What is the relationship between our words and our possibilities of knowing the world, and to what extent might the languages we inherit shape what we can think? In this course, students will focus on a small number of central contemporary debates in the literature related to this topic, including the philosophy of knowledge (epistemology) and the philosophy of language. Starting from an overview of the most influential positions from the twentieth century, including Karl Popper, W.V.O.Quine, Saul Kripke and Daniel Dennett, students will review the literature in recent books and academic journals so as to compare and contrast the positions presented. As a class, students will classify the range of available positions in the contemporary debate with labels and representative writers, and subsequently build their own positions on the nature of the mind, language, identity and knowledge.
- Teacher: Christopher Dawson