Nathan Malcomson
nate88@yorku.ca
Office Location:

The meaningful use of language is a remarkable phenomenon. Humans use words to convey information to one another, to make promises, to direct insults, to declare love, and to enshrine law—among many other things. Even our private thoughts are formed with words. In order to facilitate of all the various things that we do with language, words must pick out or refer to things in the world. However, philosophers have long wrestled over how, exactly, our words manage to do this. The first third of this course is focused on historically important theories of how words refer to things in the world and the problems that come with these theories.

In thinking about how words refer to things in the world, we run into cases where a speaker intends to mean one thing by a word or phrase that her linguistic community understands to mean something else. In the second third of this course, we will examine the relationship between meaning and convention, with a special focus on the degree to which our linguistic community determines what our words refer to.

Of course, we do not utter individual words or phrases in isolation. We use full sentences, made up of different kinds of words, and we use those sentences to do much more than just pick out individual objects. In the last third of the course, we will take a closer look at the meanings of full sentences, considering first how we should conceptualize the meaning of a sentence (as opposed to the meaning of a word). We will then work through some important discussions of the various kinds of meaning (or information) that a single sentence can convey, and the role a speaker’s communicative intentions plays in determining what she means by her words.

Virtual office hours: Office hours will be Wednesday 1:30–2:30pm and by appointment.

All the required readings are posted on eClass.

1. Class Participation: 10%
2. First Midterm: 30%
3. Second Midterm: 20%
4. Final Paper: 40%

Reading Schedule

1. Introduction

January 8*—Grice, H.P. “Meaning”

Austin, J.L. How to do Things with Words (selections)

*[note that it is not necessary to read these works in advance of this first class. But the content of them, which will be presented in class, is free game for the first midterm.]

1. The relation between language and the world

January 15—Frege, Gottlob. “Sense and Reference”

January 22—Russell, Bertrand. “On Denoting”

January 29—Searle, John. “Proper Names”

Kripke, Saul. Naming and Necessity (selections)

February 5—Evans, Gareth. “The Causal Theory of Names”

TEST #1

• The relation between language, linguistic communities, and the world

February 12— Donnellan, Keith. “Reference and Definite Description”

Donnellan, Keith. “Putting Humpty Dumpty Together Again”

February 19—READING WEEK

February 26—Putnam, Hilary. “Meaning and Reference”

Burge, Tyler. “Individualism and the Mental” (selections)

March 5—Davidson, Donald. "Communication and Convention”

TEST #2

1. Truth, meaning, and conversation

March 12—Davidson, Donald. “Truth and Meaning”

Davidson, Donald. “Radical Interpretation”

March 19—Davidson, Donald “A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs”

March 26—Grice, H.P. “Logic and Conversation”

April 2—TBD

1. Students will be able to engage the major contemporary debates in the philosophy of language, as well as the arguments and theories underlying various positions in those debates.
2. Students will be able to think critically about the nature of linguistic meaning, reference, truth, and communication.
3. Students will develop advanced analytic and communicative skills in philosophy; namely, the ability to articulate and defend a coherent thesis within an essay, as well as the ability to absorb, synthesize and reflect upon complex information gained from reading assignments or in a classroom setting.

The first midterm examination will take place in-class on February 5^th. The second midterm examination will take place in-class on March 5^th.

The final paper is due April 14^th.

Course policies

Alternative or makeup exams will be only be granted if the student received prior approval from the instructor or if there is a documented emergency.

For the final paper, no late paper will be accepted without documentation justifying its lateness. An electronic copy of the final paper must be submitted both to Turn-It-In via eClass and to the instructor’s email.