İDB 408 LINGUISTIC PHILOSOPHY 2010/2011 Spring Term Instructor: Dr. Filiz Ç. Yıldırım

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 2

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. 3

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 4

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 5

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? 6

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. 7

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. 8

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 9

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. 10

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. 11

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. 12

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. 13

Analytic Philosophy Early analytic philosophy was concerned with propositions (Frege&Russell): Linguistic turn has begun. The emergence of linguistic philosophy (Strawson&Austin) 14

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 15

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 16

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 17

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 18

What comes next? Similar ideas in philosophy (Russell & Wittgenstein) The contribution of philosophical thinking to the current ideas about the grammar of natural language 19