Philosophy of Language, Second Edition

Alex Miller's accessible survey shows that philosophy of language is at the centre of the energetic philosophical activity of this century. By interweaving the historical development of the subject with a thematic overview of radically different approaches to theories of meaning he gives readers the tools necessary to understand contemporary analytic philosophy.

Starting with Frege's foundational theories of sense and reference, Miller provides an introduction to the formal logic used in all subsequent philosophy of language. He communicates a sense of active philosophical debate by confronting the views of the early theorists concerned with building systematic theories - Frege, Russell, and the logical positivists - with the attacks mounted by sceptics - such as Quine, Kripke, and Wittgenstein. This leads to excursions into related areas of metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science that present more recent attempts to save the notions of sense and meaning by philosophers such as Grice, Searle, Fodor, McGinn, and Wright. Miller then returns to the systematic program by examining the formal theories of Donald Davidson, concluding with a chapter surveying the relevance of philosophy of language to the broader metaphysical debates between realists and anti-realists.

This second edition includes new material on Chomsky, Wittgenstein and Davidson as well as new chapters on the causal theory of reference, possible worlds semantics and semantic externalism.

Miller's coherently structured, engaging approach makes Philosophy of Language an ideal text for undergraduates. Guides to related reading provided in each chapter encourage further study and facilitate using the book in conjunction with primary sources.