Western philosophy
Philosophy of language

Wittgenstein had first brought up the idea that ordinary language could solve philosophical problems. A loosely associated group of philosophers later became known as practitioners of ordinary language philosophy. It included Gilbert Ryle, J. L. Austin, R. M. Hare, and P. F. Strawson. They believed that as philosophy was not science, it could only be advanced through careful conceptual clarification and connection instead of observation and experimentation. However, they had given up the earlier analytic pursuit of using formal logic to express an ideal language, but did nevertheless share the scepticism of metaphysical grand theories. Unlike Wittgenstein, they believed only some problems of philosophy to be artifacts of language. This approach has been described as the linguistic turn of analytic philosophy. Ryle introduced the concept of category mistake, which described the misapplication of a concept in the wrong context (which he accused Descartes of doing with the ghost in the machine). One of Austin's key insights was that some language perform a perlocutionary function (creating by themselves an effect on the world), thereby being speech acts. This idea was later taken up by John Searle.

In the final third of the 20th century, philosophy of language emerged as its own programme. The theory of meaning became central to this programme. Donald Davidson argued that meaning could be understood through a theory of truth. This was based on the work of Alfred Tarski. Empirically, Davidson would find the meaning of words in different languages by linking them with the objective conditions of their utterance, which established their truthness. Meaning therefore emerges from the consensus of interpretations of speaker behaviour. Michael Dummett argued against this view on the basis of its realism. This was because realism would make the truthness of many sentences beyond measurability. Instead, he argued for verifiability, based on the idea that one could recognise the proof of truth when offered it. Alternative to these, Paul Grice put forward a theory that meaning was based on the intention of the speaker, which over time becomes established after repeated use.

Theories of reference were another major strand of thought on language. Frege had argued that proper names were linked to its referent through a description of what the name refers to. Russell agreed with this, adding that "this" can replace a description in cases of familiarity. Later, Searle and Strawson expanded these ideas by noting that a cluster of descriptions, each of them usable, may be used by linguistic communities. Keith Donnellan further argued that sometimes a description could be wrong but still make the correct reference, this being different from the attributive use of a description. He, as well as Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam independently, argued that often the referents of proper names are not based on description, but rather on a history of usage passing through users. Towards the end of the century, philosophy of language began to diverge in two directions: the philosophy of mind, and more specific study of particular aspects of language, the latter supported by linguistics.
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