Language and Knowledge

Timetable

Module aim (aims)

1 to familiarize students with the most important theories concerning language origin, the relationship between language, thinking and reality, both in historical context and in the light of modern research
2 the student is aware of the multifaceted relationship between language and cognition, language and writing
3 the student is able to discuss the relationship between language and cognition, referring to the philosophical thought of Aristotle and Wittgenstein

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

Syllabus

1. Philosophy of language: main research problems.
2. An evolutionary and cognitive explanation of language.
3. The debate on the nature of language.
4. Aristotle, "Categories", "On Interpretation".
5. Truth and propositions.
6. Wittgenstein, "The Logical-Philosophical Treatise" and "Philosophical Investigations".
7. Mathematics as the language of physics.
8. The language of theism: epistemological assumptions.

Reading list

Obligatory

1. Dunbar R., Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language, New York 1998.
2. Lakoff G., Johnson M., Metaphors We Live By, Chicago 2003.
3. Michel Foucault, The order of things, Vintage Books, 1994.

Optional

1. Brożek B., Granice interpretacji, Copernicus Center Press 2014.
2. Cultural Evolution. ed. P.J. Richerson and M.H. Christiansen, Cambridge 2013.
3. Jarmużek T., On the Sea-Battle Tomorrow That May not Happen. A Logical and Philosophical Analysis of the Master Argument, Berlin 2018.
4. Norman Fairclough, Language and Power, Longman, 1989.
5. George Lakoff, The All New Don't Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2014.
6. Ruslan Mitkov, ed. The Oxford handbook of computational linguistics, Oxford 2022.