PHIL 658: Philosophy of Language (Fall 2001)

• Place and Time: Tuesday/Thursday
• Instructor: Robin Smith (rasmith@tamu.edu)
• Office thereof: Bolton 314
• Telephone thereat: 845-5696

Texts

Structure of this course

1. Reference
2. Meaning and Truth
3. Language and the World (or: Realism and Its Opposite)

Formal Work

1. I will expect you to do a classroom presentation of an article (which will involve explaining the argument of the article, setting it in its context in the development of the philosophy of language, and perhaps commenting on its successes or failures).
2. There will be a written exam roughly halfway through (on the essays we've read from Martinich)
3. I will expect a term paper of 15-25 pages at the end of the course.

Readings

In the list below:
(M) = Martinich
(H/W) = Hale & Wright

• Aug. 28: To get started.
  Assignments for first days of class are always matters of historical record, but:
  1. Please read Martinich's "Introduction" (pp. 1-27),
  2. If you have never read Frege's "On Sense and Nominatum" (or "On Sense and Reference", or "Über Sinn und Bedeutung") or Russell's "On Denoting", do that now too.
• Sept. 4: Reference: Old Theories
  Please read all six essays in Martinich's Section III, "Reference and Descriptions". I will be putting special emphasis on four:
  1. (M) Frege, "On Sense and Nominatum"
  2. (M) Russell, "On Denoting"
  3. (M) Strawson, "On Referring"
  4. (M) Donnellan, "Reverence and Definite Descriptions"
• Sept. 11: Class was cancelled.
• Sept. 18: Reference: New Theories
  1. (M) Kripke, "Naming and Necessity" (Huizenga)
  2. (M) Putnam, "Meaning and Reference"
  3. (M) Evans, "The Causal Theory of Names"
• Sept. 25: More about Rigid Designators
  1. (H/W) Hale, "Modality"
  2. (H/W) Forbes, "Essentialism" (Haugen)
  3. (H/W) Stalnaker, "Reference and Necessity"
• Oct. 2: Still More about Reference
  1. (M) Evans, "The Causal Theory of Names" (Gould)
  2. (H/W) Stanley, "Names and Rigid Designation"
  3. (H/W) Perry, "Indexicals and Demonstratives"
  4. (H/W) Lowe, "Objects and Criteria of Identity"
• Oct. 9: Meaning, Truth, and Semantics
  1. (M) Tarski, "The Semantic Conception of Truth"
  2. (M) Davidson, "Truth and Meaning" (Grimes)
  3. Good place to hand out some exam questions, this is.
• Oct. 16: Meaning and Criteria of Meaningfulness
  1. (M) Hempel, "Empiricist Criteria of Cognitive Significance"
  2. (M) Quine, "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" (Demetriou)
  3. (H/W) Boghossian, "Analyticity" (Robinson)
  4. Appropriate place to have exam question answers returned.
• Oct. 23: Some Reflections on Meaning and Truth
  1. (H/W) Wiggins, "Meaning and Truth Conditions: from Frege's Grand Design to Davidson's"
  2. (H/W) Skorupski, "Meaning, Use, Verification"
  3. (H/W) Loewer, "A Guide to Naturalizing Semantics"
• Oct. 30: Linguistic Holism
  1. (H/W) Wright, "The Indeterminacy of Translation"
  2. (H/W) Heal, "Radical Interpretation"
  3. (H/W) Peacocke, "Holism" (Di Fate)
• Nov. 6: Private-Language Arguments
  1. (M) Cook, "Wittgenstein on Privacy"
  2. (M) Kripke, "On Rules and Private Language" (Sutton)
• Nov. 13: More about Private Language Arguments
  1. (H/W) Hale, "Rule-Following, Objectivity, and Meaning"
  2. (M) Millikan, "Truth Rules, Hoverflies, and the Kripke-Wittgenstein Paradox" (Belsher)
• Nov. 20: An Interlude on Language and Communication
  1. (M) Austin, "Performative Utterances" (Sibley)
  2. (M) Grice, "Logic and Conversation"
  3. (H/W) Travis, "Pragmatics"
• Nov. 27: Realism and Antirealism
  1. (H/W) Hale/Wright, "Putnam's Model-Theoretic Argument against Metaphysical Realism"
  2. (H/W) Hale, "Realism and Its Oppositions"
• Dec. 4:
• Dec. 12: FINAL PAPERS DUE