Publications

Publication details [#7503]

Lycan, William G. 1999. Philosophy of Language: A Contemporary Introduction. London: Routledge. 264 pp.
Publication type
Book – monograph
Publication language
English
ISBN
0415171156

Abstract

'Philosophy of Language' introduces the student to the main issues and theories in twentieth-century philosophy of language. Topics are structured in three parts in the book. Part I, Reference and Referring Expressions, includes topics such as Russell's Theory of Desciptions, Donnellan's distinction, problems of anaphora, the description theory of proper names, Searle's cluster theory, and the causal-historical theory. Part II, Theories of Meaning, surveys the competing theories of linguistic meaning and compares their various advantages and liabilities. Part III, Pragmatics and Speech Acts, introduces the basic concepts of linguistic pragmatics, includes a detailed discussion of the problem of indirect force and surveys approaches to metaphor. (Publisher Book Description) 1. Introduction: meaning and reference Part I Reference and Referring 2. Definite descriptions 3. Proper names: the description theory 4. Proper names: Direct Reference and the Causal-Historical theory Part II Theories of Meaning 5. Traditional theories of meaning 6. "Use" theories 7. Psychological theories: Grice's program 8. Verificationism 9. Truth-Condition Theories: Davidson's program 10. Truth-Condition Theories: possible worlds and intensional semantics Part III Pragmatics and Speech Acts 11. Semantic pragmatics 12. Speech acts and illocutionary force 13. Implicative relations Part IV The Dark Side 14. Metaphor