PHL3590 Mind and Meaning
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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:
The workings of mind and language remain among the biggest mysteries there are: how is it that one thing, a word or an idea, can "represent" things far away and long ago or even completely fictional?
The course explores two recent rival images of language. First there is what may be thought of as a "picture theory of meaning". On this theory words or ideas refer to things in the world, and the way the words or ideas are arranged represents possible ways that things in the world might be arranged. This theory has developed into the dominant semantic theories associated with the development of formal logic. Against this there is the theory that the meaning of a word is its "use" in a "language-game". On this latter theory we do many things with words, and we do not always merely represent ways the world could be. If this were right, this could be of deep significance in many areas: for instance, if were argued that ethical discourse has functions other than that of representing truths or falsehoods. The tension between theories based on "truth and reference" and those based on "rules of use" will be explored primarily by close reading of watershed articles in the philosophy of language. Students will take turns in introducing discussion of these articles in a two-hour seminar format.
What is the value of studying this subject?
Students in this course should acquire foundational skills in critical evaluation of theories not only in the philosophy of language and in philosophical psychology but also in other fields, for instance in ethics, epistemology or metaphysics. Theories are always expressed in language, and a deeper understanding of the workings of language will often assist in the evaluation of those theories. The course will exercise and develop skills in close reading of significant recent landmarks in the philosophy of language, from Wittgenstein to Kripke.