Lecture and Class time: To be arranged
Tutorial time: To be arranged individually and weekly

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES OF TUTORIAL BASED COURSES ON FUNDAMENTAL TOPICS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE AND LOGIC

The philosophy of language, together with the philosophy of logic and more recently philosophical logic, has gradually become a dominant branch in contemporary philosophy, not only in the tradition of Anglo-American philosophy but also in the mainstream of continental philosophy. Interestingly, just as the main concern of philosophical logic is not with a study about logic, neither is it a study of logic on its own, the so-called philosophy of language is not a study about language. Rather, the terminology `philosophy of language` is used merely to serve as a unifying label to signify a field of philosophical investigation, which at the core involves a variety of topics concerning a number of related concepts which have been the centre of traditional philosophical disputes, such as reference, truths, existence, the ontology of abstract entities, meaning, and analyticity, necessity,..., etc. Yet, no sharp boundary could be drawn amongst the scopes of these topics, nor is there any clear-cut outline of this field as a whole. As a matter of fact, these topics, under a unifying label, are closely interdependent and interrelated in that brief discussions on issues concerning any one of these topics require understanding, to a certain level, of some others. Moreover, with respect to each topic, there is always a great number of different views; and none has ever enjoyed a dominant role. As a consequence, it has been a really tough job for students to grasp what these concepts are supposed to mean and what the genuine problems surrounding these topics are.

An introductory course, wherein related topics are briefly mentioned, discussed, and dealt with, would be helpful, such as Introduction to the Philosophy of Language or Introduction to Philosophical Log