A Companion to the Philosophy of Language

Written by an international assembly of leading philosophers, this volume provides a survey of contemporary philosophy of language. As well as providing a synoptic view of the key issues, figures, concepts and debates, each essay makes new and original contributions to ongoing debate. Topics covered include: rule following, modality, realism, indeterminacy of translation, inscrutability of reference, names and rigid destination, Davidson's programme, meaning and verification, intention and convention, radical interpretation, tacit knowledge, metaphor, causal theories of semantics, objects and criteria of identity, theories of truth, force and pragmatics, essentialism, demonstratives, reference and necessity, identity, meaning and privacy of language, vagueness and the sorites paradox, holisms, propositional attitudes, analyticity.

Bob Hale is Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. His philosophical interests lie mainly in the philosophy of mathematics and the philosophy of logic and language, and he has written numerous articles in all of these areas. He is also author of Abstract Objects (Blackwell Publishers, 1997).

Crispin Wright is Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of St Andrews. He has published widely in the philosophy of mathematics, logic and language including Frege's Conception of Numbers as Objects (1983), Truth and Objectivity (1992), and Realism, Meaning, and Truth, Second Edition (Blackwell Publishers, 1993).