Reference is a central topic in the philosophy of language, linguistic semantics, and related areas of philosophy and linguistics. This textbook offers an up-to-date introduction to key debates about reference. While comprehensive in approach, it is written for students and does not assume any prior training in philosophy of language.
Seminar paper from the year 2022 in the subject Philosophy - Theoretical (Realisation, Science, Logic, Language), grade: 1,0, University of Luxembourg, language: English, abstract: While talking to someone, both may be speaking of the same thing, without realizing that they are doing so. When I am talking about the Morning Star, and someone else is talking about the Evening Star, are we both talking about the same thing? Or are we talking about two different things, as we are using different names for the thing we are talking about? To start an analysis on this topic, this paper will elaborate Frege’s Puzzle’s, which he introduces at the beginning of "On sense and reference". He talks about two puzzles, one concerning identity statements, and the other, concerning propositional attitude reports. As he himself elaborates those puzzles, he will also try to find the solution to those puzzles. To understand his solution to the Puzzles, I will elaborate his solutions, giving various definitions, which are necessary to have a great understanding of what is being argued for. While his first puzzle is especially based on proper names, his second puzzle, will concern entire declarative sentences and forms of argumentation. After having a clear understanding of what the problem with identity is, and how Frege claims to have solved it, we will see how one could oppose to Frege’s resolution to the puzzle. Analyzing multiple reproaches, would go beyond the scope of this paper. Therefore, we will only focus on a claim stated by Glezako Stravoula, saying that Frege started his argumentation wrong, by supposing that a=a can be known a priori.
Original papers by leading international authors address the most important problem in the philosophy of language, the question of how to assess the prospects of developing a tenable theory of meaning, given the influential sceptical attacks mounted against the concept of meaning by Willard Van Quine and Saul Kripke and their adherents in particular. Thus the texts attempt to answer the fundamental questions – of whether there are meanings, and, if there are, of what they are and of the form a serious philosophical theory of meaning should take.
This book offers an innovative systematic approach to the problems of meaning, reference and related issues, unifying in promising ways some of the best insights, not only of exponential philosophers like Wittgenstein and Frege, but also of some influential later theorists like Michael Dummett, Ernst Tugendhat, John Searle and Donald Williams. Moreover, it exposes some main errors popularized by clever formalist-oriented philosophers, from Willard Van Orman Quine to Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam. In this way, it shows how some older major approaches could regain their central importance and how the cartography of philosophy of language could be once more redrawn. The book is clearly written, and will be of interest to anyone with basic training in analytic philosophy.
The relationship between thought, language, and the world is an intimate one. When we have an idea or thought about the world and we wish to express that idea or thought to others we utter a sentence or make a statement. If the statement correctly describes the world then it is true. Moreover, it seems as though our ability to have more complex or sophisticated thoughts about the world increases as the complexity of our language or our ability to use the language increases. Understanding the complex relationship between language, thought, and the world is one of the central aims of philosophy. This book is an attempt to increase our understanding of this complex relationship by focusing on certain philosophical issues that arise from our ability to refer to objects in the world though the use of language. In particular, it is an attempt to solve the puzzles of reference and belief that Frege and Russell presented within the context of a theory of direct reference for proper names.
Charles Chihara's new book develops and defends a structural view of the nature of mathematics, and uses it to explain a number of striking features of mathematics that have puzzled philosophers for centuries. The view is used to show that, in order to understand how mathematical systems are applied in science and everyday life, it is not necessary to assume that its theorems either presuppose mathematical objects or are even true. Chihara builds upon his previous work, in which he presented a new system of mathematics, the constructibility theory, which did not make reference to, or presuppose, mathematical objects. Now he develops the project further by analysing mathematical systems currently used by scientists to show how such systems are compatible with this nominalistic outlook. He advances several new ways of undermining the heavily discussed indispensability argument for the existence of mathematical objects made famous by Willard Quine and Hilary Putnam. And Chihara presents a rationale for the nominalistic outlook that is quite different from those generally put forward, which he maintains have led to serious misunderstandings. A Structural Account of Mathematics will be required reading for anyone working in this field.
This book presents serious mathematical and algorithmic puzzles that are mostly counterintuitive. The presented puzzles are simultaneously entertaining, challenging, intriguing, and haunting. This book introduces its readers to counterintuitive mathematical ideas and revolutionary algorithmic insights from a wide variety of topics. The presented solutions that are discovered by many mathematicians and computer scientists are highly counterintuitive and show supreme mathematical beauty. These counterintuitive solutions are intriguing to the degree that they shatter our preconceived notions, shake our long-held belief systems, debunk our fundamental intuitions, and finally rob us of sleep and haunt us for a lifetime. Multiple ways of attacking the same puzzle are presented which teach the application of elegant problem-solving strategies.
Producing a book of his magnitude is a daunting task. This one took parts of many years. Here are vast array of puzzle types for your solving pleasure. Great care was taken to assure its contents agree with the text from man's greatest book...God's Holy Bible. Every chapter from the entire King James version of the Bible is represented here with a various type of puzzle. Men can work together to build great cities, but if their own personal life is not built on God's Word, then it likely will crumble and fall apart.