PHL2120 Language, Truth and Power
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Handbook entry- a brief description of the subject can be found in the handbook entry. The handbook also provides information about the unit leader, the semester and mode in which the unit is available, the contact hours and the assessment requirements.
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MUSO site - there is a WebCT site for this unit where assessment tasks, lecture notes and other unit resources will be posted. Once enrolled, students taking this unit are advised to check the WebCT site regularly.
Subject description:
Language shapes the way we think, and what it is possible to communicate. It also allows us to convey information from one person to another. During the twentieth century two conflicting pictures of the relationship between language and reality have developed. According to one, language represents a reality that exists independently of it. While language may colour or distort reality, it remains responsible to it. Truth is a matter of correspondence to this reality. According to the other picture of the way language works, language constructs the reality that we are able to represent. There is no language independent reality and truth cannot be correspondence. This leads to the conclusion that language is not politically neutral, for the language we speak constrains what we can think and the world we experience and the mechanisms behind the formulation of language are enmeshed in institutionalised forms of power. The course introduces students to some of the major texts on both sides of this debate, and attempts a historical overview of the most influential contributors to it. It raises the following questions:
What is language?
How do words acquire meaning?
How is communication possible?
What is truth?
On the anti-representationalist side of the debate the course will look at the work of Ferdinand Saussure, Benjamin Whorf, Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault. On the representationalist side we will concentrate on Aristotle and Gottlob Frege. Some mention will also be made of some of the views of language of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Martin Heidegger.
What Is The Value of taking Language, Truth and Power?
The question 'how does language work?' is one of the more challenging and mystifying questions dealt with in philosophy. We understand language with such ease that we hardly ever stop to think how we do it. But our capacity to use language has a great deal to do with our capacity to think and to do all the things which make us distinctively human. For many, the point of this subject will be the intrinsic interest of the questions it raises.
Second, theories about the way language works have become extremely influential in many spheres beyond philosophy. In history, politics, social science and literary theory structuralist and post-structuralist theories about the way language works are often assumed but not deeply examined. This course attempts to introduce students to the origin of these influential theories and to look at them critically. One often hears it said, for instance, that there are many truths. But this claim, that there are many truths, itself rests on a theory about truth. What reasons do we have for believing this theory of truth? The course will therefore be useful as background for other courses in which theories of meaning and truth are presupposed.
Third, there is a basic vocabulary and set of concepts that has grown up for theorising about language: concepts such as syntax, semantics, sense, reference, intension, extension, analyticity and the very concept of a concept. These concepts are used in literary theory, cognitive science, philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence and linguistics. The course provides a historical introduction to these use of these words and will furnish an invaluable background for any student who hopes to go on to do further courses or research in any of these areas.