Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language. As a topic, the philosophy of language for Analytic Philosophers is concerned with four central problems: the nature of meaning, language use, language cognition, and the relationship between language and reality. For Continental philosophers, however, the philosophy of language tends to be dealt with, not as a separate topic, but as a part of Logic, History or Politics. (see the section "Language and Continental Philosophy " below). Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to prominence during the 20th Century. ... In linguistics, meaning is the content carried by the words or signs exchanged by people when communicating through language. ... Continental philosophy is a term that originated among English-speaking philosophers to describe various philosophical traditions strongly influenced by certain 19th and 20th century philosophers from mainland Europe. ...

Extension and intension

First, philosophers of language inquire into the nature of meaning, and seek to explain what it means to "mean" something. Topics in that vein include the nature of synonymy, the origins of meaning itself, and how any meaning can ever really be known. Another project under this heading that is of special interest to analytic philosophers of language is the investigation into the manner in which sentences are composed into a meaningful whole out of the meaning of its parts. Image File history File links Philosophy_language. ... Image File history File links Philosophy_language. ... In scientific classification, synonymy is the existence of multiple systematic names to label the same organism. ... Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to prominence during the 20th Century. ...

Second, they would like to understand what speakers and listeners do with language in communication, and how it is used socially. Specific interests may include the topics of language learning, language creation, and speech acts. Look up Communication in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... The speech act is a concept in linguistics and the philosophy of language. ...

Third, they would like to know how language relates to the minds of both the speaker and the interpreter. Of specific interest is the grounds for successful translation of words into other words. For other uses, see Mind (disambiguation). ... Interpretation, or interpreting, is an activity that consists of establishing, either simultaneously or consecutively, oral or gestural communications between two or more speakers who are not speaking (or signing) the same language. ... Look up translate in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Finally, they investigate how language and meaning relate to truth and the world. Philosophers tend to be less concerned with which sentences are actually true, and more with 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; whether or not sentences can express propositions about things that don't exist; and whether or not it is a sentence that is true or false, rather than the way sentences are used. In general, a reference is something that refers to or designates something else, or acts as a connection or a link between two things. ...

History

William of Ockham and other Scholastic philosophers anticipated many of the ideas of modern analytic philosophy.

The inquiry into language stretches back to the beginnings of Western philosophy with Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics.^[1] In the dialogue Cratylus, Plato considered the question whether the names of things were determined by convention or by nature. He criticized conventionalism because it leads 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 and phrases have a range of correctness. For example, it is obviously wrong to say that the term "houseboat" is any good when referring to, say, a cat, because cats have nothing to do with houses or boats. He also argued that primitive names (or morphemes) had a natural correctness, because each phoneme represented basic ideas or sentiments. For example, the letter and sound of "l" for Plato represented the idea of softness. However, by the end of the Cratylus, he had admitted that some social conventions were also involved, and that there were faults in the idea that phonemes had individual meanings.^[2] Image File history File links William of Ockham File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links William of Ockham File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... William of Ockham William of Ockham (also Occam or any of several other spellings) (c. ... Scholasticism comes from the Latin word scholasticus, which means that [which] belongs to the school, and is the school of philosophy taught by the academics (or schoolmen) of medieval universities circa 1100–1500. ... Western philosophy is a modern claim that there is a line of related philosophical thinking, beginning in ancient Greece (Greek philosophy) and the ancient Near East (the Abrahamic religions), that continues to this day. ... For other uses, see Plato (disambiguation). ... Aristotle (Greece: Aristotélēs) (384 BC – March 7, 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. ... Stoicism is a school of philosophy commonly associated with such Greek philosophers as Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes, or Chrysippus and with such later Romans as Cicero, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus. ... Cratylus (Κρατυλος) is the name of a dialogue by Plato, written in approximately 360 BC. In the dialogue, Socrates is asked by two men, Cratylus and Hermogenes, to advise them whether names are conventional or natural, that is, whether language is a system of arbitrary signs or whether words have an... Belief that judgments of a specific sort are grounded only on (explicit or implicit) agreements in human society, rather than by reference to external reality. ... A compound is a word (lexeme) that consists of more than one free morpheme. ... In Linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit in a given language. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Aristotle concerned himself with the issues of logic, categories, and meaning creation. He separated all things into categories of species and genus. He thought that the meaning of a predicate was established through an abstraction of the similarities between various individual things. This theory later came to be called nominalism. ^[3] Logic, from Classical Greek λόγος logos (the word), is the study of patterns found in reasoning. ... In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biodiversity. ... For other uses of the word, please see Genus (disambiguation). ... In linguistics and logic, a predicate is an expression that can be true of something. ...

The Stoic philosophers made important contributions to the analysis of grammar, distinguishing five parts of speech: nouns, verbs, appellatives, conjunctions and articles. 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 it refers to. This lektón was the meaning (or sense) of every term. The lektón of a sentence is what we would now call its proposition. Only propositions were considered "truth-bearers" or "truth-vehicles" (i.e., they could be called 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. ^[4] Article may refer to multiple things: in grammar: grammatical article in medicine: a joint between two bones In a journal, magazine, or newspaper, an article is a piece of writing or essay on a topic. ... Proposition is a term used in logic to describe the content of assertions. ...

Medieval philosophers were greatly interested in the subtleties of language and its usage. For many scholastics, this interest was provoked by the necessity of translating Greek texts into Latin. There were several noteworthy philosophers of language in the medieval period. According to Peter King, although it has been disputed, Peter Abelard anticipated the modern ideas of sense and reference.^[5] Also, William of Occam's Summa Logicae brought forward one of the first serious proposals for codifying a mental language.^[6] The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ... Well-known people called Peter King include: Pete King, English jazz-musician (sax) and manager of Ronnie Scotts Jazz Club; b. ... Abaelardus and Heloïse surprised by Master Fulbert, by Romanticist painter Jean Vignaud (1819) Pierre Abélard (in English, Peter Abelard) or Abailard (1079 – April 21, 1142) was a French scholastic philosopher and logician. ... William of Ockham (also Occam or any of several other spellings) (ca. ... The Summa Logicae, or Sum of Logic, is a textbook on logic by William of Ockham. ...

The scholastics of the high medieval period, such as Occam and John Duns Scotus, considered logic to be a scientia sermocinalis (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.^[7] One of the major developments of the scholastics in this area was the doctrine of the suppositio.^[8] The suppositio 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, metonyms and other figures of speech). A proper suppositio, in turn, can be either formal or material, accordingly as it refers to its normal non-linguistic referent (as in "Charles is a man") or to itself as a linguistic entity (as in "'Charles' has five letters"). Such a classification scheme is the precursor of modern distinctions between use and mention, and between language and metalanguage.^[8] John Duns Scotus (c. ... The use-mention distinction is the distinction between using a word (or phrase, etc. ...

Though philosophers had always discussed language, it took on a central role in philosophy beginning in the late nineteenth century, especially in the English speaking world and parts of Europe. The philosophy of language was so pervasive that for a time, in analytic philosophy circles, philosophy as a whole was understood to be a matter of philosophy of language. In the 20th century, "language" became an even more central theme within the most diverse traditions of philosophy. The phrase "the linguistic turn", was used to describe the noteworthy emphasis that modern-day philosophers put upon language.^[7] Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to prominence during the 20th Century. ... Note: this article originated from a translation from the German Wikipedias [entry] on the same topic. ...

Major topics and sub-fields

Composition and parts

It has long been known that there are different parts of speech. One part of the common sentence is the lexical word, which is composed of nouns, verbs, and adjectives. A major question in the field - perhaps the single most important question for formalist and structuralist thinkers - is, "how does the meaning of a sentence emerge out of its parts?" A concept is an abstract idea or a mental symbol, typically associated with a corresponding representation in language or symbology, that denotes all of the objects in a given category or class of entities, interactions, phenomena, or relationships between them. ... For Wikipedias categorization projects, see Wikipedia:Categorization. ... In mathematics, a set can be thought of as any collection of distinct things considered as a whole. ... Philosophers sometimes distinguish classes from types and kinds. ... For other uses of the word, please see Genus (disambiguation). ... In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biodiversity. ... The word property, in philosophy, mathematics, and logic, refers to an attribute of an object; thus a red object is said to have the property of redness. ... An entity is something that has a distinct, separate existence, though it need not be a material existence. ... Proposition is a term used in logic to describe the content of assertions. ... Sentence, derived from Latin sententia (perception, in the subjective sense of how one feels reality is), has three common meanings: Sentence (linguistics) Sentence (mathematical logic) Open sentence (a term that mathematics teachers attempted to introduce, but not used by mathematicians) Sentence (law) Sentence (music) This is a disambiguation page &#8212... In grammar, a part of speech or word class is defined as the role that a word (or sometimes a phrase) plays in a sentence. ... In linguistics, a lexical word belongs to one of the open parts of speech, such as nouns, verbs, and adjectives. ... The term formalist can have many applications: The Chambers 1994 edition Dictionary indicates a pejorative quality, a person having an exaggerated regard to rules or established usages. In the philosophy of mathematics a formalist is a person who belongs to the school of formalism, a certain mathematical-philosophical doctrine which... See also structural analysis and structural functionalism. ...

Many aspects of the problem of the composition of sentences are addressed in the field of linguistics of syntax. Philosophical semantics tends to focus on the principle of compositionality in order 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).^[9] For other uses, see Syntax (disambiguation). ... In mathematics, semantics, and philosophy of language, 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. ...

One perspective, put forward by logician Alfred Tarski, explains the lexical parts of a sentence by appealing to their satisfaction conditions. Roughly, this involves looking at the extension of the word -- that is to say, the objects which are governed by a certain meaning. "To obtain a definition of satisfaction... we indicate which objects satisfy the simplest sentential functions." By "sentential function", Tarski means roughly what we mean by a "sentence". ^[10] Alfred Tarski (January 14, 1901, Warsaw Poland – October 26, 1983, Berkeley California) was a logician and mathematician of considerable philosophical importance. ...

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. Take, for a moment, the sentence "The horse is red". We may consider "the horse" to be the product of a propositional function. 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".^[11] Image File history File links Syntactic-semantic_trees. ...

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 trees draw upon the words of a sentence with the grammar of the sentence in mind. Semantic trees, on the other hand, focus upon the role of the meaning of the words and how those meanings combine in order to provide insight onto the genesis of semantic facts. Grammar is the study of rules governing the use of language. ...

The nature of meaning

Main article: Meaning (linguistic)

The answer to the question, "What is the meaning of meaning?", is not immediately obvious. One section of philosophy of language tries to answer this very question. In linguistics, meaning is the content carried by the words or signs exchanged by people when communicating through language. ...

Geoffrey Leech posited that there are two essentially different types of linguistic meaning: conceptual and associative. For Leech, the conceptual meanings of an expression have to do with the definitions of words themselves, and the features of those definitions. This kind of meaning is treated by using a technique called the semantic feature analysis. The conceptual meaning of an expression inevitably involves both definition (also called "connotation" and "intension" in the literature) and extension (also called "denotation"). The associative meaning of an expression has to do with individual mental understandings of the speaker. They, in turn, can be broken up into six sub-types: connotative, collocative, social, affective, reflected and thematic.^[12] Image:Geoff2. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... A definition is a form of words which states the meaning of a term. ... For the more specialised meaning of Connotation in semiotics, see connotation (semiotics). ... Intension refers to the meanings or characteristics encompassed by a given word. ... In metaphysics, extension is the property of taking up space; see Extension (metaphysics). ... This word has distinct meanings in other fields: see denotation (semiotics) and connotation and denotation. ... According to the semantic analysis of Geoffrey Leech, the associative meaning of an expression has to do with individual mental understandings of the speaker. ...

Generally speaking, there have been at least six different kinds of attempts at explaining what a linguistic "meaning" is. Each has been associated with its own body of literature. In linguistics, meaning is the content carried by the words or signs exchanged by people when communicating through language. ...

Idea theories of meaning, most commonly associated with the British empiricist tradition of Locke, Berkeley and Hume, claim that meanings are purely mental contents provoked by signs.^[13] 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.^[14] Empiricism is generally regarded as being at the heart of the modern scientific method, that our theories should be based on our observations of the world rather than on intuition or faith; that is, empirical research and a posteriori inductive reasoning rather than purely deductive logic. ... This article is about John Locke, the English philosopher. ... Bishop George Berkeley George Berkeley (British English://; Irish English: //) (12 March 1685 – 14 January 1753), also known as Bishop Berkeley, was an influential Irish philosopher whose primary philosophical achievement is the advancement of what has come to be called subjective idealism, summed up in his dictum, Esse est percipi (To... David Hume (April 26, 1711 – August 25, 1776)[1] was a Scottish philosopher, economist, and historian. ...

Truth-conditional theories hold meaning to be the conditions under which an expression may be true or false. This tradition goes back at least to Frege and is associated with a rich body of modern work, spearheaded by philosophers like Alfred Tarski and Donald Davidson.^[10][15] Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (8 November 1848, Wismar – 26 July 1925, Bad Kleinen, IPA: ) was a German mathematician who became a logician and philosopher. ... Alfred Tarski (January 14, 1901, Warsaw Poland – October 26, 1983, Berkeley California) was a logician and mathematician of considerable philosophical importance. ... Donald Davidson (March 6, 1917 – August 30, 2003) was an American philosopher and the Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. ...

Use theorist perspectives understand meaning to involve or be related to speech acts and particular utterances, not the expressions themselves. The later Wittgenstein helped inaugurate the idea of meaning as use.^[16] It is also associated with P.F. Strawson, Robert Brandom, and others.^[17] A speech act is an action performed by means of language, such as describing something (), asking a question (Is it snowing?), making a request or order (Could you pass the salt?, Drop your weapon or Ill shoot you!), or making a promise () For much of the history of linguistics... Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein (IPA: ) (April 26, 1889 – April 29, 1951) was an Austrian-English philosopher who contributed several ground-breaking works to contemporary philosophy, primarily on the foundations of logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of mind. ... Peter Frederick Strawson (born November 23, 1919 in London) is a philosopher associated with the ordinary language philosophy movement within analytical philosophy. ... Robert Brandom (1950- ), nicknamed the Iron City Kant, is American philosopher who teaches at the University of Pittsburgh. ...

Reference theories of meaning, also known collectively as semantic externalism, view meaning to be equivalent to those things in the world that are actually connected to signs. There are two broad sub-species of externalism: social and environmental. The first is most closely associated with Tyler Burge and the second with Hilary Putnam, Saul Kripke and others. ^[18][19][20] Recently internalism and externalism have become part of the standard jargon of philosophical discourse, and have become central to certain important debates. ... Tyler Burge (born 1946, Ph. ... Hilary Whitehall Putnam (born July 31, 1926) is an American philosopher who has been a central figure in Western philosophy since the 1960s, especially in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science. ... This does not cite its references or sources. ...

Verificationist theories of meaning are generally associated with the early 20th century movement of logical positivism. 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 of confirmation holism after the publication of Quine's Two Dogmas of Empiricism.^[21] However, Michael Dummett 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.^[22] Logical positivism (later referred to as logical empiricism, rational empiricism, or neo-positivism) is a school of philosophy that combines positivism—which states that the only authentic knowledge is scientific knowledge—with a version of apriorism—the notion that some propositional knowledge can be had without, or prior to, experience. ... The Duhem-Quine thesis (also called the Duhem-Quine problem) is chiefly about being unable to test a theory in isolation, and that in practice testing a theory requires one or more background assumptions (also called auxiliary assumptions or auxiliary hypotheses). ... Confirmation holism, also called epistemological holism is the claim that a scientific theory cannot be tested in isolation; a test of one theory always depends on other theories and hypotheses. ... W. V. Quine Willard Van Orman Quine (June 25, 1908 - December 25, 2000) was one of the most influential American philosophers and logicians of the 20th century. ... Sir Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett F.B.A., D. Litt, (born 1925) is a leading British philosopher. ...

A pragmatist theory of meaning is 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 C.S. Peirce and other early 20th century American pragmatists.^[22] Charles Sanders Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce (pronounced purse), (September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American polymath, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ...

Other theories exist to discuss non-linguistic meaning (i.e., meaning as conveyed by body language, meanings as consequences, etc.) ^[23] A non-linguistic meaning is an actual or possible derivation from sentience, which is not associated with signs that have any original or primary intent of communication. ...

Reference

Main article: Reference

Gottlob Frege, a logician, made several influential contributions to philosopy of language.

Investigations into how language interacts with the world are called "theories of reference". Gottlob Frege was an advocate of a mediated reference theory. Frege divided the semantic content of every expression, including sentences, into two components: Sinn (usually translated as "sense") and Bedeutung (translated as "meaning", "denotation", "nominatum", and "reference", among others). 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 that expressions refer to. Referents are the objects in the world that words pick out. Hence, the referents of "the evening star" and "the morning star" are the same, the planet Venus. But they are two different modes of presenting the same object and hence they have two different senses. The senses of sentences are thoughts, while their referents are truth-values (the True or the False). The referents of sentences embedded in propositional attitude ascriptions and other opaque contexts are their usual senses.^[24] In general, a reference is something that refers to or designates something else, or acts as a connection or a link between two things. ... Image File history File links Gottlob_Frege. ... Image File history File links Gottlob_Frege. ... Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (8 November 1848, Wismar – 26 July 1925, Bad Kleinen, IPA: ) was a German mathematician who became a logician and philosopher. ... Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (8 November 1848, Wismar – 26 July 1925, Bad Kleinen, IPA: ) was a German mathematician who became a logician and philosopher. ... The mediated reference theory is a semantic theory that posits that words refer to something in the external world, but insists that there is more to the meaning of a name than simply the object to which it refers. ... A propositional attitude is a relational mental state connecting a person to a proposition. ...

John Stuart Mill proposed a different analysis of the relationship between meaning and reference. For him, although there are two components to consider for most terms of a language (connotation and denotation), proper names, such as "Bill Clinton", "Bismark", or "John Hodgman" have only a denotation. Hence, Mill's view is similar to what is now called a direct reference theory.^[25] John Stuart Mill (20th May 1806 – 8th May 1873), a British philosopher and political economist, was an influential liberal thinker of the 19th century. ... For the more specialised meaning of Connotation in semiotics, see connotation (semiotics). ... This word has distinct meanings in other fields: see denotation (semiotics) and connotation and denotation. ... A direct reference theory is a theory of meaning that claims that the meaning of an expression lies in what it points out in the world. ...

Bertrand Russell, in his later writings and for reasons related to his acquaintance theory in epistemology, 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 indexicals.^[26] He viewed proper names of the sort described above as "abbreviated definite descriptions". Hence "George W. Bush" may be an abbreviation for "the current President of the United States and son of George H.W. Bush." Definite descriptions are denoting phrases (see On Denoting) which are analyzed by Russell into existentially quantified logical constructions. Such phrases denote in the sense that there is an object that satisifes the description. However, such objects are not to be considered meaningful on their own, but have meaning only in the proposition 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.^[27][28] Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell OM FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970), was a British philosopher, logician, and mathematician. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... An indexical behavior or utterance is one whose meaning varies according to context. ... On Denoting is one of the most significant and influential philosophical essays of the 20th century. ... Proposition is a term used in logic to describe the content of assertions. ...

On Frege's account, any referring expression has a sense as well as a referent. Such a "mediated reference" view has certain theoretical advantages over the Millian 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 that "Mark Twain is Samuel Clemens" and be surprised -- thus, their cognitive content seems different.^[24] Millian views also run into trouble in dealing with names without bearers. The sentence "Pegasus is the winged horse of Greek mythology" seems to be a perfectly meaningful, even true, sentence. But, according to Millianism, "Pegasus" has no meaning because it has no referent. Hence, following the principle of compositionality, the sentence itself is neither true nor false and has no meaning. Several other difficulties have also been noted in the literature.^[29]

Despite the differences between the views of Frege and Russell, they are generally lumped together as descriptivists about proper names. Such descriptivism faces problems which were articulated in Saul Kripke's influential Naming and Necessity. Descriptivist theory of Names is a view of the nature of the meaning and reference of proper names generally attributed to Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell. ... This does not cite its references or sources. ...

First, Kripke put forth what has come to be known as "the modal argument" (or "argument from rigidity") against descriptivism. Consider the name ‘’Aristotle’’ and the descriptions “the greatest student of Plato’’, “the founder of logic” and “the teacher of Alexander.” Aristotle obviously satisfies all of the descriptions (and many of the others we commonly associate with him), but it is not a necessary truth 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 designators, 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.^[20] In modal logic and the philosophy of language, a term is said to be a rigid designator when it picks out the same thing in all possible worlds in which that thing exists (and picks out nothing in those possible worlds in which it does not exist). ...

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. Some important questions are: how much of language is innate? Is language acquisition a special faculty in the mind? What's the connection between thought and language? Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, and understand language. ...

There are three general perspectives on the issue of language learning. The first is the behaviorist 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.^[30][31] Behaviorism (or behaviourism) is an approach to psychology based on the proposition that behavior is interesting and worthy of scientific research. ... In the field of psychology, nativism is the view that certain skills or abilities are native or hard wired into the brain at birth. ...

There are varying notions of the structure of the brain when it comes to language, as well. Connectionist models emphasize the idea that a person's lexicon and their thoughts operate in a kind of distributed, associative network.^[32] Nativist models assert that there are specialized devices in the brain that are dedicated to language acquisition.^[31] Computation models emphasize the the notion of a representational language of thought and the logic-like, computational processing that the mind performs over them.^[33] Emergentist models focus on the notion that natural faculties are a complex system that emerge out of simpler biological parts. Reductionist models attempt to explain higher level mental processes in terms of the basic low-level neurophysiological activity of the brain.^[34] Connectionism is an approach in the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, neuroscience, psychology and philosophy of mind. ... In the philosophy of mind, associationism began as a theory about how ideas combine in the mind. ... In the field of psychology, nativism is the view that certain skills or abilities are native or hard wired into the brain at birth. ... The Language Acquisition Device (LAD) is a postulated organ of the brain that is supposed to function as a congenital device for learning symbolic language (ie. ... A computer is a device or machine for processing information from data according to a program — a compiled list of instructions. ... Fodors language of thought (LOT) hypothesis states that cognition is a process of computation over compositional mental representations. ... In philosophy, emergentism is the belief in emergence, particularly as it involves consciousness and the philosophy of mind, and as it contrasts with reductionism. ... Descartes held that non-human animals could be reductively explained as automata — De homines 1622. ...

Language and thought

An important problem which touches both philosophy of language and philosophy of mind 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. A Phrenological mapping of the brain. ...

For example, 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's novel "1984").^[35] To a lesser extent, issues in the philosophy of rhetoric (including the notion of framing of debate) suggest the influence of language upon thought. ^[36] In linguistics, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (SWH) states that there is a systematic relationship between the grammatical categories of the language a person speaks and how that person both understands the world and behaves in it. ... Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903[1][2] – 21 January 1950), better known by the pen name George Orwell, was a British author and journalist. ... 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Framing (psychology). ...

At the other extreme from these positions, in a certain sense, is the notion that thought (or, more broadly, mental content) has priority over language. This idea is most closely associated with Jerry Fodor and his language of thought hypothesis. According to this view, spoken and written language derive their intentionality and meaning from an internal language encoded in the mind.^[37] 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.^[37] 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. Jerry Alan Fodor (born 1935) is a philosopher at Rutgers University, New Jersey. ... Fodors language of thought (LOT) hypothesis states that cognition is a process of computation over compositional mental representations. ... Ruth Millikan (1933 - ) is a well-known American philosopher of biology, psychology, and language. ... Fred Dretske, a philosopher, was one of the most influential epistimologists of his time. ...

Another tradition of philosophers has attempted to show that language and thought are coextensive. 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 attitudes.^[38] Daniel Clement Dennett (b. ... A propositional attitude is a relational mental state connecting a person to a proposition. ...

Some thinkers, like the ancient sophist Gorgias, have questioned whether or not language was capable of capturing thought at all. Gorgias (in Greek Γοργἰας, circa 483-376 BC) // Introduction Due to his ushering in of rhetorical innovations involving structure and ornamentation and his introduction of paradoxologia – the idea of paradoxical thought and paradoxical expression – Gorgias of Leontini has been labeled the ‘father of sophistry’ (Wardy 6). ...

...speech can never exactly represent perciptibles, since it is different from them, and perceptibles are apprehended each by the one kind of organ, speech by another. Hence, since the objects of sight cannot be presented to any other organ but sight, and the different sense-organs cannot give their information to one another, similarly speech cannot give any information about perceptibles. Therefore, if anything exists and is comprehended, it is incommunicable.^[39]

Social interaction and language

Metasemantics is a term used to describe all those fields that attempt to explain how semantic facts arise.^[11] 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 (philosophical argumentation over what makes "good grammar", relative to a particular language) are two examples of metasemantic fields. Not to be confused with Entomology, the study of insects. ... In linguistics, stylistics describes the structure of word forms. ...

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. ^[40] 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. Symbolic interactionism is a sociological perspective which examines how individuals and groups interact, focusing on the creation of personal identity through interaction with others. ... See Social structure of the United States for an explanation of concepts exsistance within US society. ... Institutions are structures and mechanisms of social order and cooperation governing the behavior of two or more individuals. ...

Rhetoric is the study of the particular words that people use in order 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 swearing and pejoratives (especially how it influences the behavior of others, and defines relationships), the effects of gendered language, linguistic transparency, or speaking in an accessible manner, performative utterances and the various tasks that language can perform (called "speech acts"), applications to the study and interpretation of law, and to help give insight to the logical concept of the domain of discourse. Rhetoric (from Greek , rhêtôr, orator, teacher) is generally understood to be the art or technique of persuasion through the use of oral or written language; however, this definition of rhetoric has been contested since rhetoric emerged as a field of study in Universities. ... An Australian anti-conscription propaganda poster from World War One Propaganda is a type of message aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of people. ... The Didactic is facts based as opposed to the Dialectic which is feelings based. ... To swear can mean either to make an oath, or to utter profanity. ... A word or phrase is pejorative if it implies contempt or disapproval. ... Linguistic transparency is a phrase which is used in multiple, overlapping subjects in the fields of linguistics and the philosophy of language. ... The Performative is the part of speech representing the information conveyed by the fact that a speaker chose to say a particular sentence. ... The domain of discourse, sometimes called the universe of discourse, is an analytic tool used in deductive logic, especially predicate logic. ...

Literary theory is a discipline that overlaps with the philosophy of language. It emphasizes the methods that readers and critics use in understanding a text. This field, being an outgrowth of the study of how to properly interpret messages, is closely tied to the ancient discipline of hermeneutics. Literary theory is the theory (or the philosophy) of the interpretation of literature and literary criticism. ... Hermeneutics may be described as the development and study of theories of the interpretation and understanding of texts. ...

Language and Continental Philosophy

In Continental Philosophy, language is not studied in a separate discipline as in Analytic Philosophy, but it is studied in almost all areas: Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Heideggerean Ontology, Existentialism, Structuralism, Deconstruction and Critical Theory. The idea of language is often related to that of Logic in its Greek sense as, "Logos", meaning discourse/dialectic. Language and concepts are also seen as having been formed by history and politics or even by historical philosophy itself. Continental philosophy is a term used in philosophy to designate one of two major traditions of modern Western philosophy. ... Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to prominence during the 20th Century. ... This article is about the philosophical movement. ... Hermeneutics may be described as the development and study of theories of the interpretation and understanding of texts. ... In philosophy, ontology (from the Greek , genitive : of being (part. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Structuralism is a set of theories in the humanities, social sciences and economics. ... In contemporary philosophy and social sciences, the term deconstruction denotes a process by which the texts and languages of (particularly) Western philosophy appear to shift and complicate in meaning when read in light of the assumptions they suggest about and absences they reveal within themselves. ... In the humanities and social sciences, critical theory has two quite different meanings with different origins and histories, one originating in social theory and the other in literary criticism. ...

The field of hermeneutics, and the theory of interpretation in general, has played a significant role in 20th century continental philosophy of language and ontology beginning with Martin Heidegger. Heidegger, combines phenomenology with the hermeneutics of Wilhelm Dilthey. Heidegger believed language was one of the most important concepts for Dasein: "Language is the house of being, which is propriated by being and pervaded by being"^[41]. However, Heidegger believed that language today is worn out because of overuse of important words, and would be inadequate for in-depth study of Being (Sein). For example, Sein (being), the word itself, is saturated with multiple meanings. Thus, he invented new vocabulary and linguistic styles, based on Ancient Greek and Germanic etymological word relations, to disambiguate commonly used words. He avoid words like consciousness, ego, human, nature, etc. and instead talks holistically of Being-in-the world, Dasein. Continental philosophy is a term used in philosophy to designate one of two major traditions of modern Western philosophy. ... In philosophy, ontology (from the Greek , genitive : of being (part. ... Martin Heidegger (September 26, 1889 – May 26, 1976) (pronounced ) was an influential German philosopher, best known as the author of Being and Time (1927). ... Wilhelm Dilthey (November 19, 1833–October 1, 1911) was a German historian, psychologist, sociologist, student of Hermeneutics, the study of interpretations and meanings, and a philosopher. ... Dasein is a concept forged by Martin Heidegger in his magnum opus Being and Time . ... In linguistics, stylistics describes the structure of word forms. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Not to be confused with Entomology, the study of insects. ... Dasein is a concept forged by Martin Heidegger in his magnum opus Being and Time . ...

With these new concepts of Being-in-the-world, etc. Heidegger constructs his theory of language, centered around speech. He believed speech (talking, listening, silence) was the most essential and pure form of language. Heidegger claims writing is only a supplement to speech, because even a reader constructs or contributes one's own "talk" while reading. The most important feature of language is its 'projectivity', the idea that language is prior to human speech. This means that when one is "thrown" into the world, his existence is characterized from the beginning by a certain pre-comprehension of the world. However, it is only after naming, or "articulation of intelligibility", can one have primary access to Dasein and Being-in-the-World.^[42] // Martin Heidegger, the 20th-century German philosopher, introduced to the world a large body of work that represented a profound change of direction for philosophy. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Hans Georg Gadamer expanded on these ideas of Heidegger and proposed a complete hermeneutic ontology. In Truth and Method, Gadamer describes language as "the medium in which substantive understanding and agreement take place between two people."^[43] In addition, Gadamer claims that the world is linguistically constituted, and cannot exist apart from language. For example, monuments and statues cannot communicate without the aid of language. Gadamer also claims that every language constitutes a world-view, because the linguistic nature of the world frees each individual from an objective environment: "... the fact that we have a world at all depends upon [language] and presents itself in it. The world as world exists for man as for no other creature in the world."^[43] Hans-Georg Gadamer (February 11, 1900 – March 13, 2002) was a German philosopher best known for his 1960 magnum opus, Truth and Method (Wahrheit und Methode). ...

Paul Ricoeur, on the other hand, proposed a hermeneutics which, reconnecting with the original Greek sense of the term, emphasized the discovery of hidden meanings in the equivocal terms (or "symbols") of ordinary language. Other philosophers who have worked in this tradition include Luigi Pareyson and Jacques Derrida.^[44] Paul Ricœur, French philosopher Paul Ricœur (February 27, 1913 – May 20, 2005) was a French philosopher best known for combining phenomenological description with hermeneutic interpretation. ... Jacques Derrida (July 15, 1930 – October 8, 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher, known as the founder of deconstruction. ...

Major problems in philosophy of language

Vagueness

One issue that has bothered philosophers of language and logic is the problem of the vagueness of words. Often, meanings expressed by the speaker are not as explicit or precise as the listener would like them to be. 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. ^[45] Ambiguity is one way in which the meanings of words and phrases can be unclear, but there is another way, which is different from ambiguity: vagueness. ... The paradox of the heap (or the Sorites Paradox, sõros being Greek for heap and sõrites the adjective) is a paradox that arises when people apply formal logic to informal concepts which are vague. ... Fuzzy logic is derived from fuzzy set theory dealing with reasoning that is approximate rather than precisely deduced from classical predicate logic. ...

Problem of universals and composition

One debate that has captured the interest of many philosophers is the debate over the meaning of universals. One might ask, for example, "when people say the word, "rocks", what is it that the word represents?" Two general 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 we happen to put into a common category. The former position has been called philosophical realism, and the latter has been called nominalism. ^[46] The problem of universals is a phrase used to refer to a nest of intertwined problems about universals within the philosophy of language, cognitive psychology, epistemology, and ontology. ... Universal has several meanings: For the concept of a universal in metaphysics, see Universal (metaphysics). ... Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief in and allegiance to a reality that exists independently of observers. ... In philosophy, nominalism is the theory that abstract terms, general terms, or universals do not represent objective real existents, but are merely names, words, or vocal utterances (flatus vocis). ...

The issue here can be explicated if we examine the proposition "Socrates is a Man".

From the radical 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 together in some way or overlap one another.

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". If "Socrates" is applied to the finite universe method then "men" is a property of Socrates (not a class).

The nature of language

Many philosophical discussions of language begin by clarifying terminology. One item which has undergone significant scrutiny is the idea of language itself. Those philosophers who have set themselves to the task ask two important questions: "What is language in general?", and "What is a particular, individual language?".

Some semiotic outlooks have stressed that language is the mere manipulation and use of symbols in order to draw attention to signified content. If this were so, then humans would not be the sole possessors of language skills.^[44] On the other hand, many works by linguist Noam Chomsky have emphasized the role of syntax as a characteristic of any language.^[47] Semiotics (also spelled Semeiotics) is the study of signs and sign systems. ... Avram Noam Chomsky, Ph. ...

More puzzling is the question of what it is that distinguishes one particular language from another. What is it that makes "English" English? What's the difference between Spanish and French? Chomsky has indicated that the search for what it means to be a language must begin with the study of the internal language of persons, or I-languages, which are based upon certain rules (or principles and parameters) which generate grammars. This view is supported in part by the conviction that there is no clear, general, and principled difference between one language and the next, and which may apply across the field of all languages. Other attempts, which he dubs E-languages, have tried to explain a language as usage within a specific speech community with a specific set of well-formed utterances in mind (markedly associated with linguists like Bloomfield). ^[48] Transformational grammar is a broad term describing grammars (almost exclusively those of natural languages) which have been developed in a Chomskyan tradition. ...

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 Frege, Alfred Tarski 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 include Tarski, Carnap, Richard Montague and Donald Davidson. ^[49] Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (8 November 1848, Wismar – 26 July 1925, Bad Kleinen, IPA: ) was a German mathematician who became a logician and philosopher. ... Alfred Tarski (January 14, 1901, Warsaw Poland – October 26, 1983, Berkeley California) was a logician and mathematician of considerable philosophical importance. ... Rudolf Carnap Rudolf Carnap (May 18, 1891, Ronsdorf, Germany – September 14, 1970, Santa Monica, California) was an influential philosopher who was active in central Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. ... Richard Merett Montague (1930–1971) was an American mathematician and philosopher. ... There are two Donald Davidsons: Donald Davidson (poet) Donald Davidson (philosopher) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

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, John 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.^[50] Peter Frederick Strawson (born November 23, 1919 in London) is a philosopher associated with the ordinary language philosophy movement within analytical philosophy. ... There have been several notable people named John Austin: A philosopher of language; see J. L. Austin (1911 - 1960) An 18th century legal and political theorist who wrote An Essay on Sovereignty, considered the standard for discussions about sovereignty; see John Austin (legal philosophy) A warrant officer in the United... Gilbert Ryle (1900–1976), was a philosopher, and a representative of the generation of British ordinary language philosophers influenced by Wittgensteins insights into language, and is principally known for his critique of Cartesian dualism, for which he coined the phrase the ghost in the machine. He referred to some...

Hence, Austin developed a theory of speech acts , 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.^[51] Strawson argued that the truth-table semantics of the logical connectives (e.g., , and ) do not capture the meanings of their natural language counterparts ("and", "or" and "if-then").^[52] 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. Many of its ideas have been absorbed by theorists such as Kent Bach, Robert Brandom, Paul Horwich and Stephen Neale.^[17] The speech act is a concept in linguistics and the philosophy of language. ... In linguistics and semiotics, pragmatics is concerned with bridging the explanatory gap between sentence meaning and speakers meaning. ... Kent Bach is a Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University. ... Robert Brandom (1950- ), nicknamed the Iron City Kant, is American philosopher who teaches at the University of Pittsburgh. ... Paul Horwich (born 1947) is a British analytic philosopher at New York University, whose work includes writings on causality, truth and meaning. ... Stephen Neale is Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. ...

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, have been skeptical of any claims that there is a substantial conflict between logic and natural language. ^[53] Herbert Paul Grice (1913 - 1988), usually publishing under the name Paul Grice, was a British educated philosopher of language, who spent the last two decades of his career in the U.S. // Life Born and raised in the United Kingdom, Grice was educated first at Clifton College and then at...

Translation and Interpretation

Translation and interpration 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 the reader to imagine a situation in which he is confronted with a previously undocumented, primitive tribe and must attempt to make sense of the utterances and gestures that its members make. This is the situation of radical translation.^[54] W. V. Quine Willard Van Orman Quine (June 25, 1908 - December 25, 2000) was one of the most influential American philosophers and logicians of the 20th century. ...

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 primitive tribe's 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 attribued to a whole language.^[54] The resulting view is called semantic holism. Semantic holism is a doctrine in the philosophy of language to the effect that a certain part of language, be it a term or a complete sentence, can only be understood through its relations to a (previously understood) larger segment of language. ...

Quine's disciple, Donald Davidson, extended the idea of radical translation to the interpretation of utterences 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 his mental states and attitudes.^[15] Donald Davidson (March 6, 1917 – August 30, 2003) was an American philosopher and the Willis S. and Marion Slusser Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. ...

See also

• Pragmatics
• Rhetoric
• Semantics
• Semantics of logic
• General semantics
• Symbolic interactionism
• Interpreter
• Intentionality
• Signs
• Ideas
• Sense and reference
• Speech acts
• Deixis

In linguistics and semiotics, pragmatics is concerned with bridging the explanatory gap between sentence meaning and speakers meaning. ... Rhetoric (from Greek , rhêtôr, orator, teacher) is generally understood to be the art or technique of persuasion through the use of oral or written language; however, this definition of rhetoric has been contested since rhetoric emerged as a field of study in Universities. ... Semantics (Greek semantikos, giving signs, significant, symptomatic, from sema, sign) refers to the aspects of meaning that are expressed in a language, code, or other form of representation. ... The truth conditions of various sentences we may encounter in arguments will depend upon their meaning, and so conscientious logicians cannot completely avoid the need to provide some treatment of the meaning of these sentences. ... General Semantics is a school of thought founded by Alfred Korzybski in about 1933 in response to his observations that most people had difficulty defining human and social discussions and problems and could almost never predictably resolve them into elements that were responsive to successful intervention or correction. ... Symbolic interactionism is a sociological perspective which examines how individuals and groups interact, focusing on the creation of personal identity through interaction with others. ... It has been suggested that Interpreter (communication) be merged into this article or section. ... Intentionality, originally a concept from scholastic philosophy, was reintroduced in contemporary philosophy by the philosopher and psychologist Franz Brentano in his work Psychologie vom Empirischen Standpunkte. ... In semiotics, a sign is generally defined as, ...something that stands for something else, to someone in some capacity. ... An idea (Greek: ιδέα) is a specific thought which arises in the mind. ... The distinction between Sinn and Bedeutung (usually but not always translated sense and reference, respectively) was an innovation of the German philosopher and mathematician Gottlob Frege in his 1892 paper Über Sinn und Bedeutung (On Sense and Reference), which is still widely read today. ... The speech act is a concept in linguistics and the philosophy of language. ... In pragmatics and linguistics, deixis (Greek: δειξις display, demonstration, or reference, the meaning point of reference in contemporary linguistics having been taken over from Chrysippus, Stoica 2,65) is a process whereby words or expressions rely absolutely on context. ...

References

A System of Logic is an 1843 book by English philosopher John Stuart Mill. ... John Langshaw Austin (March 28, 1911 – February 8, 1960) was a philosopher of language, who developed much of the current theory and terminology of speech acts. ...

Further reading

• Carnap, R., (1956). Meaning and Necessity: a Study in Semantics and Modal Logic. University of Chicago Press.
• Collins, John. (2001). http://www.sorites.org/Issue_13/collins.htm
• Devitt, Michael and Hanley, Richard, eds. (2006) The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Language. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Greenberg, Mark and Harman, Gilbert. (2005). Conceptual Role Semantics. http://www.princeton.edu/~harman/Papers/CRS.pdf
• 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. (2000). Philosophy of Language: A Contemporary Introduction. New York, Routledge.
• Miller, James. (1999). http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/pen-l/1999m12.1/msg00185.htm
• Stainton, Robert J. (1996). Philosophical perspectives on language. Peterborough, Ont., Broadview Press.
• Tarski, Alfred. (1944). The Semantical Conception of Truth. http://www.ditext.com/tarski/tarski.html
• Glossary of Linguistic terms. http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/contents.htm
• Philosophy of Language---Internet Encylopedia of Philosophy