Meaning and Truth

Course Description

Aims

To introduce the key concepts and issues in modern philosophy of language, and to foster an appreciation of some of the contemporary debates.

Objectives

To enable students to understand and critically expound some of the central arguments in modern philosophy of language.

Content

What is it for language to have meaning? What are the relationships between meaning and truth, between language, thought and reality, and between 'ordinary' language and the 'tidied up' systems of logic? Why has the philosophy of language become such a central area of philosophy? These are the questions that are addressed in this course, and topics covered include both basic distinctions (e.g. names/definite descriptions/concept words/sentences; semantics/pragmatics; reference/sense/tone/ force; grammatical form/logical form) and basic issues (e.g. the treatment of generality; the notion of 'content'; contextualism; analysis and definition; compositionality; objectivity and communicability; indexicality).

© Mike Beaney

February 1999

Meaning and Truth

Mike Beaney