The Philosophy of Language

First Southampton and Reading Joint MA Masterclass, and South West, and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership Information Session

Wednesday, 5th November 2014, 1-6pm

University of Southampton, Avenue Campus, LTB

Topic: The Philosophy of Language

Speakers: Emma Borg (Reading), Lee Walters (Southampton)

Emma Borg: ‘Exploding Explicatures’

Abstract:

A traditional (Gricean) view holds that there are two kinds of meaning making up the content of an utterance: what the sentence means and what the speaker conveys. This orthodox position has been rejected by views positing three kinds of meaning: what the sentence means, what the speaker asserts by their utterance (the ‘explicature’) and what she (merely) implicates. I critically examine the notion of an explicature, asking what pragmatic processes give rise to them and how they are supposed to be individuated. I suggest that the answers to these questions reveal that explicatures don’t actually exist (in any interesting sense) and thus that the Gricean view is to be preferred.

Lee Walters: 'Paris' has five letters: Reference to Types and Reference to Tokens.

Reference to types (or kinds) seems ubiquitous: when we say 'Paris' has five letters, or the tiger has four legs, or The Festive Overture is loud, we seem not to be talking about any particular inscription, cat, or performance, but rather about the word type, the species, and the musical work. This quick argument for realism about types has been resisted, however. First, it is claimed that all apparent reference to types can be eliminated in favour of quantifying over tokens (instances) of the type. Second, it is argued that this eliminativism is to be preferred since realism about types introduces a problematic ambiguity in the predicate 'is loud' because it allows that both works of music and individual performances can be loud.  I argue here that both claims are false. This still leaves open the question of whether we should take all apparent reference to types at face value, or whether some such talk is better thought of as quantifying over tokens.

We are delighted to be able to offer, together with our consortium partner, the University of Reading, 3rd year undergraduates and MA students the opportunity to attend a masterclass on the Philosophy of Language at the University of Southampton as well as an information session on AHRC applications and PhD study in general. Staff will be available throughout the day to answer queries of prospective applicants. THERE ARE 3-4 OPEN SLOTS FOR STUDENT PAPERS ON THE TOPIC OF THE MASTERCLASS broadly construed. Papers should be no longer than 2000 words and should be submitted by 24th October 2014 to the email address below.

REGISTRATION FOR THIS EVENT IS NOW OPEN. To register, please contact:

Dr Genia Schönbaumsfeld
Reader in Philosophy
Faculty of Humanities
University of Southampton
Highfield, Southampton, SO17 1BJ
Tel. 02380593552

[email protected]