Philosophy of Language
 

I have never really delved into philosophy of language. Since I have to write a research paper this year on anything, I decided I should probably look at some problems in the philosophy of language. Are there any big problems in this area of philosophy, and what philosophers should I be looking at if I want to look more into the philosophy of language.

What?

I love the topic, but this was vague and directionless.

Ah man I did HEAPS on the Philosophy of Language in my undergrad degree. Key theorists to read would perhaps be Michael Foucalt, Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida, Ferdinand De Saussure, and Martin Heidegger. But there are plenty others of course.

Do you know specifically what you're going to focus your research paper on? As Big3 said your question was kinda vague.

When I say "big problems" I mean topics in this area of philosophy which a lot of philosophers have covered because it is important. Whether we have free will or not can be considered a big problem in philosophy. So I want to research something like that, but in the philosophy of language.

Well a huge thing you could write about free will could be the idea that we are constrained by language; we can only express ourselves through the confines of language and so we are limited. Lots of theorists talk about this kinds of stuff, refer to the ones I posted up there ^^

Just read a lot of theorists works and you will be able to pick out problems with the philosophy yourself and get an idea of what it's all about. Either way it's a great topic to study, I know I really enjoyed it.

I will definitely look at those guys because they seem important. However, are there any older philosophers who discussed the topic? I notice most of the ones you posted are fairly new or 19th century. Were there any major philosophers before then that are pretty important in the realm of philosophy of language?

If you want to get really ancient, you could research some of Plato's writings. He talks a lot about what 'reality' is and how it is defined, he does theorise on a few concepts of language. Or maybe Joachim Du Dellay (hope that spelling is correct). I'm not THAT familiar with earlier philosophers, sorry. But anyway, good luck! I'm sure you will come across more people you can look into as you research.

big topics... the relation of language to reality... the meaning of meaning... is language innate? is the subconscious structured as language? those sorts of things. it's an old topic, but the 'linguistic turn' in philosophy is fairly recent... circa 1950's

Although you are writing a philosophy paper, I think you should include some biology into your study. After all, everything we are has roots in our biology and there are many interesting theories out there on where language comes from and how it's evolved. Furthermore, back in the olden days there was no distinction between biological studies and philosophy anyways.

Not knowing exactly what you're after, I'll just leave it at that for now, but just ask and I'll help you out if I can.

The main theme of my final english papers (on Ros and Guil are Dead) was exactly what Lateralus described, the constraints of language, the impossibility of any transcendental expression within a human construct. Then it sort of went off on a bunch of other tenuous tangents, but that was the main gist of it.

Anyway, I barely looked into it but it's a fascinating subject, enjoy your research.

Perhaps you could mention something about the primal non-spoken ways of communication such as body language or even more subtle. Sometimes you can have a dislike for someone without knowing why or vice versa or someone might come across as threatening or friendly before they've even turned their attention to you. There's attraction and the way we choose our partners for example .. Visual cues may lend insight into the fitness of the person you're looking at or smells may tell you if their immune system would complement your own if you were to have an offspring together.

A lot of our communication is non-verbal and even takes place in the subconcious.

And I'd argue that linguistics and post-modernist thought cover more about language than a direct topic of philosophy.

I'd argue that the philosophy of language is almost an impossible mountain to grapple with. Its the vehicle we use to convey ideas. In some ways the car defines itself but not really because its not sentient. So people subconciously build the car, and the the car determines through second hand creation, what it is not.

Again that brings it back to deconstructionalist thought. Studying the limitations of language is probably a very dry topic. And by your own discoveries you'd create your own shortcomings.

If you want my advice the outterspace of language (what it can't do) is less facinating than its innerspace (what you can do inside of a language). And seeing as you speak English, you're sitting at the top of an ever evolving, darwinian language that refuses to define itself, even as top scholars attempt to pin rules to it.

Join the "Death to the Apostrophe" movement, get drunk, and throw it into overdrive.

i think the 'outerspace' is slightly more interesting, though maybe not quite as interesting to talk about since you just end up babbling.

I guess thats why we occupy different disciplines. Poets and orators never cease to impress me with how the language can be crafted to deliver a point as sharp as a needle and as heavy as cannon fire.

Words have moved nations, wiped out races, healed ancient wounds, and prevented nuclear holocaust.

As Churchill once said (paraphrase) "you can deprive a man of his kingdom, his army, weapons, his friends, and his dignity, but if he can command language he's still as formiddable and as dangerous as before" (almost none of that carried over)

"we can only express ourselves through the confines of language" I think many people express themselves through art and music also.

art and music are also languages...

We keep studying this subject in school but I don't know why they keep forgetting about sign language. [it's like mutes don't communicate]

We had a chapter in school about "Philosophy and language", it was about the theories of philosophers before the 18th century ... that seemed useless. In means of language I feel Derrida is best.

What I always thought interesting is that sign language differs from country to country..the differences are actually more vast then dialect differences (say between British and American English..a person who uses American Sign language would not neccesarily be able to understand a person who uses British Sign language even though the spoken language is close enough to understand with few problems..a person from France is more likely to understand a person from Ireland rather than a person from England even though the spoken languages differ for another example).

Vygotsky (Vygotskij) is actually an interesting one to study when it comes to relations between language and thought if you are interested in that tract.