Professor: Sam Rickless
Office: Dodd 287
Office Tel: 644-0218
E-mail: srickles@mailer.fsu.edu
Office Hours: TBA.
 

Course Topics

 This course covers important issues of contemporary interest in the philosophy of language.  The central questions which will occupy us are these:

 (1) What is the nature of propositions (statements, assertions)?  Should propositions be identified with sentence-types,    sentence-tokens, utterance-types, utterance-tokens, acts of assertion, meanings of sentence-types, or none of the above?

 (2) Are propositions simple or complex, unstructured or structured?  Should propositions be identified with functions from possible worlds to truth-values?

 (3) If propositions are complex, how exactly are they structured?  In particular, for any given proposition, what is the nature of that proposition's constituents, and how are these constituents interrelated?

 (4) It appears that sentences are used to express propositions.  If a sentence S is used to express a proposition P, what is the nature of the relationship between S and P that accounts for the fact that S may be used to express P?  Do sentences have constituent structure?  If so, are sentences structurally isomorphic to the propositions that they may be used to express?

 (5) If sentences are structurally isomorphic to the propositions they may be used to express, then a certain correspondence obtains between the components of a sentence and the constituents of the proposition(s) that the sentence may be used to express.  In that case, what sorts of propositional constituents (if any) correspond to proper names?  Definite descriptions?  Indexicals?

 The bulk of the course will be spent considering and evaluating some of the answers that have been provided to the question(s) contained in (5).  In one way or another, all of the answers we will look at are inspired by the work of Gottlob Frege and Bertrand Russell.
 

Course Objectives

 To learn to recognize and evaluate arguments, to improve one's ability to think and write clearly and critically, to gain an appreciation of some classic and contemporary philosophical texts, and to acquire an understanding of the possible answers to some fundamental questions in the philosophy of language.
 

Course Units and Basic Texts
 

 1. What Propositions Are Not

  * Cartwright, R. 1962. "Propositions." In Philosophical Essays (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987), 33-53.
  * Stalnaker, R. 1976. "Propositions." In Issues in the Philosophy of Language,  ed. A. F. McKay and D. D. Merrill (New Haven: Yale University Press), 79-91.
 

 2. Frege and Russell

  * Frege, G. 1892. "On Sense and Nominatum." In The Philosophy of Language, 2nd Edition, edited by A.P. Martinich (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 190-202.
  * The Frege-Russell Correspondence. 10/20/1902-12/12/1904. In Gottlob Frege: Philosophical and Mathematical Correspondence, ed. G. Gabriel, H. Hermes, F. Kambartel, C. Thiel and A. Veraart, translated by H. Kaal (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980), 149-70.
   * Russell, B. 1905. "On Denoting." In Martinich, 203-11.
 

 3. Proper Names: Criticisms of Fregeanism

  * Searle, J. 1958. "Proper Names." In Martinich, 273-77.
  * Kripke, S. 1980. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press: 22-97.
  * Donnellan, K. 1970. "Proper Names and Identifying Descriptions." Synthese 21: 335-58.
 

 4. Proper Names: Criticisms of Russellianism

  A. Frege's Puzzle

   * Grice, P. 1975. "Logic and Conversation." In Martinich, 149-60.
   * Salmon, N. 1986. Frege's Puzzle. Atascadero: Ridgview Publishing Company.  Chapters 4-8.

  B. Vacuous Names

   * Donnellan, K. 1974. "Speaking of Nothing." Philosophical Review 83: 3-32.
   * Braun, D. 1993. "Empty Names." Noûs 27: 449-69.

  C. Intersubstitutivity

   * Kripke, S. 1979. "A Puzzle About Belief." In Meaning and Use, ed. A. Margalit (Dordrecht: Reidel), 239-83.
   * Donnellan, K. 1989. "Belief and the Identity of Reference." In Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XIV, ed. P. French, T. Uehling and H. Wettstein (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press), 275-88.
   * Taschek, W. 1988. "Would a Fregean be Puzzled by Pierre?" Mind 97: 99-104.
 

 5. Definite Descriptions

  * Strawson, P.F. 1950/1956. "On Referring." In Martinich, 219-34.
  * Donnellan, K. 1966. "Reference and Definite Descriptions." In Martinich, 235-47.
  * Kripke, S. 1977. "Speaker's Reference and Semantic Reference." In Martinich, 248-67.
  * Donnellan, K. 1978. "Speaker Reference, Descriptions, and Anaphora." In Contemporary Perspectives in the Philosophy of Language, ed. P. French, T. Uehling and H. Wettstein (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1979), 28-44.
  * Soames, S. 1994. "Donnellan's Referential/Attributive Distinction." Philosophical Studies 73: 149-68.
 

 6. Indexicals

  * Frege, G. 1918-19. "Thoughts." In Gottlob Frege: Collected Papers on Mathematics, Logic, and Philosophy, ed. B. McGuinness, trans. P. Geach and R. H. Stoothoff (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984), 351-72.
  * Perry, J. 1977. "Frege on Demonstratives." Philosophical Review 86: 474-97.
  * Kaplan, D. 1977. "Demonstratives: An Essay on the Semantics, Logic, Metaphysics, and Epistemology of Demonstratives and Other Indexicals." In Themes From Kaplan, ed. J. Almog, J. Perry and H. Wettstein (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 481-563.
  * Perry, J. 1979. "The Problem of the Essential Indexical." Noûs 13: 3-21.

Note: Some additional reading may be required or suggested.
 

Course Requirements and Grading Policy
 
 * Seminar attendance
 * 8 short (2-3 page) papers
 * 1 (possibly 2) seminar presentations
 * 1 short (2-3 page) proposal
 * 1 long (12-15 page) paper

 * Seminar attendance is mandatory. [If, by virtue of factors beyond your control, you cannot attend a particular seminar, you should inform me of the fact ahead of time.]

 * For the first eight weeks, you will be asked to write one short paper every week.  The paper should be given to me personally or placed in my mailbox no later than 5pm on the day before the next week's seminar.  The assigned paper will always pertain directly to the reading assignment for that week.
 
 * A schedule of presentations will be drawn up early in the course.  A presentation may, though it need not, be based on the short paper to be handed in the day before the presentation.  It is highly recommended that you arrange to meet with me to discuss any upcoming presentation.
 
 * A 2-3 page proposal for the long paper is due before 5pm on *TBA*.  You should arrange to meet with me to discuss your proposal.  If necessary, I will ask you to revise the proposal or submit a new one.
 
 * The proposal must be directly related to one or more of the Course Units described above, and should contain (at least) the following:
  (a) a list of the theses you plan to criticize/defend in the long paper
  (b) a description of the arguments you plan to use to support your position
  (c) a preliminary bibliography, with citations to the passages you plan to discuss

 * The long paper is due before 5pm on *TBA*.
 
 * The course grade will be largely determined by the grade for the long paper, but may go up or down slightly depending on the overall quality of the short papers and on whether the quality of the papers (short and long) improves or declines.
 

Notes

 - If accommodations are needed for a disability, please notify me as soon as possible.
 - The Academic Honor Code must be observed in this course.
 - The policies stated above are subject to change.