Philosophy of language : 50 puzzles, paradoxes, and thought experiments / Michael P. Wolf.
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Ebook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
London :
Routledge,
2023.
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| Edition: | 1st. |
| Series: | Puzzles, paradoxes, and thought experiments in philosophy.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Click here to view this book |
| Item Description: | <P><EM>Preface</EM></P><P></P><P>General Introduction</P><B><P></P><P>Part I: Big picture questions</P></B><P></P><P>Introduction</P><P></P><P>1. 'I am no tree! I am an Ent!'<BR>(<I>What is a language? Does it require speakers like us?)</P></I><P>2. Ideal language or ordinary languages?<BR>(<I>When considering language, should we strive to construct an ideal version of language, or strive to understand languages as we already find them?</I>)</P><P>3. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis<BR>(<I>If natural languages deeply influence the forms that our thinking takes, could they be so different that we "live" in substantially "different worlds"?</I>)</P><P>4. Conventions<BR>(<I>How do the social conventions of a language emerge, and how fundamental are they to language?</I>)</P><P></P><B><P>Part II: Early Analytic Philosophy and Pragmatism</P><P></P></B><P>Introduction</P><P></P><P>5. Frege on sense and reference <BR>(<I>How can two expressions refer to the same things, yet have different meanings?</I>)</P><P>6. Russell on 'the present King of France'<BR>(<I>How can an expression that refers to nothing be meaningful?</I>)</P><P>7. Peirce on making ideas clear<BR>(<I>How does the meaning of an expression or sentence relate to our practical concerns about coping with the world we experience?</I>)</P><P>8. 'Pittsburgh is west of Philadelphia' is true<BR>(<I>Does language have a special sort of correspondence with the world, or is it fundamentally about our interests?</I>)</P><P>9. 'All bachelors are unmarried males'<BR>(<I>Are there sentences that are true entirely in virtue of the meanings of their words?</I>)</P><P>10. 'Gavagai!'<BR>(<I>How could you translate another community's language from scratch?</I>)</P><P></P><B><P>Part III: Wittgenstein on Rule-Following and Private Language</P><P></P></B><P>Introduction</P><P></P><P>11. Wittgenstein on following a rule<BR>(<I>How is it possible for us to follow rules governing the meanings of words in the languages we speak?</I>)</P><P>12. The private language argument<BR>(<I>Would it be possible for someone to speak a language that only they could ever understand?</I>)</P><P>13. Ayer on Robinson Crusoe<BR>(<I>Could someone isolated from all other speakers continue to use and develop a language on their own?</I>)</P><P>14. 'That is green'<BR>(<I>Do the sentences of the language we speak have meanings unto themselves, or do they become meaningful only with the whole of a language?</I>)</P><P>15. 'Kripkenstein'<BR>(<I>Do Wittgenstein's rule-following arguments imply that there are no facts about meaning at all?</I>)</P><P></P><B><P>Part IV: Semantic Paradoxes</P><P></P></B><P>Introduction</P><P></P><P>16. When what is isn't, and what isn't is (The Liar Paradox)<BR><I>(Can there be sentences or sets of sentences to which it is impossible to assign truth-values consistently?)</P></I><P>17. Russell's paradox<BR><I>(Can there be contradictions that emerge from the very notion of a set?)</P></I><P>18. Berry's paradox<BR><I>(Can there be paradoxes of reference, as well as truth?)</P></I><P>19. Yablo's paradox<BR><I>(Can there be paradoxes that don't involve self-reference?)</P></I><P>20. 'True, false, and whatever else you've got!'<BR><I>(Can there be true contradictions?)</P></I><P></P><B><P>Part V: Context-Sensitivity</P><P></P></B><P>Introduction</P><P></P><P>21. 'I can't get there from here'<BR>(<I>Can noun phrases designate different things in different contexts?</I>)</P><P>22. 'Micah is getting so <I>big</I>!'<BR><I>(How much of the language we use is context-sensitive? Could everything we say be context-sensitive?)</P></I><P>23. Epistemic contextualism<BR>(<I>Does the meaning of the word 'know' change with context?</I>)</P><P>24. 'Every man who owns a donkey beats it'<BR>(<I>How do indefinite descriptions work with pronouns?</I>)</P><P>25. 'I'<BR><I>(Do certain indexicals such as the word 'I' have special significance, beyond their designation?)</P></I><P>26. 'You'<BR>(<I>Are second-person expressions like 'you' essential to natural languages?</I>)</P><P>27. 'We'<BR>(<I>How do collective assertions like "We the people..." work when they are not necessarily true reports of everyone's attitudes?</I>)</P><P></P><B><P>Part VI: Speech Acts and Pragmatics</P><P></P></B><P>Introduction</P><P></P><P>28. 'Truly, you have a dizzying intellect'<BR>(<I>How can we discern the meaning a speaker conveys when it is not said explicitly?</I>)</P><P>29. 'The present King of France...' (yet again)<BR>(<I>What do we presuppose in making an assertion?</I>)</P><P>30. 'Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?'<BR>(<I>Can we perform a speech act by apparently performing a different speech act?</I>)</P><P>31. Silencing<BR>(<I>Are there speech acts that systematically undermine the possibility of other speech acts?</I>)</P><P>32. Jokes<BR><I>(What do jokes say, if we're not reporting facts?)</P></I><P>33. Slurs<BR>(<I>What do they do, concretely speaking?</I>)</P><P>34. If you have been scanning the titles, looking for the entry with all the dirty words, it's this one<BR>(<I>What makes profanity offensive? Is it always offensive?</I>)</P><P>35. Propaganda<BR><I>(When should we think of texts and speech acts as manipulating us for political ends?)</P></I><P></P><B><P>Part VII: Lingering Issues About Meaning</P><P></P></B><P>Introduction</P><B><P></P></B><P>36. Metaphor<BR>(<I>How does what is said in a metaphor depend on the literal meanings of its component expressions?</I>)</P><P>37. The Frege-Geach problem<BR>(<I>How should we understand the meanings of words and sentences that are overtly action-guiding?</I>)</P><P>38. Something on vagueness<BR>(<I>Is the apparent vagueness of some terms a real feature of their meaning, and if so, how can we account for it?</I>)</P><P>39. Meanings of fictional names<BR>(<I>Can there be referents and true claims for things that only exist in fiction?</I>)</P><P>40. 'Londres est jolie...'<BR>(<I>Can two beliefs about the same referent differ in their truth because they differ in the names they use?</I>)</P><P></P><B><P>Part VIII: Naturalism and Externalism</P><P></P></B><P>Introduction</P><P></P><P>41. The poverty of the stimulus<BR>(<I>How do children acquire a language so quickly, and with so little input?</I>)</P><P>42. 'If I could talk to the animals...'<BR>(<I>When can we ascribe thoughts and meanings to non-human animals?</I>)</P><P>43. Broca's Area<BR>(<I>To what degree can linguistic competence be assigned to a specific part of the brain?</I>)</P><P>44. 'Hello world!'<BR>(<I>Could digital computers count as speakers of natural languages?</I>)</P><P>45. Natural language and evolution<BR><I>(Why did humans evolve to have the ability to speak languages at all?)</P></I><P>46. What if Shakespeare didn't write <I>Hamlet</I>?<BR><I>(Do names and natural kind terms have complex meanings, or do they simply designate?)</P></I><P>47. Reference and chains of communication<BR><I>(What makes a name uniquely refer to someone, assuming it does so?)</P></I><P>48. Adventures on Twin Earth<BR><I>(How do we fix the reference of natural kind terms, and how does this affect their meanings?)</P></I><P>49. Empty kind terms<BR><I>(What do the names of things that don't exist mean?)</P></I><P>50. Could there ever be 'unicorns'?<BR><I>(Could fictional kinds of things become real kinds of things?</I>)</P>. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (288 pages). |
| ISBN: | 1000829618 9781000829617 |