In this course, we will be addressing several metaphysical questions about language. The leading question will be the following:

What is meaning? And what is it for an expression to have a meaning?

Meaning is a source of metaphysical puzzlement, most basically, since it seems to be something “over and above” an expression itself. An expression is just a mark on a page, or a sound in the air—but what is interesting is that an expression also has meaning. But what is that?

Relatedly, meaning is a weird thing, since it is hard to say where and how the meaning of an expression exists in the physical world. The physical world, as we understand it, consists of matter (protons, electrons, etc.) and physical forces. These physical elements can combine in various ways to form more complex entities (molecules, chemical compounds, and ultimately, living organisms). But where in all this does meaning come in? How can we understand meaning as emerging just from matter and physical forces governing matter? That is to say:

How can we understand meaning as part of the physical world?

Another metaphysical question about meaning concerns knowledge of the meaning. How do we characterize the mental state of someone who knows the meaning of an expression? Does it consist in having some sort of belief? Or is it a practical ability of some kind?

What is it to know the meaning of an expression?

Here’s another issue. Meanings are had by bits of language. But the term ‘language’ is sometimes used by philosophers in several ways. In some cases, the term ‘language’ just refers to natural languages (e.g., English, French, Urdu, etc.). Other times, however, it refers to any system of representations. A natural language like English is an example of a system of representations, in that such a language consists in terms which represent things, and has rules for combining those terms in systematic ways to form sentences. But thought also counts as a system of representations. In thinking, we deploy concepts (akin to words) which we combine in various ways to form complete thoughts (akin to sentences). Thus, just as the word ‘dog’ represents dogs, so does the concept dog represent dogs. And just as we can combine words to form sentences about dogs (e.g., “Dogs bark”), we can also combine concepts to form thoughts about dogs (e.g., Dogs bark).

Thus, when we investigate “language,” defined as any system of representations, we are not only investigating natural languages, but thought as well. So when philosophers use the term ‘language’ in this broader sense, their conclusions often apply not just to the meaning of words, but also the content of thoughts.

Since thoughts are the means by which we understand the world, an investigation into ‘language’ in the broad sense is an investigation into the means by which we understand the world. That makes philosophy of language pretty interesting I think. Thus understood, an investigation into language can be seen as guided by the following question:

What is a system of representations, generally speaking, and how does such a system work?

These are the primary issues which we’ll be concerned with in this course.