The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy of Language

This Handbook introduces key issues in the philosophy of language as currently practised. Topics include: the nature of language; the nature and role of semantic content; the dynamics of communication and speech acts; tense and modality; discourse dynamics; and the expressive, evaluative, subjective, and social aspects of language. The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Philosophy of Language introduces readers to the main issues and theories in the philosophy of language as currently practised. Written by leading researchers and covering the central topics in the contemporary philosophical study of language, the twenty-seven chapters provide an overview of the state of the art, and a presentation of cutting-edge developments. Topics covered include: the nature of language; the nature and role of semantic and attitudinal content; the dynamics of communication and speech acts; meta-semantics and reference grounding; tense and modality; discourse dynamics and information structure; and the expressive, evaluative, subjective, and social aspects of language. Although some of the articles focus directly on technical issues following the recent approach of linguistically oriented philosophy of language, the majority of the contributions are primarily focused on foundational questions drawn from traditional philosophy of language. The volume offers a reconsideration of these foundational issues in a new light, while still bearing in mind the formal developments in recent literature, as well as a presentation of new foundational issues that have emerged as a result of these developments. Cover THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE Copyright Contents List of Contributors PART I: LANGUAGES AND LANGUAGE 1. Do Languages Really Exist? 2. Possible Human Languages 3. The Logicality of Language, Meaning-​Driven Unacceptability, and Modulated Logical Forms PART II: SEMANTIC CONTENT AND PROPOSITIONAL ATTITUDES 4. Report and Content 5. A Plea for Innocence 6. Contemporary Foundational Accounts of Propositions 7. Multiple-​Intensions Semantics PART III: COMMUNICATION AND SPEECH ACTS 8. States of Conversation 9. The Distinction between Content and Force 10. Do Not Diagonalize PART IV: META-​SEMANTICS AND FOUNDATIONS OF MEANING THEORY 11. Reference without Deference 12. One Word, Many Concepts: Endorsing Polysemous Meanings 13. The Problems of Polysemy 14. Truth, Normativity, and Interpretational Theories of Meaning 15. Semantic Non-​Reductionism 16. Foundations of Semantics 17. Quantifier Domain Restriction and the Problem of Incomplete Quantifiers PART V: TENSE AND MODALITY 18. Future Displacement and Modality 19. The Semantics and Logic of Counterfactuals 20. Deontic Modal Expressions PART VI: SEMANTICS AND LINGUISTIC THEORY 21. Indefinites: Scope and Context 22. Information Structure for Philosophers PART VII: EXPRESSIVE, EVALUATIVE, SUBJECTIVE, AND SOCIAL ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE 23. Evaluativity 24. How Vocatives Illuminate Slurs 25. The Metatheoretic Foundation for Racial Epithets 26. Subjectivity 27. Linguistic Variation, Agency, and Style Index of Key Terms Index of Names