Inuzuka Skysword

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.

TheBig3

What?

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

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Astronomer

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.

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Inuzuka Skysword

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.

Astronomer

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.

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Inuzuka Skysword

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?

Classof75

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

Astronomer

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.

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cardboard adolescent

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

TheBig3

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.

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