LING 330(S) Textual Meaning and Interpretation (Same as Philosophy 301) (W)

PHIL 301(S) Textual Meaning and Interpretation (Same as Linguistics 330) (W)
Early philosophy of language focused on meaning of assertions, denials and descriptions. However, this approach is too narrow, since people use language to do a myriad of things: to ask, demand, promise, praise, blame, threaten, command, insinuate, evoke, express feelings, and sometimes just to play. The philosophical study of what we do in language, and how we understand one another, is called pragmatics; within the analytic tradition, the main philosophical contributions to the study of pragmatics in language came from Peirce, Wittgenstein, Austen, Grice and Searle. Other philosophers and literary theorists have used some of their ideas recently to throw light on the nature of textual meaning and the interpretation of literary texts. We shall first explore the salient features of the pragmatic approaches to language, paying special attention to Austin's notion of illocutionary force and Grice's notion of non-natural meaning. We will then examine how these notions may be exploited in the consideration of various long-standing issues in the theory of literary interpretation. We will discuss the importance of specific genre conventions and broader contextual matters to the interpretation of literary texts (along the lines suggested by Quentin Skinner); the possibility of using intention to rule out mistaken and arrive at acceptable interpretations, if not a single correct interpretation (a possibility denied by such relativists as Stanley Fish); the use and meaning of metaphors; and the host of questions surrounding the "intentional fallacy" (the alleged result of invoking authorial intention to determine textual meaning).
Format: seminar. Requirements: class participation, 10 short weekly response papers, and 2 longer (5-7 page) papers.
Prerequisites: Philosophy 102 or 103. Enrollment limit: 19 (expected: 6-10). Open to all students, preference given to philosophy majors.
Hour: MLADENOVIC