1. Preliminary

Words and sentences mean things, or at least we can use them to mean things. The philosophy of language is both fascinating and difficult. One reason for this is that hardly any issue in this area is uncontroversial. Consider, for instance, this very basic question: What are the tasks of the philosophy of language? One obvious task is: the study of linguistic meanings. When we use a word so that someone understands us, are we successful by virtue of that word expressing a certain meaning? And if so, what are meanings? Are they objects in our heads? Are they something else? In his “The Thought,” Frege (1965) argues that “meanings cannot be in our heads, for that would pose problems for our ability to communicate our thoughts. The possibility of communication implies that meanings must be public objects of some form or other.” Moreover, Frege argues, “meanings cannot be in the world, for we can express thoughts that bear no relation to the actual world.” Instead, Frege concludes that “meanings must be abstract objects that inhabit a third realm, neither psychological nor physical in nature.” Frege’s proposal is ingenious but raises horrific epistemological problems. If meanings are off in some third realm -perhaps the heaven -then how can we ever know that one of those meanings has been expressed? For this, we are trapped in a dilemma, On the one hand, if meanings are in our heads, then meanings cannot be shared, and hence it is hard to understand how communication is possible. On the other hand, if we follow Frege and say that meanings are abstract objects, we appear to be in an epistemological quandary. But perhaps it is a mistake to think that a theory of meaning requires that there be actual meanings; that is, meanings as entities to be apprehended and expressed. Perhaps we can have a theory of meaning without meanings. This was Wittgenstein’s great insight, and it is an insight that is shared by one section in this chapter.

Language is unique to human beings and thus happens to be an invaluable human possession. Closely linked to human manifestation of socialization and social behaviour, language is used as a means of expression through which interaction between human beings takes place. Scholars, scientists and philosophers alike have sought to examine the issue of language and its uniqueness to human beings. Over the last fifty years the biological nativist school of thought has considerably built a view of language as a biological behaviour and ascribed to language faculty in humans, a genetic endowment in humans. It certainly provides an advantageous position to humans as different from animals. Through many centuries, language has come to be studied exclusively and many various points of view have arisen from those investigations. Since language is at the epicenter of the entire characteristic behaviour of the human species and as such central to human behaviour, the study of language, thus cuts across sciences, humanities and philosophy.

Linguistics has emerged as a major discipline, dedicated to the study of language and its several subfields cover a vast domain depending on the respective viewpoint adopted or the special emphasis given to one set of phenomena or assumptions rather than another. Among them, semantics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, logics, philosophy of language, language and mind, and so on comprise inquiries into the cognitive nature of human language and thus largely constitute a cognitive approach to the study of the human mind, and a theory of meaning to the study of philosophy of language.

In general, inquiry into philosophy of language has been an enduring activity and must be based on the ground of meaningful and thoughtful science. The focus of this chapter is the broad aspects of philosophy of language. It, therefore, would cover several technical subfields of philolinguistics and meanings. The chapter would deal with and discuss the fundamental issues of the philosophy of language and the theoretical background of linguistics and its pragmatics. Thus, this chapter would basically be divided into twelve sections. The present discussion surveys a pool of general information about meanings and some major concerns relevant to the present work. The second section focuses on answering the question “What is philosophy?” and its questions, specially the three areas of philosophy. The third section builds the theoretical background on language, and its distinctions and some major characteristics. The fourth section presents the language faculty proposed by Noam Chomsky and transformational generative linguists; that is, language faculty, innateness and LAD, Universal Grammar, and so on. The fifth and sixth ones deal with and discuss the language comprehension the two major themes of language comprehension and language production, respectively. Section seven takes a general view on concept of mind. Sections eight and nine deal with and discuss the truth and meaning, logical form, respectively. The tenth discusses the semantics and truth, specially focuses on the truth-table. The eleventh section focuses on discussing the sense and reference, and in turn studies each in subsection; and the last section of the chapter seeks to recapitulate the emerging strands of discussions and their issues.