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If you are looking for a comprehensive and exciting entry-level guidebook to the field of Philosophy of Language in contemporary Analytic Philosophy, look no further than Alexander Miller’s Philosophy of Language. Although it is by no means instantly accessible to most laypeople who are unfamiliar with basic propositional and symbolic logic, it is a very useful book for those who have done a module or two on the Philosophy of Language and are eager to find out more about recent research.

 

Starting with an introduction of Frege’s Logic in the simplest terms, Miller offers insights into the creation of one of the founding fathers of Analytic Philosophy. He patiently goes through the different logical expressions – sentential connectives, variables and quantifiers. At the same time, he also clearly distinguishes the demarcation between types of syntax like the sentential connectives (“or”, “v”, “->” etc.) and sentential constants (“P”, “Q”, “R” etc.) By going through these concepts slowly, Miller gives the unaided and uninitiated time to catch up before he dives into Frege’s more substantive conceptual ideas. The first two chapters are dedicated mostly to Frege, although Russell is featured slightly in Chapter 2. In Chapter 2, Miller offers readers the bulk of Frege’s famous ideas such as the notion of sense and reference/semantic value. Issues of bearerless names (Chapter 2.1.1), the problem of substitution in belief contexts (Chapter 2.1.2) and the problem of informativeness (Chapter 2.1.3) are also featured one by one and in a consecutive manner. This provides a coagulated whole that is easy to follow and answers any questions one might have in advance. The issue of sense is also given a very detailed treatment, stretching all the way from the first chapter to the last one. In particular, Miller starts by talking about Locke’s insights into thought and meaning of expressions and contrasts this with Frege’s own ideas, thereby introducing the whole philosophical problem regarding the link between thought and language – Intentionality

 

 Words, in their primary or immediate signification, stand for nothing but the ideas in the mind of him that uses them

-Locke, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, III, ii, 2.

 

After looking at Frege’s attempt to systemise our understanding of natural language as well as Russell’s own treatment, Miller continues to talk about the evolution of the field from the early 20th century onwards. Beginning with the Logical Positivists and Wittgenstein, the issue of meaning is given a fresh treatment. The Vienna Circle, ancestors of Logical Positivism, held meaning to such an esteemed degree that they thought that any meaningful statements that could be expressed in our language had to match the world in one way or another. In other words, they were Semantic Literalists to varying degrees. Meanwhile, one of the thinkers closely associated with the movement, Ludwig Wittgenstein, is introduced here. Miller writes, “The Tractatus can thus be viewed as attempting to formulate a test for the meaningfulness of an apparent species of statement, and under the influence of the Tractatus, the theory of meaning was central to the concerns of the Vienna Circle”[^1] After which, much effort is spent detailing the different take on the Verification Principle, notably by A.J. Ayer and the very tough treatment by John Forster. Other thinkers like Carnap and Quine are subsequently introduced. Needless to say, the discussion in Quine’s famous paper, Two Dogmas of Empiricism”, was featured while Carnap’s “Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology” was also discussed. Personally, I find Miller’s explanations of the ideas contained in both of these influential articles to be lucid and interesting. Furthermore, I find Carnap’s original ideas to be very insightful and revolutionary. The notion of internal and external questions offers potential rejoinders to the debate about the existence of Chalmer’s [Hard Problem of Consciousness] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness).

[^1]: Miller, Philosophy of Language, P. 115

 

Following a discussion on the productive endeavour of systemising meaning, a discussion regarding the scepticism of sense and meaning ensues. It is as Miller describes – a “more negative outlook on meaning”[^2] Quine’s ideas are explored at the outset followed by explication of his ideas by other philosophers like Gareth Evans and Christopher Hookway. In Chapter 5 and 6, Kripke’s Rule-Following Paradox is discussed and numerous other contemporary solutions to the paradox are offered. A factualist interpretation of Kripke’s Wittgenstein is also offered, explaining the idea that meaning does have truth conditions but not the kind that is undermined by the paradox. The views belonging to this new school of thought discussed by Miller is those of George Wilson (See Wilson, Kripke on Wittgenstein on Normativity) Subsequently, the game is switched, and Grice’s Pragmatics is introduced, alongside with Austin’s influential Speech Acts Theory. At this point, Miller notes down a useful distinction that was coined by Peter Strawson. In the debate within the Philosophy of Language about what meaning is, Strawson designates philosophers like Grice, Austin and the later Wittgenstein as “theorists of communication-intention” and Frege and the others as “truth-conditionals theorists”.

 

The last two chapters focus on the system of meaning initiated by Donald Davidson and the relation of language to the sub-field of Metaphysics. Davidson relies on the Tarskian theory of truth as a theory for the meaning of natural languages. As for Metaphysics, the literalist project launched by the Logical Positivist and Wittgenstein’s extreme Literalism spelled the death of Metaphysics as the fundamental project of Philosophy. (Although this endeavour was similarly tackled by David Hume in the 19th century, it was rebutted by Kant and following that, Hegel and the other idealists. For more information on this, see Michael Morris “Metaphysics, Philosophy and the Philosophy of Language“) Hence, dwelling in Metaphysics required an almost indispensable recourse to language. The field of Meta-Ethics was also touched upon briefly, especially with the ontology of moral facts and non-cognitivism in general, followed by the Frege-Geach problem and Putnam’s famous Twin Earth thought-experiment.

 

Overall, this is an informative book for anyone who is interested in contemporary research in the Philosophy of Language in Analytic Philosophy and the motivation to undertake further research from reading Miller’s book is guaranteed.

           By Cheong Kwang Aik Eldrick, ReadNUS Events Team member

           [^2]: Miller, Philosophy of Language, P. 115