Інфа курса

How does language relate to reality? This is one of the most fundamental, and the most puzzling of all questions. We might arrive at it by reflecting on words for things that we are given in our sensory experience (words like “red”, “square”, and “book”), and on the relation between these words and these things. What is this relation, exactly? And how is it established? It is a natural thought that this relation is somehow arbitrary--as if we could have called the things that we are given by any words, and yet we happen to have chosen these. But how should we understand this idea (or supposed idea) of arbitrariness? We shall approach this question by reading Plato’s dialogue Cratylus. This dialogue offers an excellent way to become acquainted with the puzzles, the possibilities, and the pitfalls that await anyone who seeks to reflect on this most fundamental of questions. It will take us to a pair of related questions. First: is the idea of the relation between language and reality really the idea of relations between various things in reality; or is it the idea of something of a fundamentally different order? And second: if it is the latter, how exactly should this be understood? We shall seek to broach these questions through considering of a pair of central issues in twentieth century analytic philosophy: first, the idea (or supposed idea) that understanding a language consists in knowing facts about the relations between words and things; and second, the picture theory of language (and with it, the traditional idea that language and reality share a common “form”). We shall read texts by Anscombe, Davidson, Wittgenstein, and others.

Students will need to purchase a copy of Plato’s Cratylus. All other readings will be made available through Moodle.