Philosophy 331: What Language is

Spring Semester 2012 | Day | Burnaby

INSTRUCTOR  R.E. Jennings

REQUIRED TEXT

• Reading matter, PDF files will be provided
  

COURSE DESCRIPTION

The Second Philosophy of Language

If you have read Penelope Maddy’s book Second Philosophy, you know that one of the ways in which the second philosopher will spend his (I call her ‘he’) his time is in a theoretical study of the functioning of language. That’s a good description of the subject matter of this course. The linguistic condition is an evolved biological property of humans, and every linguistic act is a physical intervention. We may therefore expect a working, explanatory theory of language to be biological in its idiom, and, since we all have wholly non-linguistic ancestors, the understanding it provides must be continuous with human evolutionary biology. Since we are merely organisms, it must be informed by an understanding of speech production and apprehension. Since we are second philosophers, we will want it to be mathematically disciplined, and we will want it to explain how it is that we are able to talk effectively without knowing what we are talking about. Thus for the second philosopher, the explanatory vocabulary of first philosophy (belief, desire, intention, meaning, ought, good) becomes itself simply another part of the data to be explained.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

• (a) Active participation in classes, including presentations
• (b) Readings, and
• (c) Preparation, in consultation with the instructor, of a usable research paper.

Note: Prerequisite: one of Phil 201 or 203.