Philosophy of Language

Recommended Prerequisites

Not applicable.

Teaching Methods

Teacher’s Lectures regarding the different topics.

Student’s presentations on specific aspects of the programme, according to a previous schedule.

Learning Outcomes

After the conclusion of the semester the students will be able to

1. Identify the main themes and problems of the contemporary Philosophy of Language;

2. Classify the themes and problems under specific authors and / or philosophical theories;

3. Interpret specific texts where it is possible to perceive the themes and problems of the contemporary Philosophy of Language;

4. Reflect in a personal way about the themes and problems studied during the semester.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

I – Discussion about the topics of “meaning” and “reference”

1. G. Frege

2. B. Russell

3. L. Wittgenstein

4. Some consequences of these conceptions in the contemporary Philosophical Semantics

II – Pragmatic interpretations of semantic problems: the case with L. Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations.

III – Semiotic Models: from C. S. Peirce to T. Sebeok.

IV – Hermeneutics and Philosophy of Language. 

Head Lecturer(s)

Edmundo Manuel Porém Balsemão Pires

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Exam: 100.0%

Bibliography

G. Frege, "On Sense and Reference" in A. W. Moore (ed.), Meaning and Reference,  Oxford, 1993, pp. 23-42

L. Wittgenstein, Notebooks 1914-1916, Oxford, 1961.

Idem, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, São Paulo, 1968.

Idem, Philosophical Investigations, G.E.M. Anscombe (trad.), Oxford, 1958.

C. S. Peirce, On a new List of Categories in C. S. Peirce, Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce edited by Ch. Hartshorne, P. Weiss and A. W. Burks, I-VIII, Cambridge, 1931-1958.

Idem, How to make our Ideas Clear in C. S. Peirce, Collected Papers

Idem, Letters to Lady Welby in C. S. Peirce, Collected Papers.

Thomas A. Sebeok, Signs. An Introduction to Semiotics, Toronto, Buffalo and London, 2001.

M. Heidegger, Being and Time, Basil Blackwell, 1962, 2005.