Introduction: Why Language Matters
Philosophy of Language is not the study of linguistics or grammar. Instead, it asks: How do marks on a page or sounds from a throat come to mean something? How does language relate to the world?
In the early 20th century, many philosophers (like Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein) believed that most philosophical problems were actually just “language muddles.” If we could just understand how language actually works, they thought, we could “solve” philosophy once and for all. This was called the “Linguistic Turn.”
Sense and Reference (Gottlob Frege)
Gottlob Frege, the father of modern logic, introduced a crucial distinction that solved a long-standing puzzle.
Consider the terms “The Morning Star” and “The Evening Star.” We now know they both refer to the planet Venus.
- If we say “The Morning Star is the Morning Star,” it is a trivial truth (A=A).
- If we say “The Morning Star is the Evening Star,” it is a significant astronomical discovery.
How can they be different if they refer to the same thing? Frege’s solution was to distinguish between:
- Reference (Bedeutung): The actual object in the world (Venus).
- Sense (Sinn): The way the object is presented to us (e.g., “The celestial body seen in the east just before sunrise”).
Two words can have the same reference but different senses.
The Picture Theory of Language (Early Wittgenstein)
In his Tractatus Logico-Philosophical, Ludwig Wittgenstein argued that language functions like a “picture.” A sentence is a “logical picture” of a state of affairs in the world.
- Names refer to objects.
- The arrangement of names in a sentence mirrors the arrangement of objects in reality.
Wittgenstein concluded that anything that cannot be “pictured” (like ethics, God, or the meaning of life) cannot be spoken about meaningfully. “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”
Language Games (Late Wittgenstein)
Later in his life, Wittgenstein realized his “picture theory” was wrong. In Philosophical Investigations, he argued that the meaning of a word is not an object it refers to, but its use in a particular context.
He called these contexts Language Games. Language is like a tool chest. A “hammer” doesn’t “mean” something in the abstract; it has a function within the game of carpentry. Similarly, the meaning of a word like “God,” “Justice,” or “Love” depends on the “game” we are playing—whether we are in a church, a courtroom, or a bedroom.
There is no “single” essence of language; there are only “family resemblances” between different ways we talk.
J.L. Austin and Speech Acts
We often think language is just for describing things. J.L. Austin pointed out that we often use language to do things. He called these Speech Acts.
- Locutionary Act: The act of saying something.
- Illocutionary Act: The social function of saying it (Ordering, Promising, Warning).
- Perlocutionary Act: The effect on the listener (Making them scared, making them believe you).
When a priest says, “I now pronounce you man and wife,” they aren’t describing a marriage; they are creating one. This is a “Performative Utterance.”
Verificationism and its Collapse
The Logical Positivists (like A.J. Ayer) argued for the Verification Principle: A statement is only meaningful if it can be proven true or false through empirical observation or if it is a mathematical tautology.
This meant that all talk of religion, art, and ethics was “nonsense.” However, critics quickly pointed out the fatal flaw: The Verification Principle itself cannot be verified by observation. Therefore, by its own standard, the principle was “nonsense.” This led to the collapse of logical positivism and the rise of more nuanced theories of meaning.
Conclusion
The philosophy of language shows us that language is not a transparent window to reality. It is a complex set of games, social acts, and logical structures. By understanding how we talk, we gain a deeper insight into how we think and how we construct the world around us.