ABSTRACT
Philosophy of language is introduced and motivated by mentioning several ways in which it might be fruitful to explore philosophical questions via questions about language – questions of metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of mind and others. It is clarified further by a consideration of its relationship to the discipline of linguistics, and by outlining three areas which it shares with linguistics: Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics. An outline of the book as a whole is given. Some ‘Preparatory Notes’ are given including the distinction between use and mention, tokens vs. types, the ‘is’ of predication vs. the ‘is’ of identity, truth-conditions vs. truth-values, and the analytic/synthetic distinction. Cognitive meaning is distinguished from expressive meaning, and cognitive meaning is distinguished from force. The crucial notion of what is expressed by a sentence as used in context is introduced: the proposition. The Principle of Compositionality is explained and its importance stressed.
