Philosophy of Language: A Short Introduction | Epistemology & Semantics

[00:00:03]welcome to the last week of philosophy 100 uh this week there are no let see there's a quiz that covers material from um last week from philosophy of mind uh but there's not going to be any more uh readings or any more quizzes uh after this week um there is a uh final um extra credit piece of homework uh that if you want to um try to improve your grade feel free to write uh out that and then hopefully I'll have everybody's grades from the third paper uh posted soon enough all right so uh for this week uh we're going to be discussing the philosophy of language and my plan is to give you this short uh little lecture uh hopefully you'll have the chance to watch it I want to keep it short and sweet so that people will watch it and then you can show up if you would like on Friday uh at 2m I'll be having a live lecture once again uh like I did last week uh to discuss some more issues in the philosophy of language and just celebrate the end of the term all right so uh here we go philosophy of language a very short introduction so um you might think well what the heck is the philosophy of language um and uh to sort of get you uh in the mindset for what philosophy of language studies I just want you to think about a couple of these questions have you ever uh questioned what exactly it is that words mean I mean obviously words have meanings and the meanings seem pretty clear to us right we understand words but what the heck is a meaning anyways like what is it for a word which is some kind of uh you know thing that is uttered or written down it's kind of got a shape or a sound right um what is it for a word for a shape or a sound to have a meaning and you know how in what way does the Meaning go beyond the shape and the sound um how exactly does communication happen right so uh when I'm talking through this you know computer recording and this video you are understanding uh the words that I'm saying how the heck does that work right I mean I'm just making sounds over here um but somehow you are picking up those sounds and organizing them in such a way that you understand everything that I am saying it's not like I have a direct link between my brain and your brain that somehow is beaming things in there um no you just you you know uh English and I am speaking English and somehow um you are able to understand uh English words um what is truth what is truth what is falsity what is it what is it for a sentence to be true or a theory to be true um these are issues uh that philosophers of language actually uh think a lot about right because um whatever truth is whatever really is true uh it has to do with uh language it has to do with you know what's going on when a statement or an utterance or a belief of some sort is actually correct or incorrect uh and Fin and then also uh not finally but just you know one among many things what is logic what is it for um something to be logical what is it for a Ser like a set of sentences to be an argument that works in a logical way that is logically valid or logically sound um what exactly goes on when we're reasoning about things uh in particular ways uh what is the difference between good reasoning and bad reasoning when it comes to reasoning using language right you reasoning using uh arguments reasoning using sentences philosophers of language uh tend to study all of these things and they do it by doing some of these things here right so what do philosophers of language do um well sometimes they break sentences and words down into their meaningful parts and then try to give theories about those meaningful Parts about how those meaningful Parts hang together about how across a language things of certain sorts mean different kinds of things and what uh goes into those things Al together that like how you get the meanings of uh words making up the meanings of sentences right if you've got a sentence that's got a bunch of different words it seems like so all of the words have their own meanings but um each of the words go together in a way and combine into the sentence and then the sentence itself has this larger meaning right so the word means something and then the sentence means something bigger uh and the the the sentence meaning is somehow made up of the word meanings um philosophers of language tend to give Theory of the different levels of uh meaning in language that is the syntax the semantics and the pragmatics of language a syntax has something to do with um basically like grammar uh what kinds of sentences are correct and what kinds of sentences are incorrect what kinds of orderings of words are correct and what kinds of orderings of words are incorrect so here's like a really funny example um you totally understand the sentence the cat is on the mat uh as a correct order ing of the words the cat is uh on and Matt um but if I say it this way Kata the on is mat the you're gonna be like what it's confusing uh the sentence doesn't sound right um however I used exactly the same words right I used uh only the same words that are you know in the correct order in the cat is on the mat but I put them in the wrong order and so when I put put them in the wrong order you have this sort of like automatic response like hey that's not a right sentence that sentence isn't correct that's not an English sentence well why isn't it an English sentence even though it's got a bunch of English words in it um and the reason is because the syntax is all wrong the there's a specific ordering that goes on uh in English sentences and you have to follow that ordering otherwise you're speaking incorrectly you're not speaking English right uh semantics is classically speaking the theory of the meanings of words like so what when when somebody says oh that's just semantics usually that means oh the people are just arguing about the meanings of the terms that they're using uh and pragmatics is another kind of theory of meaning that goes beyond semantics and syntax pragmatics has more to do with things like um B you know sometimes uh uh body language or like emphasis so uh if you say something with a particular amount of emphasis on a word then often times you know the word that you express has the same meaning as always but the emphasis allows the uh hearer to to sort of infer some further meaning so uh take for example um the sentence uh uh Harry and Sally um got married and had a baby um or uh Harry and Sally had a baby and got married right um you take that sentence uh actually those two sentences they basically mean the same thing Harry and Sally uh got married and had a baby Harry and Sally had a baby and got married it just tells you that they got married and that they had a baby um but if I order it in the right way and then I put emphasis in the right way it sort of tells you something else right Harry and Sally had a baby and got married um that sort of tells you right like I didn't say any I didn't add any information I just put weird emphasis on on on the sentence um and it tells you something like I disapprove of the fact that uh and maybe this is information encoded in this that they uh that they got pregnant and then had a baby before they got married right now hopefully you know nobody worries too much about that uh anymore these days except for certain religious groups um but yeah uh that kind of information can be you know inferred and you can pick up on that information through uh uh a kind of meaning that is often called pragmatic meaning philosophers of language also argue about what particular words uh mean and then when two words or phrases actually have the same meaning that is that they're synonyms um and they also like to think about the relationships between uh language and things like knowledge or power structures uh mental representations and metaphysical facts so um uh it's it's interesting to to worry about um the relationship between language and knowledge recently people worry a lot about the relationship between language and power structures like how um slurs work when you when you talk down to somebody or or or make fun of them or say something bad about them um uh there's lots of interesting issues in the philos of language that relate to all these today though uh what I'm going to give you is just really a quick rundown on what you might think of as the simplest theory in the philosophy of language um and a good reason to think think that it's wrong and then we'll talk even more about it next time so um what is a theory of the philosophy of language well here's a theory um a theory of the meanings of words right so this is like the simplest Theory you could possibly imagine if you were looking at sentences and words and you were asking yourself what the heck does that word mean and you were like okay I'm going to give a theory that that covers all words in the entire English language just because you know we're just focusing English here um and we're going to and I'm going to give you a theory about what they all mean maybe uh the first thing that you jump to would be okay well what a word means is just what a word stands for or what a word refers to the meaning of a word is just the thing the object or the property of the speaker or of the language means to be referring to or expressing so you could say okay well okay so like when I'm talking about my cat um when I say the cat uh the thing that I'm referring to is the cat and so the meaning of the phrase the cat here in quotes is just my cat right um or the phrase uh the the the name Donald Trump right the meaning of the name Donald Trump right we're talking about the the the name now in the quotes we're not talking about the person but the meaning of the name just is the person right he got named that name and and so um when we're talking about uh him we can use that name to talk about him and so the meaning of the name is just the individual ual similarly with you know the color red the word red uh when I talk about it uh you know when I talk about red when I talk about the color red I use the word red and the word red maybe just means the color red right that's just what the word red means that's just its meaning uh it's the thing that it stands for it's the color pretty simple pretty straightforward seems plausible enough as a theory right um one thing worth being clear here on is that the theory is not subjective but in subjective um what do I mean by Inner subjective well the word meanings the meanings of words do not depend on individuals that is they don't depend on what just some individual thinks that they mean when they are using a word right um no it depends on a group of individuals it depends on a whole bunch of individuals that are you know in a sort of agreement about what a word means you can't really get a word meaning uh you can't just sort of make up your own meanings to words right you have to actually get somebody else uh to agree to use a word in the same way that you're using it before you can even use the word in the right way to get to have that meaning right otherwise like you couldn't even you couldn't say that word with someone and have them understand what it is that you're trying to say um so for an example that you know different groups of individuals have control over the different meanings of words in particular languages um the word rot uh means one very different thing in English than it means in German in English you know rot is related to rotting and you know fruit vegetables Meats going bad whereas in German the word rot just means red right it means it means what we mean when we say the word red it it means the color red um so languages are a public thing uh and inner subjectivity is sort of like you know languages aren't objective they're not things that exist apart from human beings human beings invented languages and we go around changing the language all the time right we invent new words or start to mean new things by with different words but the thing is that they have to the you know when we mean a new thing with a we when we change a word meaning it has to catch on among the society otherwise it's not going to go anywhere so that that creates what's called inner subjectivity which means that you know um word meanings depend upon on all of us but they don't depend upon any individual one of us word meanings uh I mean yeah and languages in the end they are public things right they're things that are spoken and um messed with in in in the the Public Square um as well as the meanings uh of those languages this adds a little bit of a complication right so you might think like okay well what's the meaning of a word like how do you go about finding out the meaning of a word well you go and you find a dictionary right you go and you look in a dictionary and the dictionary tells you the meaning of a word well how does how do um dictionaries get made well actually people that make dictionaries they go around uh asking individuals what they think uh word meaning words mean so they actually like you know go and do the the inner subjective uh uh evidence Gathering they go and ask a bunch of people what do you think this word means and then you know they write down the answer and then they take um the most common responses and compile them in certain ways into dictionaries and then that's how you get a dictionary right so um why aren't the meanings of words just their dictionary definitions well um one thing that's at least initially a problem is that that doesn't really explain to us what a meaning is right um what is a dictionary definition well a dictionary definition is just more words right you you look in a dictionary you don't find the meaning of a word you find more words um more words well that doesn't give you a a meaning that just gives you more words so it seems like we've got a problem there similarly in some dictionary definitions they don't even give you the meaning they just send you to another word that supposedly has the same meaning um but that's not even always the case so um what what's this issue here well with with dictionaries and dictionary definitions we can't just have the meanings of Words Be dictionary definitions because you sort of already need to understand some basic words that are used in dictionary definitions in order to even start to understand dictionary definitions right so Dictionary d definitions or dictionary meanings cannot really be the end all be all for the matter of word meanings there's got to be some more underlying basic word meanings that you already know and that you if you already know those then you can come to understand the meanings of uh definitions in the dictionary so um what kinds of things are those more basic word meanings well you might think as the naive Theory says well it's just whatever those things refer to right and and that's really obvious right so that's in a in a way that's how we learn language as children right um or how you learn a language when somebody is teaching you a new language they say a word to you and then they point at the thing that the word refers to so you know you say uh Kyle and you point at me you say Donald Trump and you point at Donald Trump you say kitty cat and you point at the kitty cat right um that's how people pick up on language that's how they learn them so maybe you know the meaning of the word is just the thing that the word refers to and then if you get enough of those and you come to recognize enough of those then maybe you can get up to the level of a dictionary definition or dictionary meaning so this leads us back to the Simple Theory the naive Theory the meaning of a word or a phrase is just what it refers to in the language being spoken right so we've got you know the phrase uh the president of the United States that just refers to Donald Trump and so the meaning of the phrase just is Donald Trump right um or the next president of the United States that phrase refers to Joe Biden and so maybe it just means Joe Biden that's what the meaning of the phrase is and then you know the professor of philosophy 100 is me Kyle so uh maybe the meaning of that phrase just is me is this right is this just what meanings amount to is this do meaning just a form of reference well there's a couple of problems and I'll uh the the first one I think is manageable the second one is very difficult um and so uh let's jump into them well the first kinds of problems that there are are are things like predicates and logical symbols um and it becomes a little bit more obvious when you start looking at examples so if you take a sentence like all dogs are mammals um what does the phrase our mammals mean um in this sentence it's the predicate of the sentence right we've we got the subject all dogs and the predicate are mammals uh and it predicates being a mammal of all dogs but is there something that the phrase R mammals refers to as the naive Theory suggests uh the naive Theory remember says that uh the meaning of a word is just what it refers to does our mammals refer to anything uh not obviously so what in the world could a sentence predicate refer to right what what could a sentence uh what could the predicate of a sentence actually stand for in any real sense right here's a list of predicates right are mammals or is red or hates broccoli um all of these things are you know they're often in sentences as the kinds of things that follow a subject and um if they are meaningful then it seems like they've got to you know be standing for something if the naive theory is right so uh the naive Theory can say okay well how about let's just say that the property that's being expressed of the things being predicated of is the thing that these phrases you know refer to or mean so our mammals expresses the property of being a mammal is red expresses the property of being breed hates broccoli expresses the property of hating broccoli uh doesn't that does that solve our problem um yeah maybe we can we can we can try it we can try it out for now um and so now if we take these two kind of parts of our Theory right that that um phrases that like refer to people uh it just the meaning is just the individual and uh uh predicates the the second half of sentences usually um those just Express properties uh they refer to properties that are being predicated of individuals and then now we can get uh what the meanings of sentences are right the meanings of sentences the whole the meaning of whole sentence often called a proposition or a statement um is you know so we've got a sentence the sentences are subject predicate and subject sentences have uh meanings and the meanings involve the objects being referred to and the properties being predicated of those objects and that's just what a proposition is right so the idea here is like you know a sentence like the president lost the election um basically the meaning of that sentence is just you know Donald Trump and the property of having lost the election right so and that's just what's going on there right we've got the phrase the president that refers to Donald Trump and we've got the property we've got the predicate uh lost the election which refers to the property of having lost the election and that sentence is true just in case Donald Trump uh has the property of having lost the election which he he does so because Donald Trump lost the election uh the sentence is true because of what it means right it means that Donald Trump lost the election and so um uh or that Donald Trump has the property of losing the election and he does have that property and so now we've got a true sentence right it would be false if we did something else right suppose the sentence said um that the next president uh of the United States lost the election well that wouldn't really make a whole lot of sense but yeah sort if we said Joe Biden lost the election then the sentence the proposition expressed would be Joe Biden and the property of having lost the election but that would be a false sentence why because Joe Biden doesn't have that property that's how you know you get sentences that have meaning sometimes that are true and sometimes that are false similarly here right uh really even maybe simp example the apple is red the phrase the Apple refers to you know the Apple that's in front of you hopefully um and is red uh refers to the property of redness and so the meaning of the phrase uh the sentence the apple is red just is um these two things you know the apple and the property of redness I use these little side uh Corners to uh indicate that that we're talking about the meaning of a sentence all right so now on to the bigger problem with the naive Theory um the bigger problem is uh pretty difficult to deal with and because it's so difficult we're going to turn to Superman now actually uh Superman is is the problem for for the naive Theory uh at least you know he's one of them there's lots of uh issues with similar people and you'll see why in in a second so um so we turned to Superman we turn to the story of Superman hopefully you know at least a little bit about the story of Superman um and here's sort of the the basic things that you probably need to know right um we know that Superman is Clark Kent uh we know that Superman can fly um that doesn't actually matter that much right now but it may it may later um we know that Clark Kent is the mild mannered reporter uh at uh you know the daily planet um and we know that Lois Lane is in love with Superman and that Lois Lane does not know that Clark Kent is Superman right um that's part of the whole story Superman saves the day saves close lane and but you know he before he did that he he jumped into uh an old phone booth and changed into a Superman costume all right so why is this a problem well the naive theory has this problem uh because of this kind of issue right so according to the naive Theory take this sentence Clark Clark Kent is identical with uh or identical to the mild mannered reporter of the Daily Planet he is right that's true that sentence is true Clark Kent is identical with the mild man reporter of the Daily Planet now the proposition that is expressed by that sentence is Clark Kent the property of being identical to and Clark Kent right why because um the identity gives you a predicate but um the mild mannered reporter at the the on the right hand side of the sentence just refers again to Clark Kent right so we've got Clark Kent we've got the predicate of being identical to which is a kind of relational predicate it relates to things it's like saying to the right of or to the left of of right it just um you put two different uh subjects into the sentence and then you've got um you know the predicate being the thing that relates the two subjects so here we've got again Clark Kent the property of identity and Clark Kent because in the first case we've just got the the name Clark Kent and in the second case we've got the mild manner reporter which just refers to Clark Kent all right now why is this a problem well because actually the phrase Clark Kent is identical to the mannered reporter um according to the naive theory has the same meaning as the phrase Superman is identical to the only Earthbound Kryptonian it's also uh basically uh what is it it means the same thing as you know Superman is uh the only person that can fly Superman is the you know alien loved by Lois Lane is identical with Superman or or Clark Kent is Superman um so on and so forth like all of these sentences actually say exactly the same thing according to the naive Theory why well because the uh you know the the meaning of each of these phrases you know where you've got the word Superman or you've got the word Clark Kent or you've got the phrase um the mild mannered reporter or the the man that's faster than the speeding bullet and can t leap tall buildings and um you know outrun a locomotive or whatever um each of those phrases just refers to Clark Kent or Superman or whoever you know whatever you think is his official oh Cel right that's his initial name at the beginning of the story of Superman um it just refers to that guy and so if the meaning is just that guy then you know that's just what the proposition expresses it just says that that guy Clark Kent uh is you know has the property of identity is identical with Clark Kent right that's what that says so why again is this a problem well oh whoops I forgot to change this sorry um if the phrase you know the uh only Earthbound Kryptonian and the phrase the mild maned reporter have the same meaning we run into a problem actually we don't even have to worry about that let's just say if if the phrase if the word the name Clark Kent and the name Superman have the same uh meaning then we run into a problem and here's why look at this sentence sentence one Lois Lane believes that Clark Kent is the mild man of reporter that is true but what about sentence two Lois Lane believes that Superman is the mild mannered reporter well given the setup one is clearly true but two two seems like it's got to be false right two must be false because Lois Lane you know doesn't believe that Superman is Clark Kent she doesn't believe that Superman is a mild mannered reporter so so the issue though here is between one and two the only thing that we've switched is the name Superman and the name Clark Kent and hopefully this is starting to lead you to see why this is a problem for the naive Theory this is a problem because if the names mean the same thing that is if they mean the same exact guy then the two sentences should have exactly the same meaning let's go back Lois Lane believes that Clark is the mild red reporter Lois Lane believes that Superman is the mild red reporter there are no differences between these two sentences other than the name Lois l or Clark Kent and the name Superman um so the two sentences according to the naive Theory should have the same meaning right because all all that we've swapped out is a name for the same guy and the the the name is the thing that refers to that guy the issue though is if the two sentences have the same meaning then they should definitely have the same truth value right I mean if you say the same thing twice if you have two sentences with the same meaning and one of them is true it can't be that you know uh that the next the next one is false if if two sentences mean the same thing if they mean the same thing then they've got a if one is true then the other one's true if one is false then the other one's false it can't be that you have two sentences with the same meaning and one's true and one's false that would be crazy uh in any case the V like you just you don't have actually have sentences of the same meaning so if one is true and two is false false then what does that tell us well it tells us that it can't be the case that they actually that these two sentences actually mean the same thing they must not in fact mean the same thing so let's look at this again Lois Lane believes that Clark Kent is mild maned reporter Lois Lane believes that Superman is the mild mannered reporter the only difference between sentence one and sentence two is the name used in the middle right Clark Kent and Superman but the name used is a name for the same person right clerk Kent is a name for clerk Kent and Superman is a name for clerk Kent um it's the same guy different names the names refer to the same person uh and so on the naive Theory uh the meaning of the word is just what it refers to so uh the sentence uh the meaning of sentence one and the meaning of sentence two should be the same right that can't be right however because the sentences have different truth values if the senten have different truth values um but they mean the same thing then something has gone wrong if if the KN theory is true and sentences one and two have the same meaning then they should have the same truth value but if we reject that sentences one and two have the same truth value if we say no look sentence one is true but sentence two is false we thereby um uh have to reject that these two sentences have the same meaning and if we reject that these two sentences have the same meaning we have to reject the naive theory meaning that we have to reject the idea that what a word means is just what a word refers to we have to say ah actually words have meanings that are not just what they refer to there's something more to the word's meaning than what it is that the word refers to words or phrases can refer in this case to the same thing without having the same meaning and that would be basically what we have to say about sentence one and sentence two we have to say ultimately that the the name Clark Kent and the name Superman do not share a meaning they might share a reference they refer to the same guy but they mean different things and in a sense that kind of makes sense right like if you think about it um when you think about Clark Kent when you think about the meaning of the name Clark Ken you think about this you know guy wearing glasses in a suit that's hanging out at the Daily Planet as you know a reporter waiting for some disaster to strike and when you think about the name Superman you think you know oh you know you're concept of Superman you've got the guy in the cape with the red and the blue and he's flying around and he's saving Lois Lane and saving the world right so if you think about meanings along those lines as more like related to your concept of the individual then it seems clear as day that these two names have different meanings but that's not what the naive Theory said initially right the naive Theory wasn't talking about Concepts at all the naive theory was saying the the the meaning of a name or the meaning of a word is actually just what that what that word refers to not the concept of the thing that the word refers to so on this View and and if if we follow everything that has been uh talked about here what we've now shown is that the naive theory of uh of of meaning the naive theory of word meanings is actually wrong can't be that the meaning of a word is just what the word refers to it's got to be something other than what the word refers to um maybe something like the concept uh that is associated with the word uh in particular all right that wraps things up for this uh short uh introduction introductory lecture to uh an issue in the philosophy of language we're going to talk more about this um in the next class and talk a little bit I think in the live class about the nature of belief and what the word believes means all right uh have a great final week uh I hope you have uh good luck on your final exams that you have um be sure to take the final quiz on the philosophy of mind um and again if you uh would like to feel free to work on um work on your uh extra credit writing assignment that will be due uh next Monday uh and must be there are no um extensions on the extra credit assignment because um grades are due uh in the middle of next week so be sure if you're going to write the extra credit writing assignment that you have it turned in by Monday