philosophy of language

Episode 191: Conceptual Schemes: Donald Davidson & Rudolf Carnap (Part Two)

June 4, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

Finishing Davidson’s “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme” (1974) and moving on to Carnap’s “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology” (1950).

Carnap claims that we talk about mathematical objects or subatomic particles or whatever, we’re not really (contra Quine) making metaphysical claims. Ontological questions like “Are there really numbers?” are just pretentious nonsense. With guest Dusty Dallman.

Listen to part 1 first, or get the unbroken, ad-free Citizen Edition. Please support PEL!

End Song: “Shut Up” by Chandler Travis, as heard on Nakedly Examined Music #46.

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Episode 191: Conceptual Schemes: Donald Davidson & Rudolf Carnap (Part One)

May 28, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 8 Comments

On Davidson’s “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme” (1974) and Carnap’s “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology” (1950).

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Episode 191: Conceptual Schemes: Donald Davidson & Rudolf Carnap (Citizen Edition)

May 28, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 6 Comments

On Davidson’s “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme” (1974) and Carnap’s “Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology” (1950).

What does it mean to say that we grasp the world through a conceptual scheme? Are schemes different between cultures or even individuals, such that we can’t really understand each other? Davidson thinks that this doesn’t make sense. Carnap gives us a picture of multiple, domain-specific vocabularies and doesn’t see a problem with the concepts of one not being translatable into concepts of another.

End Song: “Shut Up” by Chandler Travis, as heard on Nakedly Examined Music #46.

Episode 189 Follow-Up: Authorial Intent (Citizens Only)

May 7, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

A bonus discussion between Mark and Wes for supporters! We give some philosophy of language context for the issues of meaning brought up in ep 189. Plus, some discussion of the critic James Wood, and analyzing T.S. Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”

Episode 186: J.L. Austin on Doing Things with Words (Part Two)

March 26, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 8 Comments

Continuing on How to Do Things with Words (lectures from 1955), covering lectures 5–9.

Austin tries and fails to come up with a way to grammatically distinguish performatives from other utterances, and so turns to his more complicated system of aspects of a single act: locutionary, illocutionary, perlocutionary. In doing so, he perlocutionarily blows our minds.

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Episode 186: J.L. Austin on Doing Things with Words (Part One)

March 19, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

On How to Do Things with Words (lectures from 1955).

What’s the relationship between language and the world? Austin says it’s not all about descriptive true-or-false statements, but also includes “performatives” like “I promise…” and “I do” (spoken in a wedding) that are actions unto themselves. They can’t be true or false, but they can be “unhappy” if social conventions aren’t fulfilled (e.g., you try to marry a pig). Austin thinks performatives will change your whole view of language and of linguistically expressed philosophical problems!

Don’t wait for part two! Get the ad-free, unbroken Citizen Edition now! Please support PEL.

Sponsors: Visit Squarespace.com for a free trial and 10% off with offer code EXAMINED and thegreatcoursesplus.com/PEL for a one-month free trial of The Great Courses Plus Video Learning Service.

Episode 186: J.L. Austin on Doing Things with Words (Citizen Edition)

March 18, 2018 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

On How to Do Things with Words (lectures from 1955).

End song: “The Promise” by When In Rome. Listen to Mark interview singer/songwriter Clive Farrington on Nakedly Examined Music #40.

The Accuracy of Slurs (Philosophical Issues Related to the #thatasshole Campaign, Part 2)

November 1, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

Are insults largely interchangeable, or do they have fixed descriptive content, in addition to their normative (insulting) content? Can the two elements of meaning be isolated? Thoughts on innovations in language.

Episode 160: Orwell on Totalitarianism and Language (Part Two)

March 20, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 9 Comments

Continuing with 1984. How does the book relate to real-world politics? Is this something that we should actually be afraid our society will turn into? Was he predicting history, or was it satire, or what? We discuss the the realms of intimacy vs. surveillance, how a state might “contain” a mind that it controls, and “doublethink.”

Episode 160: Orwell on Totalitarianism and Language (Part One)

March 13, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 12 Comments

On the novel 1984 (1949) and the essays “Politics and the English Language” (1946) and “Notes on Nationalism” (1945).

What’s the relation between language and totalitarianism? Orwell shows us a society where the rulers have mastered the art of retaining power, and one element of this involves “Newspeak,” where vocabulary is limited to prevent subversive speech, and ultimately thoughts. Do our linguistic habits and the Orwellian lies of our leaders point to a slippery slope toward the world of 1984?

Episode 160: Orwell on Totalitarianism and Language (Citizen Edition)

March 12, 2017 by Mark Linsenmayer 3 Comments

On the novel 1984 (1949) and the essays “Politics and the English Language” (1946) and “Notes on Nationalism” (1945).

End song: “Civil Disobedience” by Camper Van Beethoven from New Roman Times (2004), written by Jonathan Segel as interviewed on Nakedly Examined Music ep. 38.

In Dreams

February 3, 2016 by Jay Jeffers 4 Comments

Exploration of the big idea that permeates Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me.

Episode 128: Hilary Putnam on Linguistic Meaning

November 30, 2015 by Mark Linsenmayer 8 Comments

On “The Meaning of Meaning” (1975). If meaning is not a matter of having a description in your head, then what is it? Hilary Putnam reformulates Kripke’s insight (from #126) in terms of Twin Earths: Earthers with H20 and Twin Earthers with a substance that seems like water but is different have the same mental contents but are referring to different stuff with “water,” so that word is speaker-relative in a certain way. With guest Matt Teichman.

End song: “In the Boatyard” by Mark Lint & the Madison Lint Ensemble (2004, finished now).

Episode 128: Hilary Putnam on Linguistic Meaning (Citizen Edition)

November 29, 2015 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

End song: “In the Boatyard” by Mark Lint & the Madison Lint Ensemble (2004, finished now).

Topic for #128: Hilary Putnam on Linguistic Meaning

November 23, 2015 by Mark Linsenmayer 1 Comment

We were rejoined by Matt Teichman to continue our Kripke thread, discussing primarily Putnam’s essay “The Meaning of Meaning” (1971) about water here vs. water on “Twin Earth” where that stuff that runs in rivers and streams has a different chemical composition. Putnam puts forth a positive theory of meaning that involves holding a stereotype of a term (e.g., that water is wet) but also where your meaning is determined by extension, i.e., what your term in the real world actually refers to, so that we and the Twin Earthers mean something different even though we seem to have the same psychological state when talking about water.

Episode 126: Saul Kripke on Possibilities, Language & Science

November 2, 2015 by Mark Linsenmayer 14 Comments

On Naming and Necessity (1980). What’s the relationship between language and the world? Specifically, what makes a name or a class term pick out the person or things that it does? Saul Kripke wanted to correct the dominant view of his time (which involved a description in the speaker’s mind), and used talk of “possible worlds” to do it! With guest Matt Teichman.

End song: “Reason Enough” by Mark Lint.

Episode 126: Saul Kripke on Possibilities, Language & Science (Citizen Edition)

October 31, 2015 by Mark Linsenmayer 4 Comments

On Naming and Necessity (1980). What’s the relationship between language and the world? Specifically, what makes a name or a class term (like “tiger”) pick out the person or things that it does? Saul Kripke wanted to correct the dominant view of his time (which involved speakers having some description in mind, and it’s that description that hooks the word to the thing), and used modal language to do it: He talked about other possible worlds (other ways our world could have turned out, not literal other dimensions or something). His account had implications for metaphysics and science, in that he claimed that if we find a scientific truth like “heat is the motion of molecules,” then this would be true in all possible worlds. We might think that we could have discovered that heat was something else, but really, if we imagine a world in which that happened, what those scientists would have been looking at was actually not heat at all. With guest Matt Teichman. Learn more.

End song: “Reason Enough” by Mark Lint.

Topic for #126: Saul Kripke on Possibilities, Language, and Science

October 20, 2015 by Mark Linsenmayer 7 Comments

We were rejoined by Elucidations’ Matt Teichman to talk about one of the most readable yet still very weird texts in the canon of analytic philosophy, Saul Kripke’s Naming and Necessity (1980), about what makes a name actually refer to some particular person (Kripke says it’s NOT because the name implies a description that you then have in your head that makes it refer), how this works for general terms (does “human” refer likewise because of some definition we have in mind?), and what implications this has for science. Really! There are some!

Philosophy of History, Part II: Giambattista Vico, Philology, and the Origins of Historicism

July 23, 2015 by Daniel Halverson 3 Comments

“The true and the made are convertible.” (Verum Factum)

Not School: G.E.M. Anscombe’s “Intention”

February 19, 2014 by Mark Linsenmayer 2 Comments

Featuring Mark Linsenmayer, Stanley Martin, and Shira Coffee. Recorded March 8, 2014.

A supplement for Episode 88. What is the difference between an intention and a prediction? Between an intention and a command? Do Aristotelian practical syllogisms actually work according to modern logic?