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Philosophy of language refers to the
philosophical Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
study of the nature of
language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
. It investigates the relationship between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of meaning,
intentionality Intentionality is the mental ability to refer to or represent something. Sometimes regarded as the ''mark of the mental'', it is found in mental states like perceptions, beliefs or desires. For example, the perception of a tree has intentionality ...
,
reference A reference is a relationship between objects in which one object designates, or acts as a means by which to connect to or link to, another object. The first object in this relation is said to ''refer to'' the second object. It is called a ''nam ...
, the constitution of sentences, concepts,
learning Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, value (personal and cultural), values, Attitude (psychology), attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, non-human animals, and ...
, and
thought In their most common sense, the terms thought and thinking refer to cognitive processes that can happen independently of sensory stimulation. Their most paradigmatic forms are judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem solving, and de ...
.
Gottlob Frege Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic philos ...
and
Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...
were pivotal figures in analytic philosophy's "
linguistic turn The linguistic turn was a major development in Western philosophy during the early 20th century, the most important characteristic of which is the focusing of philosophy primarily on the relations between language, language users, and the world. ...
". These writers were followed by
Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929 to 1947, Witt ...
(''
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus The ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'' (widely abbreviated and Citation, cited as TLP) is the only book-length philosophical work by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein that was published during his lifetime. The project had a broad goal ...
''), the
Vienna Circle The Vienna Circle () of logical empiricism was a group of elite philosophers and scientists drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics who met regularly from 1924 to 1936 at the University of Vienna, chaired by Moritz Sc ...
,
logical positivists Logical positivism, also known as logical empiricism or neo-positivism, was a philosophical movement, in the empiricist tradition, that sought to formulate a scientific philosophy in which philosophical discourse would be, in the perception of ...
, and
Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine ( ; known to his friends as "Van"; June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century" ...
.


History


Ancient philosophy

In the West, inquiry into language stretches back to the 5th century BC with philosophers such as
Socrates Socrates (; ; – 399 BC) was a Ancient Greek philosophy, Greek philosopher from Classical Athens, Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and as among the first moral philosophers of the Ethics, ethical tradition ...
,
Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born  BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...
,
Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...
, and the
Stoics Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy that flourished in ancient Greece and Rome. The Stoics believed that the universe operated according to reason, ''i.e.'' by a God which is immersed in nature itself. Of all the schools of ancient ...
. Linguistic speculation predated systematic descriptions of grammar which emerged in India and in Greece. In the dialogue ''
Cratylus Cratylus ( ; , ''Kratylos'') was an ancient Athenian philosopher from the mid-late 5th century BC, known mostly through his portrayal in Plato's dialogue '' Cratylus''. He was a radical proponent of Heraclitean philosophy and influenced the you ...
'', Plato considered the question of whether the names of things were determined by convention or by nature. He criticized
conventionalism Conventionalism is the philosophical attitude that fundamental principles of a certain kind are grounded on (explicit or implicit) agreements in society, rather than on external reality. Unspoken rules play a key role in the philosophy's structure ...
because it led to the bizarre consequence that anything can be conventionally denominated by any name. Hence, it cannot account for the correct or incorrect application of a name. He claimed that there was a natural correctness to names. To do this, he pointed out that
compound words In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme (less precisely, a word or sign) that consists of more than one stem. Compounding, composition or nominal composition is the process of word formation that creates compound lexemes. Compounding occurs when t ...
and phrases have a range of correctness. He also argued that primitive names had a natural correctness, because each
phoneme A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...
represented basic ideas or sentiments. For example, for Plato the letter ''l'' and its sound represented the idea of softness. However, by the end of ''Cratylus'', he had admitted that some social conventions were also involved, and that there were faults in the idea that phonemes had individual meanings. Plato is often considered a proponent of
extreme realism The problem of universals is an ancient question from metaphysics that has inspired a range of philosophical topics and disputes: "Should the properties an object has in common with other objects, such as color and shape, be considered to exist ...
. Aristotle interested himself with issues of
logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...
, categories, and the creation of meaning. He separated all things into categories of
species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...
and
genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...
. He thought that the meaning of a
predicate Predicate or predication may refer to: * Predicate (grammar), in linguistics * Predication (philosophy) * several closely related uses in mathematics and formal logic: **Predicate (mathematical logic) **Propositional function **Finitary relation, o ...
was established through an abstraction of the similarities between various individual things. This theory later came to be called ''
nominalism In metaphysics, nominalism is the view that universals and abstract objects do not actually exist other than being merely names or labels. There are two main versions of nominalism. One denies the existence of universals—that which can be inst ...
''. However, since Aristotle took these similarities to be constituted by a real commonality of form, he is more often considered a proponent of
moderate realism Moderate realism (also called immanent realism) is a position in the debate on the metaphysics of universals which holds that there is no realm in which universals exist (in opposition to Platonic realism, which asserts the existence of abstrac ...
. The Stoics made important contributions to the analysis of grammar, distinguishing five parts of speech: nouns, verbs, appellatives (names or
epithet An epithet (, ), also a byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) commonly accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a real or fictitious person, place, or thing. It is usually literally descriptive, as in Alfred the Great, Suleima ...
s), conjunctions and
articles Article often refers to: * Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness * Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication Article(s) may also refer to: ...
. They also developed a sophisticated doctrine of the '' lektón'' associated with each sign of a language, but distinct from both the sign itself and the thing to which it refers. This ''lektón'' was the meaning or sense of every term. The complete ''lektón'' of a sentence is what we would now call its
proposition A proposition is a statement that can be either true or false. It is a central concept in the philosophy of language, semantics, logic, and related fields. Propositions are the object s denoted by declarative sentences; for example, "The sky ...
. Only propositions were considered truth-bearing—meaning they could be considered true or false—while sentences were simply their vehicles of expression. Different ''lektá'' could also express things besides propositions, such as commands, questions and exclamations.


Medieval philosophy

Medieval philosophers were greatly interested in the subtleties of language and its usage. For many
scholastics Scholasticism was a medieval European philosophical movement or methodology that was the predominant education in Europe from about 1100 to 1700. It is known for employing logically precise analyses and reconciling classical philosophy and C ...
, this interest was provoked by the necessity of translating
Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
texts into
Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
. There were several noteworthy philosophers of language in the medieval period. According to Peter J. King (though this has been disputed),
Peter Abelard Peter Abelard (12 February 1079 – 21 April 1142) was a medieval French scholastic philosopher, leading logician, theologian, teacher, musician, composer, and poet. This source has a detailed description of his philosophical work. In philos ...
anticipated the modern theories of reference. Also,
William of Ockham William of Ockham or Occam ( ; ; 9/10 April 1347) was an English Franciscan friar, scholastic philosopher, apologist, and theologian, who was born in Ockham, a small village in Surrey. He is considered to be one of the major figures of medie ...
's '' Summa Logicae'' brought forward one of the first serious proposals for codifying a mental language. The scholastics of the high medieval period, such as Ockham and
John Duns Scotus John Duns Scotus ( ; , "Duns the Scot";  – 8 November 1308) was a Scottish Catholic priest and Franciscan friar, university professor, philosopher and theologian. He is considered one of the four most important Christian philosopher-t ...
, considered logic to be a (science of language). The result of their studies was the elaboration of linguistic-philosophical notions whose complexity and subtlety has only recently come to be appreciated. Many of the most interesting problems of modern philosophy of language were anticipated by medieval thinkers. The phenomena of vagueness and ambiguity were analyzed intensely, and this led to an increasing interest in problems related to the use of ''syncategorematic'' words, such as ''and'', ''or'', ''not'', ''if'', and ''every''. The study of ''categorematic'' words (or ''terms'') and their properties was also developed greatly.Marconi, D. "Storia della Filosofia del Linguaggio". In ''L'Enciclopedia Garzantina della Filosofia''. ed. Gianni Vattimo. Milan: Garzanti Editori. 1981. One of the major developments of the scholastics in this area was the doctrine of the . Kretzmann, N.,
Anthony Kenny Sir Anthony John Patrick Kenny (born 16 March 1931) is a British philosopher whose interests lie in the philosophy of mind, ancient and scholastic philosophy, the philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of Wittgenstein of whose literary est ...
&
Jan Pinborg Jan Pinborg (1937–1982) was a renowned historian of medieval linguistics and philosophy of language, and the most famous member of the Copenhagen School of Medieval Philosophy pioneered by Heinrich Roos in the 1940s.Sten Ebbesen and Russell L. Fr ...
. (1982) ''Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
The of a term is the interpretation that is given of it in a specific context. It can be ''proper'' or ''improper'' (as when it is used in
metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide, or obscure, clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are usually meant to cr ...
,
metonym Metonymy () is a figure of speech in which a concept is referred to by the name of something associated with that thing or concept. For example, the word "wikt:suit, suit" may refer to a person from groups commonly wearing business attire, such ...
, and other figures of speech). A proper , in turn, can be either ''formal'' or ''material'' according to whether it refers to its usual non-linguistic referent (as in "Charles is a man"), or to itself as a linguistic entity (as in "'Charles' has seven letters"). Such a classification scheme is the precursor of modern distinctions between use and mention, and between language and metalanguage. There is a tradition called speculative grammar which existed from the 11th to the 13th century. Leading scholars included
Martin of Dacia Martin of Dacia (Martinus Dacus, Martinus de Dacia, Morten Mogensen, c. 1240 - 10 August 1304) was a Danish scholar and theologian. He authored ''De Modis significandi '' (ca. 1270), an influential treatise on grammar. Biography Morten Mo ...
and Thomas of Erfurt (see ''
Modistae The Modistae (Latin for Modists), also known as the speculative grammarians, were the members of a school of grammarian philosophy known as Modism or speculative grammar, active in northern Kingdom of France, France, Holy Roman Empire, Germany, Ki ...
'').


Modern philosophy

Linguists of the
Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
and
Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...
periods such as Johannes Goropius Becanus,
Athanasius Kircher Athanasius Kircher (2 May 1602 – 27 November 1680) was a German Society of Jesus, Jesuit scholar and polymath who published around 40 major works of comparative religion, geology, and medicine. Kircher has been compared to fellow Jes ...
and
John Wilkins John Wilkins (14 February 1614 – 19 November 1672) was an English Anglican ministry, Anglican clergyman, Natural philosophy, natural philosopher, and author, and was one of the founders of the Royal Society. He was Bishop of Chester from 1 ...
were infatuated with the idea of a
philosophical language A philosophical language is any constructed language that is constructed from first principles, sometimes following a classification. It is considered a type of engineered language. Philosophical languages were popular in Early Modern times, partl ...
reversing the
confusion of tongues The Tower of Babel is an origin myth and parable in the Book of Genesis (chapter 11) meant to explain the existence of different languages and cultures. According to the story, a united human race speaking a single language migrates to Shin ...
, influenced by the gradual discovery of
Chinese character Chinese characters are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represent the only on ...
s and
Egyptian hieroglyphs Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ( ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined Ideogram, ideographic, logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with more than 1,000 distinct char ...
('' Hieroglyphica''). This thought parallels the idea that there might be a universal language of music. European scholarship began to absorb the Indian linguistic tradition only from the mid-18th century, pioneered by Jean François Pons and
Henry Thomas Colebrooke Henry Thomas Colebrooke FRS FRSE FLS (15 June 1765 – 10 March 1837) was an English orientalist and botanist. He has been described as "the first great Sanskrit scholar in Europe". Biography Henry Thomas Colebrooke was born on 15 June ...
(the ''editio princeps'' of
Varadarāja Varadarāja was a 17th-century Hindu Sanskrit grammarian. He compiled an abridgement of the work of his master, the '' Siddhānta Kaumudī'' of Bhaṭṭoji Dīkṣita, in three versions, referred to as ''madhya'' "middle", ''laghu'' "short" an ...
, a 17th-century
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
grammarian, dating to 1849). In the early 19th century, the Danish philosopher
Søren Kierkegaard Søren Aabye Kierkegaard ( , ; ; 5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danes, Danish theologian, philosopher, poet, social critic, and religious author who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. He wrote critical tex ...
insisted that language should play a larger role in
Western philosophy Western philosophy refers to the Philosophy, philosophical thought, traditions and works of the Western world. Historically, the term refers to the philosophical thinking of Western culture, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophy of the Pre ...
. He argued that philosophy has not sufficiently focused on the role language plays in cognition and that future philosophy ought to proceed with a conscious focus on language:


Contemporary philosophy

The phrase "
linguistic turn The linguistic turn was a major development in Western philosophy during the early 20th century, the most important characteristic of which is the focusing of philosophy primarily on the relations between language, language users, and the world. ...
" was used to describe the noteworthy emphasis that contemporary philosophers put upon language. Language began to play a central role in Western philosophy in the early 20th century. One of the central figures involved in this development was the German philosopher
Gottlob Frege Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic philos ...
, whose work on philosophical logic and the philosophy of language in the late 19th century influenced the work of 20th-century
analytic philosopher Analytic philosophy is a broad movement within Western philosophy, especially English-speaking world, anglophone philosophy, focused on analysis as a philosophical method; clarity of prose; rigor in arguments; and making use of formal logic, mat ...
s
Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...
and
Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929 to 1947, Witt ...
. The philosophy of language became so pervasive that for a time, in
analytic philosophy Analytic philosophy is a broad movement within Western philosophy, especially English-speaking world, anglophone philosophy, focused on analysis as a philosophical method; clarity of prose; rigor in arguments; and making use of formal logic, mat ...
circles, philosophy as a whole was understood to be a matter of philosophy of language. In
continental philosophy Continental philosophy is a group of philosophies prominent in 20th-century continental Europe that derive from a broadly Kantianism, Kantian tradition.Continental philosophers usually identify such conditions with the transcendental subject or ...
, the foundational work in the field was
Ferdinand de Saussure Ferdinand Mongin de Saussure (; ; 26 November 185722 February 1913) was a Swiss linguist, semiotician and philosopher. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in both linguistics and semiotics in the 20th century. He is wi ...
's '' Cours de linguistique générale'',David Kreps, ''Bergson, Complexity and Creative Emergence'', Springer, 2015, p. 92. published posthumously in 1916.


Major topics and subfields


Meaning

The topic that has received the most attention in the philosophy of language has been the ''nature'' of meaning, to explain what "meaning" is, and what we mean when we talk about meaning. Within this area, issues include: the nature of
synonymy A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...
, the origins of meaning itself, our apprehension of meaning, and the nature of composition (the question of how meaningful units of language are composed of smaller meaningful parts, and how the meaning of the whole is derived from the meaning of its parts). There have been several distinctive explanations of what a linguistic "meaning" is. Each has been associated with its own body of literature. * The
ideational theory of meaning In philosophymore specifically, in its sub-fields semantics, semiotics, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and metasemanticsmeaning "is a relationship between two sorts of things: signs and the kinds of things they intend, express, or signify" ...
, most commonly associated with the British
empiricist In philosophy, empiricism is an epistemological view which holds that true knowledge or justification comes only or primarily from sensory experience and empirical evidence. It is one of several competing views within epistemology, along ...
John Locke John Locke (; 29 August 1632 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.) – 28 October 1704 (Old Style and New Style dates, O.S.)) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of the Enlightenment thi ...
, claims that meanings are
mental representation A mental representation (or cognitive representation), in philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science, is a hypothetical internal cognitive symbol that represents external reality or its abstractions. Mental re ...
s provoked by signs. Although this view of meaning has been beset by a number of problems from the beginning (see the main article for details), interest in it has been renewed by some contemporary theorists under the guise of '' semantic internalism''. * The truth-conditional theory of meaning holds meaning to be the conditions under which an expression may be true or false. This tradition goes back at least to
Frege Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic philos ...
and is associated with a rich body of modern work, spearheaded by philosophers like
Alfred Tarski Alfred Tarski (; ; born Alfred Teitelbaum;School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews ''School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews''. January 14, 1901 – October 26, 1983) was a Polish-American logician ...
and Donald Davidson.Tarski, Alfred. (1944). "The Semantical Conception of Truth"
PDF
Davidson, D. (2001) ''Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation''. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (See also Wittgenstein's
picture theory of language The picture theory of language, also known as the picture theory of meaning, is a theory of linguistic reference and meaning articulated by Ludwig Wittgenstein in the ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus''. Wittgenstein suggested that a meaningful pro ...
.) * The use theory of meaning, most commonly associated with the later Wittgenstein, helped inaugurate the idea of "meaning as use", and a
communitarian Communitarianism is a philosophy that emphasizes the connection between the individual and the community. Its overriding philosophy is based on the belief that a person's social identity and personality are largely molded by community relation ...
view of language. Wittgenstein was interested in the way in which the communities use language, and how far it can be taken. Wittgenstein, L. (1958) ''Philosophical Investigations''. Third edition. trans.
G. E. M. Anscombe Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe (; 18 March 1919 – 5 January 2001), usually cited as G. E. M. Anscombe or Elizabeth Anscombe, was a British analytic philosopher. She wrote on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, philosophi ...
. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co.
It is also associated with
P. F. Strawson Sir Peter Frederick Strawson (; 23 November 1919 – 13 February 2006) was an English philosopher who spent most of his career at the University of Oxford. He was the Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at Magdalen College, O ...
,
John Searle John Rogers Searle (; born July 31, 1932) is an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy. He began teaching at UC Berkeley in 1959 and was Willis S. and Mario ...
,
Robert Brandom Robert Boyce Brandom (; born March 13, 1950) is an American philosopher who teaches at the University of Pittsburgh. He works primarily in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and philosophical logic, and his academic output manifests both s ...
, and others.Brandom, R. (1994) ''Making it Explicit''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. * The inferentialist theory of meaning, the view that the meaning of an expression is derived from the inferential relations that it has with other expressions. This view is thought to be descended from the use theory of meaning, and has been most notably defended by
Wilfrid Sellars Wilfrid Stalker Sellars (; May 20, 1912 – July 2, 1989) was an American philosopher and prominent developer of critical realism who "revolutionized both the content and the method of philosophy in the United States". His work has had a profou ...
and
Robert Brandom Robert Boyce Brandom (; born March 13, 1950) is an American philosopher who teaches at the University of Pittsburgh. He works primarily in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and philosophical logic, and his academic output manifests both s ...
. * The
direct reference theory A direct reference theory (also called referentialism or referential realism)Andrea Bianchi (2012) ''Two ways of being a (direct) referentialist'', in Joseph Almog, Paolo Leonardi, ''Having in Mind: The Philosophy of Keith Donnellan''p. 79/ref> is ...
of meaning, the view that the meaning of a word or expression is what it points out in the world. While views of this kind have been widely criticized regarding the use of language in general,
John Stuart Mill John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, politician and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism and social liberalism, he contributed widely to s ...
defended a form of this view, and
Saul Kripke Saul Aaron Kripke (; November 13, 1940 – September 15, 2022) was an American analytic philosophy, analytic philosopher and logician. He was Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and emer ...
and
Ruth Barcan Marcus Ruth Barcan Marcus (; born Ruth Charlotte Barcan; 2 August 1921 – 19 February 2012) was an American academic philosopher and logician best known for her work in modal and philosophical logic. She developed the first formal systems of quant ...
have both defended the application of direct reference theory to
proper name A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity (''Africa''; ''Jupiter''; ''Sarah''; ''Walmart'') as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities (''continent, pl ...
s. * The semantic externalist theory of meaning, according to which meaning is not a purely psychological phenomenon, because it is determined, at least in part, by features of one's environment. There are two broad subspecies of externalism: social and environmental. The first is most closely associated with
Tyler Burge Tyler Burge (; born 1946) is an American philosopher who is a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at UCLA. Burge has made contributions to many areas of philosophy, including the philosophy of mind, philosophy of logic, epistemology, philoso ...
and the second with
Hilary Putnam Hilary Whitehall Putnam (; July 31, 1926 – March 13, 2016) was an American philosopher, mathematician, computer scientist, and figure in analytic philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. He contributed to the studies of philosophy of ...
,
Saul Kripke Saul Aaron Kripke (; November 13, 1940 – September 15, 2022) was an American analytic philosophy, analytic philosopher and logician. He was Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and emer ...
and others.Kripke, S. (1980) ''Naming and Necessity''. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. * The
verificationist Verificationism, also known as the verification principle or the verifiability criterion of meaning, is a doctrine in philosophy which asserts that a statement is meaningful only if it is either empirically verifiable (can be confirmed through the ...
theory of meaning is generally associated with the early 20th century movement of
logical positivism Logical positivism, also known as logical empiricism or neo-positivism, was a philosophical movement, in the empiricist tradition, that sought to formulate a scientific philosophy in which philosophical discourse would be, in the perception of ...
. The traditional formulation of such a theory is that the meaning of a sentence is its method of verification or falsification. In this form, the thesis was abandoned after the acceptance by most philosophers of the
Duhem–Quine thesis In philosophy of science, the Duhem–Quine thesis, also called the Duhem–Quine problem, says that unambiguous falsifications of a scientific hypothesis are impossible, because an empirical test of the hypothesis requires one or more back ...
of
confirmation holism In philosophy of science, confirmation holism, also called epistemological holism, is the view that no individual statement can be confirmed or disconfirmed by an empirical test, but rather that only a set of statements (a whole theory) can be so. ...
after the publication of
Quine Quine may refer to: * Quine (computing), a program that produces its source code as output * Quine's paradox, in logic * Quine (surname), people with the surname ** Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000), American philosopher and logician See al ...
's "
Two Dogmas of Empiricism "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" is a canonical essay by analytic philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine published in 1951. According to University of Sydney professor of philosophy Peter Godfrey-Smith, this "paper ssometimes regarded as the most impor ...
". However,
Michael Dummett Sir Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett (; 27 June 1925 – 27 December 2011) was an English academic described as "among the most significant British philosophers of the last century and a leading campaigner for racial tolerance and equality." H ...
has advocated a modified form of verificationism since the 1970s. In this version, the ''comprehension'' (and hence meaning) of a sentence consists in the hearer's ability to recognize the demonstration (mathematical, empirical or other) of the truth of the sentence.Dummett, M. (1991) ''The Logical Basis of Metaphysics''. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. * Pragmatic theories of meaning include any theory in which the meaning (or understanding) of a sentence is determined by the consequences of its application. Dummett attributes such a theory of meaning to
Charles Sanders Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American scientist, mathematician, logician, and philosopher who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism". According to philosopher Paul Weiss (philosopher), Paul ...
and other early 20th century
American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...
pragmatists. * Psychological theories of meaning, which focus on the intentions of a speaker in determining the meaning of an utterance. One notable proponent of such a view was
Paul Grice Herbert Paul Grice (13 March 1913 – 28 August 1988), usually publishing under the name H. P. Grice, H. Paul Grice, or Paul Grice, was a British philosopher of language who created the theory of implicature and the cooperative principle ( ...
, whose views also account for non-linguistic meaning (i.e., meaning as conveyed by body language, meanings as consequences, etc.).


Reference

Investigations into how language interacts with the world are called theories of reference.
Gottlob Frege Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic philos ...
was an advocate of a
mediated reference theory A mediated reference theory (also indirect reference theory)Leszek Berezowski, ''Articles and Proper Names'', University of Wrocław, 2001, p. 67. is any semantic theory that posits that words refer to something in the external world, but insists th ...
. Frege divided the semantic content of every expression, including sentences, into two components:
sense and reference In the philosophy of language, the distinction between sense and reference was an idea of the German philosopher and mathematician Gottlob Frege in 1892 (in his paper "On Sense and Reference"; German: "Über Sinn und Bedeutung"), reflecting the ...
. The sense of a sentence is the thought that it expresses. Such a thought is abstract, universal and objective. The sense of any sub-sentential expression consists in its contribution to the thought that its embedding sentence expresses. Senses determine reference and are also the modes of presentation of the objects to which expressions refer.
Referent A referent ( ) is a person or thing to which a name – a linguistic expression or other symbol – refers. For example, in the sentence ''Mary saw me'', the referent of the word ''Mary'' is the particular person called Mary who is being spoken o ...
s are the objects in the world that words pick out. The senses of sentences are thoughts, while their referents are
truth value In logic and mathematics, a truth value, sometimes called a logical value, is a value indicating the relation of a proposition to truth, which in classical logic has only two possible values ('' true'' or '' false''). Truth values are used in ...
s (true or false). The referents of sentences embedded in
propositional attitude A propositional attitude is a mental state held by an agent or organism toward a proposition. In philosophy, propositional attitudes can be considered to be neurally realized, causally efficacious, content-bearing internal states (personal princip ...
ascriptions and other opaque contexts are their usual senses.Frege, G. (1892). "
On Sense and Reference In the philosophy of language, the distinction between sense and reference was an idea of the German philosopher and mathematician Gottlob Frege in 1892 (in his paper "On Sense and Reference"; German: "Über Sinn und Bedeutung"), reflecting the ...
". In ''Frege: Senso, Funzione e Concetto''. eds.
Eva Picardi Eva Picardi (1948 – 23 April 2017) was an Italian philosopher. Picardi's contributions have been in analytic philosophy and linguistics. Early life and education Picardi graduated from the University of Bologna, in 1970, under the supervision ...
and
Carlo Penco Carlo Penco, August 1948 –, is an Italian analytic philosopher and full professor in philosophy of language at the University of Genoa in Italy. Biography Born to Emilio Penco (engineer) and Margherita Castello (high school Italian teacher), ...
. Bari: Editori Laterza. 2001.
Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...
, in his later writings and for reasons related to his theory of acquaintance in
epistemology Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowle ...
, held that the only directly referential expressions are what he called "logically proper names". Logically proper names are such terms as ''I'', ''now'', ''here'' and other
indexical In semiotics, linguistics, anthropology, and philosophy of language, indexicality is the phenomenon of a '' sign'' pointing to (or ''indexing'') some element in the context in which it occurs. A sign that signifies indexically is called an index o ...
s. He viewed proper names of the sort described above as "abbreviated
definite description In formal semantics and philosophy of language, a definite description is a denoting phrase in the form of "the X" where X is a noun-phrase or a singular common noun. The definite description is ''proper'' if X applies to a unique individual or ...
s" (see ''
Theory of descriptions The theory of descriptions is the philosopher Bertrand Russell's most significant contribution to the philosophy of language. It is also known as Russell's theory of descriptions (commonly abbreviated as RTD). In short, Russell argued that the ...
''). Hence ''Joseph R. Biden'' may be an abbreviation for "a past President of the United States and husband of Jill Biden". Definite descriptions are denoting phrases (see "
On Denoting "On Denoting" is an essay by Bertrand Russell. It was published in the philosophy journal ''Mind (journal), Mind'' in 1905. In it, Russell introduces and advocates his theory of denoting phrases, according to which definite descriptions and other ...
") which are analyzed by Russell into existentially quantified logical constructions. Such phrases denote in the sense that there is an object that satisfies the description. However, such objects are not to be considered meaningful on their own, but have meaning only in the
proposition A proposition is a statement that can be either true or false. It is a central concept in the philosophy of language, semantics, logic, and related fields. Propositions are the object s denoted by declarative sentences; for example, "The sky ...
expressed by the sentences of which they are a part. Hence, they are not directly referential in the same way as logically proper names, for Russell. On Frege's account, any
referring expression In linguistics, a referring expression (RE) is any noun phrase, or surrogate for a noun phrase, whose function in discourse is to identify some individual object. The technical terminology for ''identify'' differs a great deal from one school of ...
has a sense as well as a referent. Such a "mediated reference" view has certain theoretical advantages over Mill's view. For example, co-referential names, such as ''Samuel Clemens'' and ''Mark Twain'', cause problems for a directly referential view because it is possible for someone to hear "Mark Twain is Samuel Clemens" and be surprised – thus, their cognitive content seems different. Despite the differences between the views of Frege and Russell, they are generally lumped together as descriptivists about proper names. Such descriptivism was criticized in
Saul Kripke Saul Aaron Kripke (; November 13, 1940 – September 15, 2022) was an American analytic philosophy, analytic philosopher and logician. He was Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and emer ...
's ''Naming and Necessity''. Kripke put forth what has come to be known as "the modal argument" (or "argument from rigidity"). Consider the name ''Aristotle'' and the descriptions "the greatest student of Plato", "the founder of logic" and "the teacher of Alexander".
Aristotle Aristotle (; 384–322 BC) was an Ancient Greek philosophy, Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath. His writings cover a broad range of subjects spanning the natural sciences, philosophy, linguistics, economics, politics, psychology, a ...
obviously satisfies all of the descriptions (and many of the others we commonly associate with him), but it is not
necessarily true Logical truth is one of the most fundamental concepts in logic. Broadly speaking, a logical truth is a statement which is true regardless of the truth or falsity of its constituent propositions. In other words, a logical truth is a statement whic ...
that if Aristotle existed then Aristotle was any one, or all, of these descriptions. Aristotle may well have existed without doing any single one of the things for which he is known to posterity. He may have existed and not have become known to posterity at all or he may have died in infancy. Suppose that Aristotle is associated by Mary with the description "the last great philosopher of antiquity" and (the actual) Aristotle died in infancy. Then Mary's description would seem to refer to Plato. But this is deeply counterintuitive. Hence, names are ''
rigid designator In modal logic and the philosophy of language, a term is said to be a rigid designator or absolute substantial term when it designates (picks out, denotes, refers to) the same thing in ''all possible worlds'' in which that thing exists. A designato ...
s'', according to Kripke. That is, they refer to the same individual in every possible world in which that individual exists. In the same work, Kripke articulated several other arguments against " Frege–Russell" descriptivism (see also Kripke's
causal theory of reference A causal theory of reference or historical chain theory of reference is a theory of how terms acquire specific referents based on evidence. Such theories have been used to describe many referring terms, particularly logical terms, proper names, an ...
). The whole philosophical enterprise of studying reference has been critiqued by linguist
Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a ...
in various works.


Composition and parts

It has long been known that there are different
parts of speech In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are as ...
. One part of the common sentence is the
lexical word In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (Abbreviation, abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammar, grammatical propert ...
, which is composed of
nouns In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an object or subject within a phrase, clause, or sentence.Example n ...
, verbs, and adjectives. A major question in the field – perhaps the single most important question for
formalist Formalism may refer to: * Legal formalism, legal positivist view that the substantive justice of a law is a question for the legislature rather than the judiciary * Formalism (linguistics) * Scientific formalism * A rough synonym to the Formal sys ...
and
structuralist Structuralism is an intellectual current and methodological approach, primarily in the social sciences, that interprets elements of human culture by way of their relationship to a broader system. It works to uncover the structural patterns tha ...
thinkers – is how the meaning of a sentence emerges from its parts. Many aspects of the problem of the composition of sentences are addressed in the field of linguistics of
syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...
. Philosophical semantics tends to focus on the
principle of compositionality In semantics, mathematical logic and related disciplines, the principle of compositionality is the principle that the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the meanings of its constituent expressions and the rules used to combine them. ...
to explain the relationship between meaningful parts and whole sentences. The principle of compositionality asserts that a sentence can be understood on the basis of the meaning of the ''parts'' of the sentence (i.e., words, morphemes) along with an understanding of its ''structure'' (i.e., syntax, logic). Further, syntactic propositions are arranged into ''discourse'' or ''narrative'' structures, which also encode meanings through
pragmatics In linguistics and the philosophy of language, pragmatics is the study of how Context (linguistics), context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship ...
like temporal relations and pronominals. It is possible to use the concept of ''functions'' to describe more than just how lexical meanings work: they can also be used to describe the meaning of a sentence. In the sentence "The horse is red", "the horse" can be considered to be the product of a ''
propositional function In propositional calculus, a propositional function or a predicate is a sentence expressed in a way that would assume the value of true or false, except that within the sentence there is a variable (''x'') that is not defined or specified (thus be ...
''. A propositional function is an operation of language that takes an entity (in this case, the horse) as an input and outputs a ''semantic fact'' (i.e., the proposition that is represented by "The horse is red"). In other words, a propositional function is like an algorithm. The meaning of "red" in this case is whatever takes the entity "the horse" and turns it into the statement, "The horse is red."Stainton, Robert J. (1996)
Philosophical perspectives on language
Peterborough, Ont., Broadview Press.
Linguists have developed at least two general methods of understanding the relationship between the parts of a linguistic string and how it is put together: syntactic and semantic trees.
Syntactic In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency ...
trees draw upon the words of a sentence with the ''
grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...
'' of the sentence in mind;
semantic Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction betwee ...
trees focus upon the role of the ''meaning'' of the words and how those meanings combine to provide insight onto the genesis of semantic facts.


Mind and language


Innateness and learning

Some of the major issues at the intersection of philosophy of language and philosophy of mind are also dealt with in modern
psycholinguistics Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind ...
. Some important questions regard the amount of innate language, if language acquisition is a special faculty in the mind, and what the connection is between thought and language. There are three general perspectives on the issue of language learning. The first is the
behaviorist Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understand the behavior of humans and other animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex elicited by the pairing of certain antecedent stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that indivi ...
perspective, which dictates that not only is the solid bulk of language learned, but it is learned via conditioning. The second is the ''hypothesis testing perspective'', which understands the child's learning of syntactic rules and meanings to involve the postulation and testing of hypotheses, through the use of the general faculty of intelligence. The final candidate for explanation is the innatist perspective, which states that at least some of the syntactic settings are innate and hardwired, based on certain modules of the mind.Pinker, S. (1994) ''L'Istinto del Linguaggio''. Original title: ''The Language Instinct''. 1997. Milan: Arnaldo Mondadori Editori. There are varying notions of the structure of the brain when it comes to language.
Connectionist Connectionism is an approach to the study of human mental processes and cognition that utilizes mathematical models known as connectionist networks or artificial neural networks. Connectionism has had many "waves" since its beginnings. The first ...
models emphasize the idea that a person's lexicon and their thoughts operate in a kind of distributed,
associative In mathematics, the associative property is a property of some binary operations that rearranging the parentheses in an expression will not change the result. In propositional logic, associativity is a valid rule of replacement for express ...
network. Nativist models assert that there are specialized devices in the brain that are dedicated to language acquisition.
Computation A computation is any type of arithmetic or non-arithmetic calculation that is well-defined. Common examples of computation are mathematical equation solving and the execution of computer algorithms. Mechanical or electronic devices (or, hist ...
models emphasize the notion of a representational
language of thought The language of thought hypothesis (LOTH), sometimes known as thought ordered mental expression (TOME), is a view in linguistics, philosophy of mind and cognitive science, put forward by American philosopher Jerry Fodor. It describes the nature of ...
and the logic-like, computational processing that the mind performs over them. Emergentist models focus on the notion that natural faculties are a complex system that emerge from simpler biological parts.
Reductionist Reductionism is any of several related philosophical ideas regarding the associations between phenomena which can be described in terms of simpler or more fundamental phenomena. It is also described as an intellectual and philosophical posit ...
models attempt to explain higher-level mental processes in terms of the basic low-level neurophysiological activity.


Communication

Firstly, this field of study seeks to better understand what speakers and listeners do with language in
communication Communication is commonly defined as the transmission of information. Its precise definition is disputed and there are disagreements about whether Intention, unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication not onl ...
, and how it is used socially. Specific interests include the topics of
language learning Language acquisition is the process by which humans acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language. In other words, it is how human beings gain the ability to be aware of language, to understand it, and to produce and use words and ...
, language creation, and
speech act In the philosophy of language and linguistics, a speech act is something expressed by an individual that not only presents information but performs an action as well. For example, the phrase "I would like the mashed potatoes; could you please pas ...
s. Secondly, the question of how language relates to the minds of both the speaker and the
interpreter Interpreting is translation from a spoken or signed language into another language, usually in real time to facilitate live communication. It is distinguished from the translation of a written text, which can be more deliberative and make use o ...
is investigated. Of specific interest is the grounds for successful
translation Translation is the communication of the semantics, meaning of a #Source and target languages, source-language text by means of an Dynamic and formal equivalence, equivalent #Source and target languages, target-language text. The English la ...
of words and concepts into their equivalents in another language.


Language and thought

An important problem which touches both philosophy of language and
philosophy of mind Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of the mind and its relation to the Body (biology), body and the Reality, external world. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a ...
is to what extent language influences thought and vice versa. There have been a number of different perspectives on this issue, each offering a number of insights and suggestions. Linguists Sapir and Whorf suggested that language limited the extent to which members of a "linguistic community" can think about certain subjects (a hypothesis paralleled in
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic who wrote under the pen name of George Orwell. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to a ...
's novel ''
Nineteen Eighty-Four ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also published as ''1984'') is a dystopian novel and cautionary tale by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final completed book. Thematically ...
''). In other words, language was analytically prior to thought. Philosopher
Michael Dummett Sir Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett (; 27 June 1925 – 27 December 2011) was an English academic described as "among the most significant British philosophers of the last century and a leading campaigner for racial tolerance and equality." H ...
is also a proponent of the "language-first" viewpoint. The stark opposite to the Sapir–Whorf position is the notion that thought (or, more broadly, mental content) has priority over language. The "knowledge-first" position can be found, for instance, in the work of
Paul Grice Herbert Paul Grice (13 March 1913 – 28 August 1988), usually publishing under the name H. P. Grice, H. Paul Grice, or Paul Grice, was a British philosopher of language who created the theory of implicature and the cooperative principle ( ...
. Further, this view is closely associated with
Jerry Fodor Jerry Alan Fodor ( ; April 22, 1935 – November 29, 2017) was an American philosopher and the author of works in the fields of philosophy of mind and cognitive science. His writings in these fields laid the groundwork for the modularity of min ...
and his
language of thought The language of thought hypothesis (LOTH), sometimes known as thought ordered mental expression (TOME), is a view in linguistics, philosophy of mind and cognitive science, put forward by American philosopher Jerry Fodor. It describes the nature of ...
hypothesis. According to his argument, spoken and written language derive their intentionality and meaning from an internal language encoded in the mind.Fodor, J. ''The Language of Thought'', Harvard University Press, 1975, . The main argument in favor of such a view is that the structure of thoughts and the structure of language seem to share a compositional, systematic character. Another argument is that it is difficult to explain how signs and symbols on paper can represent anything meaningful unless some sort of meaning is infused into them by the contents of the mind. One of the main arguments against is that such levels of language can lead to an infinite regress. In any case, many philosophers of mind and language, such as Ruth Millikan, Fred Dretske and Fodor, have recently turned their attention to explaining the meanings of mental contents and states directly. Another tradition of philosophers has attempted to show that language and thought are coextensive – that there is no way of explaining one without the other. Donald Davidson, in his essay "Thought and Talk", argued that the notion of belief could only arise as a product of public linguistic interaction. Daniel Dennett holds a similar ''interpretationist'' view of
propositional attitude A propositional attitude is a mental state held by an agent or organism toward a proposition. In philosophy, propositional attitudes can be considered to be neurally realized, causally efficacious, content-bearing internal states (personal princip ...
s. To an extent, the theoretical underpinnings to cognitive semantics (including the notion of semantic framing (social sciences), framing) suggest the influence of language upon thought. However, the same tradition views meaning and grammar as a function of conceptualization, making it difficult to assess in any straightforward way. Some thinkers, like the ancient sophist Gorgias, have questioned whether or not language was capable of capturing thought at all. There are studies that prove that languages shape how people understand causality. Some of them were performed by Lera Boroditsky. For example, English speakers tend to say things like "John broke the vase" even for accidents. However, Spanish language, Spanish or Japanese language, Japanese speakers would be more likely to say "the vase broke itself". In studies conducted by Caitlin Fausey at Stanford University speakers of English, Spanish and Japanese watched videos of two people popping balloons, breaking eggs and spilling drinks either intentionally or accidentally. Later everyone was asked whether they could remember who did what. Spanish and Japanese speakers did not remember the agents of accidental events as well as did English speakers. Russian language, Russian speakers, who make an extra distinction between light and dark blue in their language, are better able to visually discriminate shades of blue. The Pirahã people, Piraha, a tribe in Brazil, whose language has only terms like few and many instead of numerals, are not able to keep track of exact quantities. In one study German and Spanish speakers were asked to describe objects having opposite gender assignment in those two languages. The descriptions they gave differed in a way predicted by grammatical gender. For example, when asked to describe a "key"—a word that is masculine in German and feminine in Spanish—the German language, German speakers were more likely to use words like "hard", "heavy", "jagged", "metal", "serrated" and "useful" whereas Spanish speakers were more likely to say "golden", "intricate", "little", "lovely", "shiny" and "tiny". To describe a "bridge", which is feminine in German and masculine in Spanish, the German speakers said "beautiful", "elegant", "fragile", "peaceful", "pretty" and "slender", and the Spanish speakers said "big", "dangerous", "long", "strong", "sturdy" and "towering". This was the case even though all testing was done in English, a language without grammatical gender. In a series of studies conducted by Gary Lupyan, people were asked to look at a series of images of imaginary aliens. Whether each alien was friendly or hostile was determined by certain subtle features but participants were not told what these were. They had to guess whether each alien was friendly or hostile, and after each response they were told if they were correct or not, helping them learn the subtle cues that distinguished friend from foe. A quarter of the participants were told in advance that the friendly aliens were called "leebish" and the hostile ones "grecious", while another quarter were told the opposite. For the rest, the aliens remained nameless. It was found that participants who were given names for the aliens learned to categorize the aliens far more quickly, reaching 80 per cent accuracy in less than half the time taken by those not told the names. By the end of the test, those told the names could correctly categorize 88 per cent of aliens, compared to just 80 per cent for the rest. It was concluded that naming objects helps us categorize and memorize them. In another series of experiments, a group of people was asked to view furniture from an IKEA catalog. Half the time they were asked to label the object – whether it was a chair or lamp, for example – while the rest of the time they had to say whether or not they liked it. It was found that when asked to label items, people were later less likely to recall the specific details of products, such as whether a chair had arms or not. It was concluded that labeling objects helps our minds build a prototype of the typical object in the group at the expense of individual features.


Social interaction and language

A common claim is that language is governed by social conventions. Questions inevitably arise on surrounding topics. One question regards what a convention exactly is, and how it is studied, and second regards the extent that conventions even matter in the study of language. David Kellogg Lewis proposed a worthy reply to the first question by expounding the view that a convention is a "rationally self-perpetuating regularity in behavior". However, this view seems to compete to some extent with the Gricean view of speaker's meaning, requiring either one (or both) to be weakened if both are to be taken as true. Some have questioned whether or not conventions are relevant to the study of meaning at all.
Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a ...
proposed that the study of language could be done in terms of the I-Language, or internal language of persons. If this is so, then it undermines the pursuit of explanations in terms of conventions, and relegates such explanations to the domain of ''metasemantics''. ''Metasemantics'' is a term used by philosopher of language Robert Stainton to describe all those fields that attempt to explain how semantic facts arise. One fruitful source of research involves investigation into the social conditions that give rise to, or are associated with, meanings and languages. ''Etymology'' (the study of the origins of words) and ''Stylistics (linguistics), stylistics'' (philosophical argumentation over what makes "good grammar", relative to a particular language) are two other examples of fields that are taken to be metasemantic. Many separate (but related) fields have investigated the topic of linguistic convention within their own research paradigms. The presumptions that prop up each theoretical view are of interest to the philosopher of language. For instance, one of the major fields of sociology, symbolic interactionism, is based on the insight that human social organization is based almost entirely on the use of meanings. In consequence, any explanation of a social structure (like an institution) would need to account for the shared meanings which create and sustain the structure. Rhetoric is the study of the particular words that people use to achieve the proper emotional and rational effect in the listener, be it to persuade, provoke, endear, or teach. Some relevant applications of the field include the examination of propaganda and didacticism, the examination of the purposes of Profanity, swearing and pejoratives (especially how it influences the behaviors of others, and defines relationships), or the effects of gendered language. It can also be used to study linguistic transparency (or speaking in an accessible manner), as well as performative utterances and the various tasks that language can perform (called "speech acts"). It also has applications to the study and interpretation of law, and helps give insight to the logical concept of the domain of discourse. Literary theory is a discipline that some literary theorists claim overlaps with the philosophy of language. It emphasizes the methods that readers and critics use in understanding a text. This field, an outgrowth of the study of how to properly interpret messages, is closely tied to the ancient discipline of hermeneutics.


Truth

Finally, philosophers of language investigate how language and meaning relate to truth and Reference, the reality being referred to. They tend to be less interested in which sentences are ''actually true'', and more in ''what kinds of meanings can be true or false''. A truth-oriented philosopher of language might wonder whether or not a meaningless sentence can be true or false, or whether or not sentences can express propositions about things that do not exist, rather than the way sentences are used.


Problems in the philosophy of language


Nature of language

In the philosophical tradition stemming from the Ancient Greeks, such as Plato and Aristotle, language is seen as a tool for making statements about the reality by means of Predicate (grammar), predication; e.g. "Man is a rational animal", where ''Man'' is the Subject (grammar), subject and ''is a rational animal'' is the
predicate Predicate or predication may refer to: * Predicate (grammar), in linguistics * Predication (philosophy) * several closely related uses in mathematics and formal logic: **Predicate (mathematical logic) **Propositional function **Finitary relation, o ...
, which expresses a property of the subject. Such structures also constitute the syntactic basis of syllogism, which remained the standard model of formal logic until the early 20th century, when it was replaced with Predicate Logic, predicate logic. In linguistics and philosophy of language, the classical model survived in the Middle Ages, and the link between Aristotelian philosophy of science and linguistics was elaborated by Thomas of Erfurt's
Modistae The Modistae (Latin for Modists), also known as the speculative grammarians, were the members of a school of grammarian philosophy known as Modism or speculative grammar, active in northern Kingdom of France, France, Holy Roman Empire, Germany, Ki ...
grammar (), which gives an example of the analysis of the Transitive verb, transitive sentence: "Plato strikes Socrates", where ''Socrates'' is the Object (grammar), object and part of the predicate. The social and evolutionary aspects of language were discussed during the classical and mediaeval periods. Plato's dialogue
Cratylus Cratylus ( ; , ''Kratylos'') was an ancient Athenian philosopher from the mid-late 5th century BC, known mostly through his portrayal in Plato's dialogue '' Cratylus''. He was a radical proponent of Heraclitean philosophy and influenced the you ...
investigates the iconicity of words, arguing that words are made by "wordsmiths" and selected by those who need the words, and that the study of language is external to the philosophical objective of studying Platonic form, ideas. Age-of-Enlightenment thinkers accommodated the classical model with a Christian worldview, arguing that God created Man social and rational, and, out of these properties, Man created his own cultural habits including language. In this tradition, the logic of the subject-predicate structure forms a general, or 'universal' grammar, which governs thinking and underpins all languages. Variation between languages was investigated in the ''Port-Royal Grammar'' of Arnauld and Lancelot, among others, who described it as accidental and separate from the logical requirements of thought and language. The classical view was overturned in the early 19th century by the advocates of German Romanticism, German romanticism. Wilhelm von Humboldt, Humboldt and his contemporaries questioned the existence of a universal Language of thought hypothesis, inner form of thought. They argued that, since thinking is verbal, language must be the prerequisite for thought. Therefore, every nation has its own unique way of thinking, a worldview, which has evolved with the linguistic history of the nation. Diversity became emphasized with a focus on the uncontrollable sociohistorical construction of language. Influential romantic accounts include Jacob Grimm, Grimm's sound laws of linguistic evolution, August Schleicher, Schleicher's "Darwinian" species-language analogy, the Völkerpsychologie accounts of language by Heymann Steinthal, Steinthal and Wilhelm Wundt, Wundt, and Ferdinand de Saussure, Saussure's Structural linguistics, semiology, a dyadic model of semiotics, i.e., language as a sign system with its own inner logic, separated from physical reality. In the early 20th century, logical grammar was defended by
Frege Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic philos ...
and Edmund Husserl, Husserl. Husserl's 'pure logical grammar' draws from 17th-century rational universal grammar, proposing a formal semantics that links the structures of physical reality (e.g., "This paper is white") with the structures of the mind, meaning, and the surface form of natural languages. Husserl's treatise was, however, rejected in general linguistics. Instead, linguists opted for Noam Chomsky, Chomsky's theory of universal grammar as an innate biological structure that generates syntax in a Formalism (philosophy), formalistic fashion, i.e., irrespective of meaning. Many philosophers continue to hold the view that language is a logically based tool of expressing the structures of reality by means of predicate-argument structure. Proponents include, with different nuances, Bertrand Russell, Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein, Wilfrid Sellars, Sellars, Donald Davidson (philosopher), Davidson, Hilary Putnam, Putnam, and John Searle, Searle. Attempts to revive logical formal semantics as a basis of linguistics followed, e.g., the Montague grammar. Despite resistance from linguists including Chomsky and George Lakoff, Lakoff, Formal semantics (natural language), formal semantics was established in the late twentieth century. However, its influence has been mostly limited to computational linguistics, with little impact on general linguistics. The incompatibility with genetics and neuropsychology of Chomsky's innate grammar gave rise to new psychologically and biologically oriented theories of language in the 1980s, and these have gained influence in linguistics and cognitive science in the 21st century. Examples include Lakoff's conceptual metaphor, which argues that language arises automatically from visual and other sensory input, and different models inspired by Richard Dawkins, Dawkins's memetics, a Neo-Darwinism, neo-Darwinian model of linguistic units as the units of natural selection. These include cognitive grammar, construction grammar, and usage-based linguistics.


Problem of universals and composition

One debate that has captured the interest of many philosophers is the debate over the meaning of ''universals''. It might be asked, for example, why when people say the word ''rocks'', what it is that the word represents. Two different answers have emerged to this question. Some have said that the expression stands for some real, abstract universal out in the world called "rocks". Others have said that the word stands for some collection of particular, individual rocks that are associated with merely a nomenclature. The former position has been called ''philosophical realism'', and the latter ''
nominalism In metaphysics, nominalism is the view that universals and abstract objects do not actually exist other than being merely names or labels. There are two main versions of nominalism. One denies the existence of universals—that which can be inst ...
''. The issue here can be explicated in examination of the proposition "Socrates is a man". From the realist's perspective, the connection between S and M is a connection between two abstract entities. There is an entity, "man", and an entity, "Socrates". These two things connect in some way or overlap. From a nominalist's perspective, the connection between S and M is the connection between a particular entity (Socrates) and a vast collection of particular things (men). To say that Socrates is a man is to say that Socrates is a part of the class of "men". Another perspective is to consider "man" to be a ''property'' of the entity, "Socrates". There is a third way, between nominalism and extreme realism, (extreme) realism, usually called "
moderate realism Moderate realism (also called immanent realism) is a position in the debate on the metaphysics of universals which holds that there is no realm in which universals exist (in opposition to Platonic realism, which asserts the existence of abstrac ...
" and attributed to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Moderate realists hold that "man" refers to a real essence or form that is really present and identical in Socrates and all other men, but "man" does not exist as a separate and distinct entity. This is a realist position, because "man" is real, insofar as it really exists in all men; but it is a moderate realism, because "man" is not an entity separate from the men it informs.


Formal versus informal approaches

Another of the questions that has divided philosophers of language is the extent to which formal logic can be used as an effective tool in the analysis and understanding of natural languages. While most philosophers, including
Gottlob Frege Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic philos ...
,
Alfred Tarski Alfred Tarski (; ; born Alfred Teitelbaum;School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews ''School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews''. January 14, 1901 – October 26, 1983) was a Polish-American logician ...
and Rudolf Carnap, have been more or less skeptical about formalizing natural languages, many of them developed formal languages for use in the sciences or formalized ''parts'' of natural language for investigation. Some of the most prominent members of this tradition of Formal semantics (linguistics), formal semantics include Tarski, Carnap, Richard Montague and Donald Davidson. On the other side of the divide, and especially prominent in the 1950s and '60s, were the so-called "ordinary language philosophers". Philosophers such as
P. F. Strawson Sir Peter Frederick Strawson (; 23 November 1919 – 13 February 2006) was an English philosopher who spent most of his career at the University of Oxford. He was the Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at Magdalen College, O ...
, John Langshaw Austin and Gilbert Ryle stressed the importance of studying natural language without regard to the truth-conditions of sentences and the references of terms. They did not believe that the social and practical dimensions of linguistic meaning could be captured by any attempts at formalization using the tools of logic. Logic is one thing and language is something entirely different. What is important is not expressions themselves but what people use them to do in communication. Hence, Austin developed a theory of
speech act In the philosophy of language and linguistics, a speech act is something expressed by an individual that not only presents information but performs an action as well. For example, the phrase "I would like the mashed potatoes; could you please pas ...
s, which described the kinds of things which can be done with a sentence (assertion, command, inquiry, exclamation) in different contexts of use on different occasions. Strawson argued that the truth-table semantics of the logical connectives (e.g., \land , \lor and \rightarrow ) do not capture the meanings of their natural language counterparts ("and", "or" and "if-then"). While the "ordinary language" movement basically died out in the 1970s, its influence was crucial to the development of the fields of speech-act theory and the study of
pragmatics In linguistics and the philosophy of language, pragmatics is the study of how Context (linguistics), context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship ...
. Many of its ideas have been absorbed by theorists such as Kent Bach,
Robert Brandom Robert Boyce Brandom (; born March 13, 1950) is an American philosopher who teaches at the University of Pittsburgh. He works primarily in philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and philosophical logic, and his academic output manifests both s ...
, Paul Horwich and Stephen Neale. In recent work, the division between semantics and pragmatics has become a lively topic of discussion at the interface of philosophy and linguistics, for instance in work by Sperber and Wilson, Carston and Levinson. While keeping these traditions in mind, the question of whether or not there is any grounds for conflict between the formal and informal approaches is far from being decided. Some theorists, like
Paul Grice Herbert Paul Grice (13 March 1913 – 28 August 1988), usually publishing under the name H. P. Grice, H. Paul Grice, or Paul Grice, was a British philosopher of language who created the theory of implicature and the cooperative principle ( ...
, have been skeptical of any claims that there is a substantial conflict between logic and natural language.


Game theoretical approach

Game theory has been suggested as a tool to study the evolution of language. Some researchers that have developed game theoretical approaches to philosophy of language are David K. Lewis, Schuhmacher, and Rubinstein.


Translation and interpretation

Translation and interpretation are two other problems that philosophers of language have attempted to confront. In the 1950s, W.V. Quine argued for the indeterminacy of meaning and reference based on the principle of ''radical translation''. In ''Word and Object'', Quine asks readers to imagine a situation in which they are confronted with a previously undocumented, group of indigenous people where they must attempt to make sense of the utterances and gestures that its members make. This is the situation of radical translation.Quine, W.V. (1960) ''Word and Object''. MIT Press; . He claimed that, in such a situation, it is impossible ''in principle'' to be absolutely certain of the meaning or reference that a speaker of the indigenous peoples language attaches to an utterance. For example, if a speaker sees a rabbit and says "gavagai", is she referring to the whole rabbit, to the rabbit's tail, or to a temporal part of the rabbit? All that can be done is to examine the utterance as a part of the overall linguistic behaviour of the individual, and then use these observations to interpret the meaning of all other utterances. From this basis, one can form a manual of translation. But, since reference is indeterminate, there will be many such manuals, no one of which is more correct than the others. For Quine, as for Wittgenstein and Austin, meaning is not something that is associated with a single word or sentence, but is rather something that, if it can be attributed at all, can only be attributed to a whole language. The resulting view is called ''semantic holism''. Inspired by Quine's discussion, Donald Davidson extended the idea of radical translation to the interpretation of utterances and behavior within a single linguistic community. He dubbed this notion ''radical interpretation''. He suggested that the meaning that any individual ascribed to a sentence could only be determined by attributing meanings to many, perhaps all, of the individual's assertions, as well as their mental states and attitudes.


Vagueness

One issue that has troubled philosophers of language and logic is the problem of the vagueness of words. The specific instances of vagueness that most interest philosophers of language are those where the existence of "borderline cases" makes it seemingly impossible to say whether a predicate is true or false. Classic examples are "is tall" or "is bald", where it cannot be said that some borderline case (some given person) is tall or not-tall. In consequence, vagueness gives rise to the paradox of the heap. Many theorists have attempted to solve the paradox by way of ''n''-valued logics, such as fuzzy logic, which have radically departed from classical two-valued logics.Sorensen, Roy. (2006) "Vagueness". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/vagueness/#3


Further reading

* Atherton, Catherine. 1993. ''The Stoics on Ambiguity.'' Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. * Denyer, Nicholas. 1991. ''Language, Thought and Falsehood in Ancient Greek Philosophy.'' London: Routledge. * Kneale, W., and M. Kneale. 1962. ''The Development of Logic.'' Oxford: Clarendon. * Deborah Modrak, Modrak, Deborah K. W. 2001. ''Aristotle's Theory of Language and Meaning.'' Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. * Sedley, David. 2003. ''Plato's Cratylus.'' Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.


See also

* Analytic philosophy * Discourse * Interpersonal communication * Linguistics * Semiotics * Theory of language


External links

* * * * One of five parts, the others foun
here, 2here. 3here, 4here, 5
There are also 16 lectures by Searle, beginning with
Sprachlogik
short articles in the philosophies of logic and language.


What is I-language?
– Chapter 1 of I-language: An Introduction to Linguistics as Cognitive Science. * Th
London Philosophy Study Guide
offers many suggestions on what to read, depending on the student's familiarity with the subject

* Carnap, R., (1956). Meaning and Necessity: a Study in Semantics and Modal Logic. University of Chicago Press. * Collins, John. (2001). Truth Conditions Without Interpretation

* Devitt, Michael and Hanley, Richard, eds. (2006) The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Language. Oxford: Blackwell. * Umberto Eco, Eco, Umberto. ''Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language''. Indiana University Press, 1986, , . * Greenberg, Mark and Harman, Gilbert. (2005). Conceptual Role Semantics

* Hale, B. and Crispin Wright, Ed. (1999). Blackwell Companions To Philosophy. Malden, Massachusetts, Blackwell Publishers. * * Lepore, Ernest and Barry C. Smith (eds). (2006)
The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language
Oxford University Press. * Lycan, W. G. (2008)
Philosophy of Language: A Contemporary Introduction
New York, Routledge. * Miller, James. (1999)

* Searle, John (2007)
Philosophy of Language
an interview with John Searle. * Stainton, Robert J. (1996)
''Philosophical Perspectives on Language''
Peterborough, Ont., Broadview Press. * Tarski, Alfred. (1944).

. * * .


References

{{Authority control Philosophy of language, Analytic philosophy