PhD Doctor of Philosophy Logic, Argumentation, and Philosophy of Language 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Wittgenstein's private language argument in Philosophical Investigations argues that a language whose terms refer only to one's private sensations is:
- Impossible because meaning requires public criteria (Correct answer)
- Possible but ineffable
- The basis of all language
- Equivalent to behaviorist descriptions
Correct answer: Impossible because meaning requires public criteria
Wittgenstein argued that meaning requires the possibility of correction by public standards; a purely private language would have no standard distinguishing correct from incorrect use.
Question 2: The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in its strong form claims that language:
- Determines what thoughts are thinkable (Correct answer)
- Influences how we express thoughts
- Is universal in deep structure
- Reflects pre-linguistic cognition
Correct answer: Determines what thoughts are thinkable
Strong linguistic relativity (Whorfianism) holds that the structure of language determines the structure of thought, so speakers of different languages think differently.
Question 3: Grice's Cooperative Principle and maxims analyze conversational implicature — meaning communicated beyond what is literally said — through norms of:
- Quantity, quality, relation, and manner (Correct answer)
- Syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and phonology
- Reference, predication, assertion, and negation
- Truth, validity, soundness, and coherence
Correct answer: Quantity, quality, relation, and manner
Grice identified four conversational maxims (quantity, quality, relation, manner) whose flouting generates implicatures — non-literal communicated meaning.
Question 4: Speech act theory, developed by Austin and Searle, distinguishes the illocutionary act (what you do in speaking) from the locutionary act (what you literally say) and the:
- Perlocutionary act (the effect on the hearer) (Correct answer)
- Constative act (the truth claim)
- Performative act (the explicit action word)
- Propositional act (the content expressed)
Correct answer: Perlocutionary act (the effect on the hearer)
Austin's three-level analysis identifies the locutionary (saying something), illocutionary (doing something in saying it), and perlocutionary (achieving an effect) dimensions of utterances.
Question 5: Tarski's semantic theory of truth defines a sentence as true when:
- It corresponds to the facts described — e.g., 'Snow is white' is true iff snow is white (Correct answer)
- It coheres with other accepted sentences
- It is verifiable by empirical observation
- It is accepted by a community of users
Correct answer: It corresponds to the facts described — e.g., 'Snow is white' is true iff snow is white
Tarski's T-schema provides a deflationary correspondence account: a sentence S is true iff the state of affairs it describes obtains.
Question 6: Kripke's rigid designator theory in Naming and Necessity holds that proper names designate the same individual in:
- All possible worlds (Correct answer)
- Only the actual world
- Worlds with the same descriptive content
- Worlds where the name is recognized
Correct answer: All possible worlds
Kripke argued that proper names like 'Aristotle' rigidly designate their bearer in every possible world, unlike definite descriptions which could pick out different individuals.
PhD Doctor of Philosophy Logic, Argumentation, and Philosophy of Language 2
Wittgenstein's private language argument in Philosophical Investigations argues that a language whose terms refer only to one's private sensations is: