Alfred Tarski: Philosophy of Language and Logic

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Patterson
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Alfred Tarski

Logic of language and philosophy of language in 20th-century Poland

1998 ◽  
Vol 25 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 163-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerzy Pelc
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Intentional Object ◽  
Alfred Tarski ◽  
Theory Of Meaning

Summary The logic of language and the philosophy of language in 20th-century Poland ran in two mainstreams, the so-called Lvov-Warsaw school and and that of phenomenological thought. The former was dominant, the latter was represented mainly by the work of Roman Ingarden (1903–1970). Among works of the Lvov-Warsaw school, the present paper considers the most important achievements of its founder, Kazimierz Twardowski (1866–1938), and the oldest generation of his disciples: Leśniewski (1886–1939), Kotarbiński (1886–1981), Ajdukiewicz (1890–1963), and Izydora Dąmbska (1904–1983), as well as Alfred Tarski (1902–1983) who, in philosophy, was a disciple of Jan Łukasiewicz (1878–1956), Leśniewski and Kotarbiński. The paper is limited to the discussion of the most important of their reflections on natural language, in particular to what is most characteristic of them: elaborated and deep analyses of semantic sections connected with epistemological ones, and pragmatic sections connected with psychological ones, all presented with great attention to clarity, precision and comprehensibility of formulations. Major semantic conceptions of Ingarden were also mentioned: the theory of meaning as a relation between an intending object and an intentional object, as well as semantic differences between a name, verb and sentence.

Language and Meaning in the Age of Modernism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James McElvenny
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Vienna Circle ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Personal Connection ◽  
International Language ◽  
Academic Philosophy ◽  
Significant Figures ◽  
Basic English ◽  
And Linguistics

This book is a historical study of influential currents in the philosophy of language and linguistics of the first half of the twentieth century, explored from the perspective of the English scholar C. K. Ogden (1889–1957). Although no ‘Great Man’ in his own right, Ogden had a personal connection, reflected in his work, to several of the most significant figures of the age. The background to the ideas espoused in Ogden’s book The Meaning of Meaning, co-authored with I.A. Richards (1893–1979), is examined in detail, along with the application of these ideas in his international language project Basic English. A richly interlaced network of connections is revealed between early analytic philosophy, semiotics and linguistics, all inevitably shaped by the contemporary cultural and political environment. In particular, significant interaction is shown between Ogden’s ideas, the varying versions of ‘logical atomism’ of Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) and Ludwig Wittgensten (1889–1951), Victoria Lady Welby’s (1837–1912) ‘significs’, and the philosophy and political activism of Otto Neurath (1882–1945) and Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970) of the Vienna Circle. Amid these interactions emerges a previously little known mutual exchange between the academic philosophy and linguistics of the period and the practically oriented efforts of the international language movement.

Aboutness

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Yablo
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Library Science ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Major Advance ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Made In

Aboutness has been studied from any number of angles. Brentano made it the defining feature of the mental. Phenomenologists try to pin down the aboutness features of particular mental states. Materialists sometimes claim to have grounded aboutness in natural regularities. Attempts have even been made, in library science and information theory, to operationalize the notion. However, it has played no real role in philosophical semantics, which is surprising. This is the first book to examine through a philosophical lens the role of subject matter in meaning. A long-standing tradition sees meaning as truth conditions, to be specified by listing the scenarios in which a sentence is true. Nothing is said about the principle of selection—about what in a scenario gets it onto the list. Subject matter is the missing link here. A sentence is true because of how matters stand where its subject matter is concerned. This book maintains that this is not just a feature of subject matter, but its essence. One indicates what a sentence is about by mapping out logical space according to its changing ways of being true or false. The notion of content that results—directed content—is brought to bear on a range of philosophical topics, including ontology, verisimilitude, knowledge, loose talk, assertive content, and philosophical methodology. The book represents a major advance in semantics and the philosophy of language.

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