Philosophy of language

Course name: Philosophy of Language (PHIL 306-02) = 3 credits
Instructor's name: István Aranyosi. E-MAIL: aranyosi@bilkent.edu.tr 

Office location: FA 113A
COURSE SCHEDULE: Tuesday 16:40 – 19:30
PLACE: FEASS bldg., Rm. AZ-32B.
OFFICE HOURS: Monday 8:30 – 10:30.               

OBJECTIVE: To familiarize students with the main topics and debates in contemporary analytic philosophy of language.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS:

(a) Moodle activity (see the course page on Moodle)

(b) Powerpoint presentation

(c) A 1000-1500 word, essay on a topic of the student's choice (but from the set of topics we will have covered in the course).


GRADING: essay - 35%
                Moodle - 35%
                Powerpoint - 30%   

TEXTBOOK: we will use Language and Reality, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language, by

Michael Devitt and Kim Sterelny, MIT Press 1999.

OTHER MATERIAL: mostly online, see below.

READING AND TOPIC SCHEDULE:

Weeks:

1.      Introduction to notions of propositional and predicate logic. (video conference)

2.      Sense and reference (Gottlob Frege, “On sense and reference”, you will get the text by email). The notion of truth. (Ankara + Erzurum, face to face)

3.      Description theories of reference: Names (45-63 from D&S).(video conference)

4.      The causal theory of reference: Names (66 – 80 from D&S). (video conference)

5.      Reference of natural kind terms (83 – 92 from D&S). Externalism. (video conference)

6.      Powerpoint sessions (both groups in Ankara)     

7.       Verificationism (233-243 from D&S) (video conference)

8.    Quine on analyticity (V.W.O. Quine, “Two dogmas of empiricism”, online at http://www.ditext.com/quine/quine.html) (video conference)

9. Metaphor (Donald Davidson, “What metaphors mean”, http://www.jstor.org/view/00931896/ap040017/04a00050/0?frame=noframe&userID=8bb36e24@bilkent.edu.tr/01c0a8487200504a010&dpi=3&config=jstor) (video conference)

10. Powerpoint sessions (both groups in Ankara)

11. Language and mind: thought and language (135-153 from D&S) (video conference)

12.  Language and mind: Naturalized semantics (Barry Loewer, “A guide to naturalizing semantics”, http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/rules/papers/Loewer.pdf) (video conference)

      13.   Quine on the indeterminacy of translation (selections from Quine’s Word and Object - you will get a photocopy) (video conference)
 

14.  Linguistic competence (166-196 from D&S) (Ankara + Erzurum, face to face)

15.