A Debate about Words
Due to their lack of success in resolving problems, philosophers like to think that they are failing productively. For example, a philosopher might suggest that while the problem hasn’t gone away, one sees it more clearly after the debate. Such insight is a consolation prize awarded to the readers for the failure of the authors.
This blog post discusses one unsuccessful debate, a debate about the nature of words. I will summarise a series of papers and how the debate ends up being less than successful. Don’t hope for a final answer to conclude this post. My goal is merely to document one debate on the issue on the way towards the answer — and to warn against being side–tracked by metaphysics.
To those not engaged in philosophy of language and metaphysics, some terms in my summary and discussion might be unfamiliar. I’ve tried to include links in those cases, but the larger points I make at the end of the post should be accessible even if one never makes sense of those terms.
In 1990, David Kaplan’s paper “Words” appeared, discussing the philosophy of words: What are they? What is the nature of words?
