İDB 408 LINGUISTIC PHILOSOPHY

2010/2011 Spring Term

Instructor: Dr. Filiz Ç. Yıldırım

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What is Philosophy?

Philosophy : From Greek terms

Phileo : “I am searching”, and

Sophia: “Knowledge, wisdom”

Phileosophia: “The search for wisdom”Philosophy is a critical way of thinking:

Questioning on previously obtained information Philosophy provides essential knowledge for

reasoning on almost every discussion topic

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Emergence of Philosophy

Humanbeings are curious about their existence in the universe.

They ask questions about the universe and the position of entities in it.

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Topics of Philosophical Thought

What is the truth? Why do we define s.t. as true or false? → analytic/logical philosophy

Is the existence of knowledge possible? How do we know? What is the source of true knowledge? → epistemologic philosophy

Are there differences between wrong and right behaviours? How do we decide whether a behaviour is wrong or right? What is the source of morality? → ethical philosophy

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Topics of Philosophical Thought

What is reality? What is the nature of real things? Are there entities which exist independently of our perception? What are the concepts of time and space? What is the nature of thought? What is to be an individual? → metaphysical philosophy

How can we define ‘beauty’? What are the differences between beautiful things? Is the notion of ‘beauty’ relative? Are there any boundaries of ‘beauty’? → aesthetical philosophy

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Topics of Philosophical Thought

What is religion? Does God really exist? Is God an assumption arising from the fears of people? → teological philosophy

What kinds of relations are there between entities, time and space?

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Differences between Philosophy and Science

Their research topics may differ: Philosophy considers supernatural elements, but science

does not.

Their methods are different: Philosophy bases its conclusions on logical analyses, but

science bases them on facts. Philosophy takes all of the aspects of an entity into

consideration, but science considers only the parts which are related to the study subject.

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Differences between Philosophy and Science

Philosophy brings about subjective conclusions, but science the objective ones.

Science reaches to definite results, but philosophy reaches to indefinite results.

Philosophical knowledge seeks to find the core of an entity, but sciences do not take this into consideration.

Philosophical knowledge is common; it covers various facts from the same type. But science conducts studies on separate facts.

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Philosophy-Linguistics Connection

Anyone who is interested in linguistics will come across information originating from philosophy:

General philosophical issues, concepts and terms Ideas originating from seperate individuals or schools of

thought

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Philosophy-Linguistics Connection

It is not surprising to find philosophy in linguistics:

Linguistics has considered as a seperate field of study for the last hundred years.

The basis of present-day linguistic studies is grounded from the philosophical ideas which date from decades ago.

The basic questions about language were originally asked by philosophers.

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Philosophy-Linguistics Connection

These philosophy-based questions were about;

What language is, and What constitutes the nature of language and meaning.

Every scholar who sees language as the basis of human communication will encounter the mentioned questions about language.

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Philosophy-Linguistics Connection

Language is an important tool for a philosopher.

The discussions on philosophical methodology was about language itself in analytic philosophy: This was called as Meta-philosophy.

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Analytic Philosophy

There had been a great deal of development on analytic philosophy and linguistics during 20th century.

Analytic Philosophy: an approach to the subjects and problems of philosophy which relies on detailed analysis:

Complex notions are broken down into smaller components. So, a better understanding occurs.

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Analytic Philosophy

Early analytic philosophy was concerned with propositions (Frege&Russell):

Linguistic turn has begun. The emergence of ‘linguistic philosophy’

(Strawson&Austin)

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Continental Philosophy

The present-day literary criticism was introduced.

Rhetoric and argument had been debated on (Foucault, Lyotard&Derrida)

The idea of a fixed, certain meaning is rejected.

Interpretation and negotiation on language, The emergence of critical theories

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The Analytic Approach and The Present-day Linguistics

Natural language is an interesting and important study subject in its own right:

Describing natural languages

Only assumptions can be made on natural languages:

Generalisations will be controversial, Many differing ideas and opposing theories

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Natural Language

An analytic approach divides natural language in three parts:

Phonological Semantic Syntactic

Totally seperate and independent from each other × constitute the grammar of the language

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Grammatical Rules

Grammar is generative

Two types of grammatical rules: Generative rules: deep structures, semantics (logical

from) Transformational rules: surface structures, structure and

word order

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What comes next?

Similar ideas in philosophy (Russell & Wittgenstein)

The contribution of philosophical thinking to the current ideas about the grammar of natural language