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Topic outline

 

  • Time: 20 hours
    Level: Advanced

 
 

Introduction

  • Introduction Resource
  • This unit introduces key questions about language and thought, such as how can language, which is public and accessible, be used to convey thoughts, which seem hidden from view.
 

1 Introducing representation

  • 1.1 Introduction Resource
  • One of the most impressive but puzzling capacities we have is the ability to represent the world around us, both in talking about it among ourselves and in thinking about it as individuals. When someone...
  • 1.2 Representation and language Resource
  • Consider some of the many different things we can do with language: express ourselves in metaphor, issue commands, ask questions, fill in crosswords, write shopping lists and diary entries, repeat nursery...
  • 1.3 Representation and thought Resource
  • It would be surprising if the meaning of our utterances turned out not to derive, in part at least, from the thoughts and other mental states that these utterances express. Were that so, language would...
  • 1.4 Three characteristic difficulties in discussions of representation Resource
  • I have hinted that accounting for the nature of representation – whether it be the meaning of utterances or the content of our mental states – is not easy. There are several reasons for this, and it is...
  • 1.5 Some useful terminology and a convention Resource
  • It will be useful to end this section by establishing a simple convention and introducing some terminology.
  • 1.6 Further reading Resource
  • For an advanced general introduction to the philosophy of language, see Blackburn 1984. Lycan 1996 is pitched at a more accessible level. Pinker 1994 is an informal but informative discussion of the hypothesis...
 

2 Is the speaker's mind the source of an utterance's meaning?

  • 2.1 Introduction Resource
  • The distinction noted in section 1 between the representational properties of a linguistic utterance (its ‘meaning’) and the representational properties of a mental state (its ‘content’) gives rise, naturally...
  • 2.2 The source of an utterance's meaning: the words used or the speaker's mind? Resource
  • How are we able to use language to communicate knowledge? Locke's question, introduced in section 1, was recast as the obligation to spell out what ‘meaning’ amounts to as it figures within a simple theory...
  • 2.3 Grice on natural and non-natural meaning Resource
  • Ironically, the word ‘meaning’ has many different meanings. There are four occurrences of ‘mean’ (or ‘meaning’ or ‘meant’, etc.), italicised, in the following paragraph:
  • 2.4 The meaning of expressions versus the meaning of individual utterances Resource
  • I drew a contrast at the beginning of the chapter between those approaches to the meaning of utterances that look to the meaning of the words used, and those approaches that look instead to the content...
  • 2.5 Why intentions? Resource
  • Most of the rest of Grice's paper is dedicated to spelling out a way of identifying the meaning of an individual utterance ‘on an occasion’ with the content of the utterer's intentions (Step One). The...
  • 2.6 Which intentions? Resource
  • Grice makes three attempts to answer this last question. The second builds on the first; the third, which he proposes to adopt, builds on the second. In the next three activities, you will be asked to...
  • 2.7 Expression meaning as defined by Grice Resource
  • Recall Step Two in the Gricean agenda: to define the meaning of expressions in terms of the meaning of individual utterances. Carrying out this strategy successfully would lend strong support to the thought...
  • 2.8 The Gricean Programme Resource
  • Before considering any further potential criticisms of Grice's position, let us step back and consider his wider importance to philosophy: his contribution to what is often called The Gricean Programme....
  • 2.9 How successful is Grice's theory of the meaning of utterances? Resource
  • I turn now to difficulties for Grice's account of the meaning of utterances, beginning with a concern over his methodology. By focusing on examples, real or imagined, Grice attempts to draw out our intuitions...
  • 2.10 Section summary Resource
  • After setting aside ‘natural’ meaning as largely irrelevant to language (section 2.3), Grice attempts to define the (non-natural) meaning of utterances in terms of the content of the speakers’ psychological...
  • 2.11 Further reading Resource
  • Grice's writing on the philosophy of language, including the 1957 paper ‘Meaning’, is collected in Grice 1989. Discussion of the issues raised in ‘Meaning’ can be found in Avramides 1997 (the most accessible),...
 

References and Acknowledgements

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