Readings in the Philosophy of Language

Throughout the history of ideas, various branches of philosophy have spun off intothe natural sciences, including physics, biology, and perhaps most recently, cognitive psychology. Acentral theme of this collection is that the philosophy of language, at least a core portion of it,has matured to the point where it is now being spun off into linguistic theory. Each section of thebook contains historical (twentieth-century) readings and, where available, recent attempts to applythe resources of contemporary linguistic theory to the problems under discussion. This approachhelps to root the naturalization project in the leading questions of analytic philosophy. Althoughthe older readings predate the current naturalization project, they help to lay its conceptualfoundations. The main sections of the book, each of which is preceded by an introduction, areLanguage and Meaning, Logical Form and Grammatical Form, Descriptions, Names, Demonstratives, andAttitude Reports.The collection is not intended as a final report on a mature line of philosophicalinquiry. Rather, its purpose is to show students what doing real philosophy is all about and to letthem share in the excitement as philosophers enter a period in which how philosophy of language isconducted could change in fundamental ways.