A Brief History of Philosophy of Language —— Chapter 1: Introduction (1).

Remarks: there are inevitably mistakes in private recording.

1, the extension and connotation of language philosophy

1) Extension: The name "philosophy of language" sometimes refers to the philosophical discussion around the theme of language since the 20th century, and its narrow usage refers to the philosophy of language in analytical philosophy.

Roughly distinguish several major western philosophical traditions in the 20th century;

A.？ Tradition of analytical philosophy: Frege, Moore, Russell, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Austin, Lyle, Quine, Damit, Kripke, Davidson, etc.

B.？ Phenomenology-hermeneutic tradition: Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer, Sartre, Meloponty, Derrida, etc.

C.？ Tradition of pragmatism: Peirce, william james, john dewey, etc.

Generally speaking, the tradition of pragmatism is close to the tradition of analytical philosophy. Peirce is regarded by many philosophical historians as one of the founders of analytical philosophy-modern philosophy of language, and Quine and others were deeply influenced by pragmatism. However, compared with analytical philosophy and phenomenology-hermeneutics, pragmatism is only a relatively minor tradition.

Most works called "Philosophy of Language" use narrow reference, especially the philosophy of language under the tradition of analytical philosophy.

2) Connotation:

A.？ Searle: Suggest distinguishing linguistics? Philosophy and philosophy? Yes? Language.

A) linguistics? Philosophy: Studying the usage of specific words in a specific language and answering some specific questions.

B) philosophy? Yes? Language: The study of the universal nature of language, such as reference, meaning, truth and falsehood, focuses on universal philosophical issues.

B.？ Wandler: I suggest a more detailed distinction, that is, philosophy? Linguistics, linguistics? Philosophy and philosophy? Yes? Language.

A) philosophy? Yes? Linguistics: or "philosophy of language" refers to philosophical thinking on linguistics such as meaning, synonyms, syntax and translation, as well as research on the logical position and verification methods of linguistic theories. That is, philosophy of language is a special branch of philosophy of science, which is juxtaposed with philosophy of physics and philosophy of psychology.

B) linguistics? Philosophy: includes any conceptual research based on the structure and function of natural language or artificial language.

For example: Aristotle's philosophical thinking on existence, Russell's theory on special descriptors, Lyle's works on the concept of mind.

C) philosophy? Yes? Language: refers to the rest of the original field of philosophy of language, including the essence of language and the relationship between language and reality.

For example: Wolff's language, thought and reality, Wittgenstein's logic philosophy.

2. Ancient Greek philosophers thought about language.

1) Heraclitus: logos: talking, thinking, what you think, talking and writing, formulas, reasons, arguments, scales and principles. Emphasize that signs are public and ubiquitous. Compare logos to the reason and law of a sober person.

Heidegger's metaphysics

2) gorgias: A wise man, whose style is similar to modern analytical philosophy. Advocating existence cannot be recognized, let alone spoken. The forerunner of private language discussion: language and feeling are different, and even more different from existence, so it is impossible to convey feelings or existence by language. Some people think that language is stimulated by external things.

3) Plato's Kratylos.

A.？ Hermogenes: Advocating written agreement, different nationalities have different names for the same thing.

B.？ Cratilus: He argues that the usage of words is based on nature, and there are right and wrong words.

C.？ Socrates: inclined to nature, opposed to convention.

Reason 1: People can't call horses, and horses can't call people.

Reason 2: Propositions are composed of words, and there are right and wrong propositions, so there are also right and wrong words.

Correct words show the unchangeable nature of naming things.

Characters use combinations of letters to imitate the essence of things.

Kratylos: A name called something is therefore correct; A thing without a name is therefore meaningless, but there is nothing wrong with it.

Socrates: Comparing words with portraits shows that Kratylos's view is wrong. A portrait may not be true enough, but it is not completely out of shape.

Kratylos: Oppose comparing words to portraits. Example: a portrait omits some features of the prototype, so it is not quite like the prototype, but it is still a portrait; If you subtract a letter from a word, it may not be a word at all.

In the subsequent dialogue, Socrates listed some typical facts that are beneficial to the conventional theory, and gradually adjusted the idea of imitating the essence of words. The conclusions are as follows: words can't completely imitate the essence of things; Language is always supplemented by convention.

4) Plato's Tyatedes: Wrong or Meaningless? Discuss it from the perspective of epistemology.

Plato: Denying the "direct understanding" of things without any media.

Logos: the main medium. Perception becomes thought through logos.

Socrates: The most basic elements that make up human beings and everything are unreasonable. They can only be named, but not told, because it is no longer the simplest thing to say that they have a certain temperament in a positive or negative way.

5) Master of Wisdom: The negative proposition of "X does not exist" must have an "X" in a certain sense before it can be said whether it exists. → Quine called it "Plato's beard".

6) Aristotle: systematically discusses all aspects of language.

A.？ Explanation: Define nouns and verbs: nouns have nothing to do with time, while verbs are related to time. Explain the meaning of negation, affirmation, proposition, etc. Discuss the affirmative proposition &; Negative proposition and simple proposition &; Compound proposition and singular proposition &; Full proposition, a proposition containing possibility. A proposition containing inevitability. Words are produced by agreements. There is no right or wrong vocabulary, and there may be right or wrong sentences. A proposition is a correct or wrong sentence.

Inner experience: it's the same for everyone.

Spoken language: The symbols of inner experience are different for different nationalities.

Text: Different nationalities have different spoken symbols.

B.？ Category chapter: classify words. Divided into: entity, quantity, nature, relationship, place, time, posture, action, orientation.

C.？ Metaphysics: Analysis of "Four Causes".

D.？ Physics: analysis of concepts such as "movement".

E.？ Poetics and rhetoric: exploring the linguistic phenomenon of "non-propositional form"

Reading materials:

Concise philosophy of language Chen Jiaying? Write it. ? Renmin University Press. 20 13.