PHILOSOPHY OF LOGIC & LANGUAGE

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1 PHILOSOPHY OF LOGIC & LANGUAGE Essay Questions and Reading Lists P SOME NOTES ON WRITING ESSAYS HILOSOPHY is like mathematics in that you can t just set down your answer you have to show how you got there. A common fault in philosophy essays is that the writer is in such a hurry to get her ideas down to attack a hated position, to state an attractive theory that she forgets to argue. Without arguments, all you have is a set of opinions, however interesting; with arguments, you have philosophy. TRUCTURE. But perhaps the most common cause of problems with essays (apart from the amount of work put into them) is poor structure. A badly structured essay doesn t only make it difficult Sfor the reader to follow what you re saying it can make it difficult for you to keep track of what you re saying, leading to repetition, contradiction, and irrelevance. Make an essay plan before you start writing, and try to stick to it. It shouldn t be too detailed, otherwise it ll be too rigid; most, if not all, plans will fall into three parts, including an introduction to and explanation of the problems, a discussion of the main arguments, and some sort of conclusion. Whatever your position, be sure to treat the positions with which you disagree as fully and sympathetically as possible before you start to criticise them; apart from anything else this will help you to avoid knocking down straw men. Don t strive too hard for originality and new ideas; these will come (if they do) as you think and write about other people s ideas and arguments. If you do come up with what you think is an original idea or argument, don t be too protective towards it; be at least as critical of it as you would be of anyone else s. RITICAL APPARATUS. All quotations should be given references clear and detailed enough to allow the reader to go straight to the original source. This will normally involve author, title, and page Cnumber; in the case of historical or translated works, you should be sure to give the edition you re using, and if possible use a standard reference system (often found in the margins or at the top of each page). If you re unsure, check to see how other authors do it, or ask me. Never use other writers words or even ideas without acknowledgment. A separate bibliography is usually helpful. ANGUAGE. Clarity and precision often depend upon careful use of language and this includes spelling and grammar. Don t underestimate the problems caused by misspelling (the differences Lbetween intention and intension, or ingenious and ingenuous, are more important than the single letters involved). This is even more true of grammar and punctuation. Keep your language simple: don t use three syllables where one will do, or had it not been written by him instead of if he hadn t written it. Make sure that quotations fit into their new contexts (avoid, for example, Descartes said that I can be certain ; write either Descartes said: I can be certain or Descartes said that he could be certain ). LAGIARISM. Your essays must be your own work. The reading is there to guide you, to suggest avenues of thought, to offer explanations of difficult arguments or ideas; it is not there to be Prepeated parrot-fashion. If you need to quote from another writer, mark the quotation clearly (see above, under Critical apparatus) but again, don t overdo it. RACTICAL MATTERS. N.B.: when I give more than one essay question, these are alternatives, so choose one. Don t read too much (or, of course, too little); three or four items from the relevant reading Plist is usually about right (one introductory or general work, and two or three others). If you want to (or have to) go outside the reading I suggest, talk to me about it; too often I find that essays have suffered because students have read what are frankly bad and misleading books. Peter J. King peter.king@philosophy.ox.ac.uk

2 GENERAL READING Monographs Michael Devitt Realism and Truth Susan Haack Philosophy of Logics William Lycan Philosophy of Language G. McCulloch The Game of the Name Colin McGinn Logical Properties Alexander Millar Philosophy of Language Mark Platts Reference, Truth, and Reality Hilary Putnam Reason, Truth, and History Representation and Reality Gerald Vision Modern Anti-Realism and Manufactured Truth Sybil Wolfram Philosophical Logic Crispin Wright Realism, Meaning, and Truth Abbreviations used in the reading lists APQ = American Philosophical Quarterly AJP = Australasian Journal of Philosophy BJPS = British Journal for the Philosophy of Science J.Phil. = Journal of Philosophy PAS = Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society PASS = Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume Phil.Q. = Philosophical Quarterly Phil.Rev. = Philosophical Review Rev.Met. = Review of Metaphysics SJP = Southern Journal of Philosophy Collections of Papers and Readings (Referred to in the reading lists by the editors names only) E. Craig Routledge Encyclopædia of Philosophy Gareth Evans & John McDowell Truth and Meaning Antony Flew Logic and Language 1 & 2 H. Feigl & W. Sellars Readings in Philosophical Analysis Bob Hale & Crispin Wright A Companion to the Philosophy of Language Jaegwon Kim & Ernest Sosa A Companion to Metaphysics Michael J. Loux The Possible and the Actual Peter Ludlow Readings in the Philosophy of Language A.P. Martinich The Philosophy of Language Adrian Moore Meaning and Reference Milton K. Munitz Logic and Ontology Gary Ostertag Definite Descriptions: A Reader G.H.R. Parkinson The Theory of Meaning Stephen P. Schwartz Naming, Necessity, and Natural Kinds P.F. Strawson Philosophical Logic

3 Exist a) Is exist a predicate? b) Sherlock Holmes was a dry-cleaner is false, yet Sherlock Holmes didn t exist is true; how can that be? Frege: Sense & Reference a) How can we understand sentences containing empty names? b) How can people judge falsely about statements of the form a=b? K.E.M. Baier Existence (PAS 1960/61) Keith Donnellan Speaking of nothing (Phil Rev. 83, 1974; & in Schwartz) Michael Dummett Existence (in his The Seas of Language) Gareth Evans Varieties of Reference chapter 10 Reinhardt Grossmann The Existence of the World chapter 4 Peter van Inwagen Creatures of fiction (APQ 1977; reprinted in his Ontology, Identity, and Modality) Immanuel Kant Critique of Pure Reason A /B ( The Impossibility of an Ontological Proof of the Existence of God ) William Kneale Is existence a predicate? (PASS 15; & in Feigl & Sellars) David Lewis Truth in fiction (APQ 1978; reprinted in his Philosophical Papers vol.i) J.L. Mackie Existence (in Craig) G.E. Moore Is existence a predicate? (PASS 15; & in Flew 2) Terence Parsons Non-Existent Objects chapter 1 D.F. Pears/J. Thomson Is Existence a Predicate? (in Strawson) W. van O. Quine On what there is (in his From a Logical Point of View) Logic and the reification of individuals (in ibid.) Bertrand Russell The philosophy of logical atomism pp (in his Logic and Knowledge, ed. Marsh) Gilbert Ryle Systematically misleading expressions (PAS ) P.F. Strawson Is Existence Never a Predicate? (in his Freedom and Resentment) Introduction to Logical Theory chapter 6, section III, 11 S.G. Williams Existence (in Kim & Sosa) Michael Woods Existence and tense (in Evans & McDowell) Gottlob Frege Über Sinn und Bedeutung (as On Sense and Meaning in Translations From the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, edd. Geach & Black; also as Sense and Reference in Readings in Philosophical Analysis, edd. Feigl and Sellars, & in Contemporary Readings in Logical Theory, edd. Copi & Gould, & in Moore) Letter to Jourdain (in Moore) Tyler Burge Sinning against Frege (Phil.Rev. 1979) Keith Donnellan Reference and definite descriptions (Phil.Rev. 1966; & in Schwartz) Michael Dummett Frege s distinction between sense and reference (in his Truth and Other Enigmas, & in Moore) Frege: Philosophy of Language chapter 5 & Appendix Gareth Evans The Varieties of Reference Part I Understanding demonstratives (in his Collected Papers) Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity passim Harold Noonan Frege chapter 5 Mark Sainsbury On a Fregean argument for the distinction between sense and reference (Analysis 1983) Nathan Salmon Reference and Essence passim

4 Russell: Definite Descriptions a) Are there purposes that names serve and definite descriptions do not? b) What is the logical form of Vulcan does not exist? Bertrand Russell Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy chapter 16 (partly reprinted as Descriptions in Moore) On denoting (in his Logic and Knowledge, ed. Marsh; & in Moore, & in Martinich, & in Ostertag; extracts in Moore) P.F. Strawson On referring (Mind lix, 1950; & in his Logico-Linguistic Papers: & in Flew [ed.] Essays in Conceptual Analysis; & in Parkinson, & in Moore, & in Martinich, & in Ostertag) K. Bach Thought and Reference chapters 5 6 Keith Donnellan Reference and definite descriptions (Phil.Rev. 1966; & in Schwartz, & in Martinich, & in Ostertag) Michael Dummett Frege s distinction between sense and reference (in his Truth and Other Enigmas, & in Moore) Frege: Philosophy of Language chapter 5 & Appendix Gareth Evans The Varieties of Reference Part I Susan Haack Philosophy of Logics chapter 5 Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity passim Semantic reference and speakers reference (in French qt al.) Nathan Salmon Reference and Essence passim a) Are names rigid designators? Rigid Designation b) Examine the relationship between the necessity of identity and rigid designation Saul Kripke Identity and necessity (Identity and Individuation, ed. Munitz; & in Schwartz; & in Moore) Naming and necessity (Semantics of Natural Language, edd. Davidson & Harman) Naming and Necessity Gareth Evans The Varieties of Reference chapter 2 Colin McGinn Rigid designation and semantic values (Phil.Q. 32, 1982) Mark Platts Natural kind terms and rigid designation (PAS ) Nathan Salmon Reference and Essence chapter 1 (pp 9 41); appendix I (pp ) Possible Worlds a) If there is a possible world in which it is false that p, then one can know that it is true in the actual world that p only by observing the actual world. Discuss. b) How is the sentence Cassandra Wilson is necessarily human to be analysed? Can it be understood without reference to possible worlds? Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity David Lewis Counterfactuals chapter 4 Counterpart Theory and Quantified Modal Logic (J.Phil. 65, 1968; also in his Philosophical Papers: Vol I) On the Plurality of Worlds especially chapter 4 Alvin Plantinga The Nature of Necessity chapters IV & VI Robert C. Stalnaker Inquiry chapter 3 Transworld Identity Is there a problem about identifying the same object in different possible worlds? R.M. Chisholm Identity Through Possible Worlds: Some Questions (Nos 1, 1967; also in Loux) David Kaplan Transworld Heir Lines (in Loux) Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity David Lewis Counterfactuals chapter 4 Counterpart Theory and Quantified Modal Logic (J.Phil. 65, 1968; also in Lewis, Philosophical Papers Vol I) Individuation by Acquaintance and by Stipulation (in Phil.Rev., xcii, 1983) On the Plurality of Worlds especially chapter 4 Alvin Plantinga The Nature of Necessity chapters IV & VI Transworld Identity or Worldbound Individuals? (in Schwartz; Munitz) Robert C. Stalnaker Inquiry chapter 3

5 What are the bearers of truth and falsity? Sentences, Statements and Propositions Cartwight Propositions (in Butler (ed), Analytical Philosophy) Susan Haack Philosophy of Logics chapter 6 E.J. Lemmon Sentences, statements and propositions (in Williams & Montefiore [edd], British Analytical Philosophy) Adrian Moore Philosophy of Logic, 1 2 (in Bunnin & Tsui-James [edd], The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy Mark Platts Ways of Meaning chapter I, 8 W. van O. Quine Philosophy of Logic chapter I The Analytic Synthetic Distinction Can anything be true solely in virtue of its meaning? A.J. Ayer Language, Truth and Logic chapter 4 Susan Haack Philosophy of Logics chapter 10, 1 David Hamlyn Analytic and synthetic statements (in Edwards [ed] The Encyclopædia of Philosophy) Immanuel Kant Critique of Pure Reason Introduction, esp. IV A.N. Prior The runabout inference ticket (Analysis 21, 1960; & in Strawson) Hilary Putnam The analytic and the synthetic (in his Mind, Language and Reality) W. van O. Quine Two dogmas of empiricism (in his From a Logical Point of View) Anthony Quinton The a priori and the analytic (PAS ; & in Strawson) Truth as Correspondence a) Is it a truism that truth is correspondence to fact? If so, is that truism the basis of an adequate philosophical theory of truth? b) Is Tarski s theory a correspondence theory? William P. Alston A Realist Conception of Truth passim, but especially chapters 1 & 3 J.L. Austin How to Do Things with Words lectures xi & xii Donald Davidson True to the facts (J.Phil. 66; & in his Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation) Michael Dummett Truth (PAS 59, ; & in his Truth and Other Enigmas; & in Strawson)) Susan Haack The pragmatist theory of truth (BJPS 27, 1976) for an alternative view D.W. Hamlyn The Theory of Knowledge chapter 5 The correspondence theory of truth (Phil.Q. 12, 1962) R.G. Millikan The price of correspondence truth (Noûs 20, 1986) A.N. Prior Correspondence theory of truth (in Edwards [ed.], Encyclopedia of Philosophy) Hilary Putnam Realism and Reason Introduction & paper 4 Bertrand Russell The Problems of Philosophy chapter 12 An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth especially chapter 25, but use the index under correspondence P.F. Strawson & J.L. Austin Symposium on Truth (PASS 24)

6 Truth as Coherence Is there a satisfactory formulation of the coherence theory of truth? J.L. Austin Truth (in his Philosophical Papers) P. Klein & T.A. Warfield What price coherence? (Analysis 54, 1994) Nicholas Rescher The Coherence Theory of Truth Ernest Sosa Theories of justification: old doctrines newly defended (in Sosa) Ralph Walker The Coherence Theory of Truth Michael Williams Coherence, justification, and truth (Rev.Met. 34, 1980) The Causal Theory of Meaning Is any causal theory of meaning viable? To what extent can they address external world scepticism? Gareth Evans The Varieties of Reference The Causal Theory of Names (PASS 47, 1973; & in his Collected Papers; & in Moore) Rom Harré & E. Madden Causal Powers chapter 1 Saul Kripke Naming and Necessity Identity and Necessity (Identity and Individuation, ed. Munitz; & in Schwartz; & in Moore) Leonard Linsky Names and Descriptions Greg McCulloch The Game of the Name Colin McGinn A note on the essence of natural kinds (Analysis 35) Mark Platts Ways of Meaning Natural kind terms and rigid designation (PAS ) Hilary Putnam Meaning and reference (J.Phil. 1973; & in Moore) The meaning of meaning (in his Mind, Language, and Reality) Nathan Salmon Reference and Essence S.P. Schwartz [ed.] Naming, Necessity, and Natural Kinds Donald Davidson Content and scheme [...] come as a pair; we can let them go together. Once we take this step, no objects will be left with respect to which the problem of representation can be raised. Beliefs are true or false, but they represent nothing. It is good to be rid of representations, and with them the correspondence theory of truth, for it is thinking that there are representations that engenders thought of relativism. (DAVIDSON) Assess the anti-sceptical force of this anti-representationalist form of argument. Donald Davidson True to the facts (J.Phil. 66; & in his Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation) In defence of Convention T (in his Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation) Truth and meaning (in his Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation) Reply to Foster (in Evans & McDowell) William Child On the dualism of scheme and content (PASS 94, 1994) S. Evnine Donald Davidson John Foster Meaning and truth theory (in Evans & McDowell) Hartry Field Tarski s theory of truth (J.Phil. 69) Ernie LePore [ed.] Truth and Interpretation Part V J.P. Murphy Pragmatism: From Peirce to Davidson chapter 8 Mark Platts Ways of Meaning chapter 2 B.T. Ramberg Donald Davidson s Philosophy of Language Mark Sainsbury Understanding and theories of meaning (PAS ) R. Salinas Realism and conceptual schemes (SJP 26, 1989) Michael Williams Scepticism and charity (Ratio 1988)

7 Michael Dummett The very minimum that realism can be held to involve is that statements in the given class relate to some reality that exists independently of our knowledge of it, in such a way that reality renders each statement in the class determinately true or false, again independently of whether we know, or are even able to discover, its truth value. Thus realism involves acceptance, for the statements in the given class, of the principle of bivalence, the principle that every statement is determinately true or false. Acceptance of bivalence is not [..] sufficient for realism, but it is necessary to it. (DUMMETT) Discuss Dummett s characterisation of the realism anti-realism dispute. Michael Dummett Truth and Other Enigmas chapter 10 Origins of Analytic Philosophy The Logical Basis of Metaphysics What is a Theory of Meaning? I (in Guttenplan [ed.] Mind and Language; & in his The Seas of Language) What is a Theory of Meaning? II (in Evans & McDowell; & in his The Seas of Language) William P. Alston A Realist Conception of Truth chapter 4 R. Brandom Truth and assertibility (J.Phil. 73, 1976) Craig Meaning, use, and privacy (Mind 1982) Dorothy Edgington Meaning, bivalence, and realism (PAS 1981) A. George How not to refute realism (J.Phil. 90, 1993) John McDowell Truth conditions, bivalence, and verificationism (in Evans & McDowell) Colin McGinn An a priori argument for realism (J.Phil. 1979) A. Millar Truth and understanding (Mind 1977) W. van O. Quine What price bivalence? (J.Phil. 78, 1981; & in his Theories and Things) Bede Rundle Perception, Sensation, and Verification chapter 1 F. Stoutland On not being a realist (PAS ) Wright Dummett and revisionism (in Taylor [ed.] Michael Dummett)