7: NO SESSION
- Thursday 26 Jan 6-8: Introductory session
and Meanings as ideas. (Powerpoint
skeleton)
Locke.
Lycan ch. 5; Martinich reading 36
Wittgensteinian objections.Martinich
37-39; H&W 6
- 31 Jan: Continuation of previous session
- 2 Feb: Meanings as things. (Powerpoint
notes)
Mill/Kripke.
Lycan 4; Ludlow 25, 26; Martinich 19-23; Moore 9-13; H&W 21, 22; D&S 4, 5
Also check: Martinich 26-30; H&W 9
- 9 Feb: How to handle problems about reference: Frege; Russell/Strawson/Donnellan
(Powerpoint notes)
Lycan
2, 3; Ludlow Part III, and 22-24; Martinich 13-18; Moore passim; D&S 3, 5
- 16 Feb: Meaning as Use (Powerpoint
notes)
Lycan 6; Ludlow 7; Moore 8
Conventions,
views of languageMartinich 40, 41
- 23 Feb: Meaning as communication-intention: Grice
(Powerpoint
notes)
Lycan 7; Ludlow 4; Martinich
5-7; H&W 3
- 2 March: Semester Break
- 9 March: Meaning as truth-conditions: Davidson
(Powerpoint notes)
Lycan 9;
Ludlow 5 = Martinich 6 = Moore 6; Ludlow 6, 8, 9; H&W 1; D&S 2
Possible worlds and intensional semanticsLycan 10
- 16 March: Deixis
Lycan 11; Ludlow Part V; Martinich 24-25; H&W
4, 23
- 23 March: No session
- 30 March: Speech acts (Powerpoint
notes)
Lycan 12; Martinich 8-12
- 6 April: Implicative relations; assertion, truth, and relevance (Powerpoint
notes)
Lycan
13; Martinich 11
- 13 April: Metaphor and non-literalness (Powerpoint
notes)
Lycan 14; Martinich 31-32; H&W 11
- 20 April: Revision, review, party, ....
Tutorial topics
- Chomsky's rejection of behaviourism
7 February:
THE classic review by Chomsky of Skinner is available on-line;
you can also look at a response by MacCorquodale.
- Innateness
14 February: Felicia Dujon
Some notes on this issue at Alberta
There are links to three relevant papers on this site
- The Language of Thought
21 February: Alain Barrow; Kaye Mandeville
D&S 7.2
SEP has an article on this topic by Aydede;
Larry Kaye also has a comprehensive discussion.
- Competence and performance
7 March: Crystal Barker; Kimberley
Williams
D&S 8
The first few sections of Leon James 1969 study are
relevant.
- Language as a module
28 March: Deborah Clement; Cleopatra Gilkes
This subject now has its own Homepage, run by Raffaele
Calabretta; Samir Okasha has a paper discussing recent arguments by the "father of modularity", Fodor;
there is a paper by Kim Sterelny, 'Language, Modularity and Evolution' among other
online papers.
- Teleosemantics
4 April: Anderson Mayers; Janine Jones
D&S 7.7
Mark Rowlands has a neat introduction;
Pierre Jacob has a paper;
and there is a 2001 paper by Papineau in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy
- Whorfianism or the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
11 April: Ingrid Ramsey; Amoy Gilding; Kemar Clarke
D&S 10, 12.2
Some elementary introduction from Australia, and another by Chandler;
there is a paper by Skoyles that you can reach from this abstract
- Saussure and structuralism
18 April: Nigel Newton; Marlene
Lovell; Audrey Harper
D&S 13
Mary Klages has a document on Saussure and structuralism; John Phillips has material on structuralism and semiotics;
Thibault offers a new view of Saussure
Return to Home Page.
Ed Brandon, last revision 7 April 2006