Reflection [Jonathan Kosaka]

The practicality and applicability of slurs made me think differently about why pejoratives and words in general can take on, to use the expression, a life of their own. The lead-up or ground setting before this unit, speech-actions was particularly interesting and I wish we had spent more time on that. I began thinking of speech and language much more different after being exposed to something which seemed fairly common place, yet something I had not considered or given serious thought to. Both of these units made me think about how language is used and the various implications/causes which result from it. I had always held language in less serious regards, taking it largely for granted, however these two units in particular changed how I perceive and think about language and its use. 

In Reflection [Drew Owens]

Regardless of my final interpretations of how our use of language connects with the world, Russell's "On Denoting" marked a pivotal point in my understanding. Up to this introduction of descriptive definitions, I was having a hard time grasping the nebulous connections between the world and our spoken models of it. Russell's logic allowed me grasp a more tangible base of understanding, which theories we studied later questioned and refined. Exploding names into a multitude of possible definitions allowed me to process the concepts of entailment and validity (with regards to language) in a more measured fashion. While I recognize that Russell was overreaching in his position, it seems the wealth of concepts and theories derived from picking at Russell's ideas demonstrate his contribution to the field.  In all, I think that when reined in by a more causal approach and refined to the cluster theory,  Russell's base concepts still speak to my intuition.

Reflections [Raphael Nunziata]

Definite description! What made this topic interesting  was the question of nonexistent references or descriptions that tie to something or nothing. Where the only types of description that will have existence, if there isn't a reference, is the referential form...versus the attributive.   Furthermore, reading through the works of Bertrand, Strawson, Frege and many others illustrated a dialectic process of change, which gave me a huge part of understanding. Although, other works like Kripke discuss the meaning of names and definite description I find the categorization of definite descriptions to be more intriguing and simpler to understand. Nevertheless, other units of the course all had some spark to them.

Reflections [Henry Tran]

The unit of this course that made me think differently was the most recent one about slurs. It also seemed to me the most interesting due to the nature of current usages related to past circumstances. Such that some words originally were designated as something mediocre and then turned into a slur. Originally, I don't believe that I thought much about the usages of slurs and the way they function in our current society. I just essentially thought that people used slurs in two ways, to joke and to insult, not realizing the philosophy behind it. Such as Hornby's gesturalism, Hom's 'thick' semantic externalism, Camp's Perspectivalism, or even Prohibitionism by Anderson & Lepore. Looking at all these views, I see that there are many ways to grasp language, not just at face value. To me now, I see context as a close relation to slurs, such that there might be some perspective, expression or some gesture attributed to the words that slur. I'll think twice when someone utters something derogatory and/or pejorative.

Course Reflections [Morgan Johnson]

I found the unit on names to be the most interesting unit that we studied. The back and forth between Searle and Kripke/Putnam over the viability of the cluster and causal chain theories really made me think about how and why we give names to things, especially how those names give meaning. I found the cluster/family theory of naming to introduce naming in a way I had never thought about by connecting not just a single definition to a name, but rather a group of descriptions such that we can get a sense of what that name means without limiting the meaning of the name to the descriptions we listed. I also enjoyed the way Kripke responded to this theory with the causal chain of reference that we are apart of when we borrow how someone uses a name. It intuitively makes sense that we often borrow the reference of a name without needing to know what exactly that name means based simply on the way it was used by others.

Course Review [Anthony Baker]

I found the unit on slurs to have changed the way I think about language, specifically slurs, the most. I knew that there was something inexplicable about the pejorative nature of slurs, and how exactly they function/are used in the world, but I hadn't put much thought into how it could be explained. After looking at different theories behind as to what this derogatory force is, and how it comes into being, I can't say that my understanding of slurs is now more easily explained, but rather it's broadened to account for them in new ways. I particularly like Hom's account of semantic externalism, because it gives a nice account as to how is meant by an utterance can be broken down into both what is said and what is implicated all while maintaining the idea that pejorative content is built into each word.

Course Reflection [Korey Nuehs]

I found Grice's theory of implication and conversation maxims to be quite amazing. Given that I'm also an English major, his theories really have made me think about how to apply in a more literary setting, such as how writers begin their works and how quality might be assessed in accordance to his theory. The elegance and simplicity of his theory is really refreshing. One area where it applies to is what Robert Frost called the 'Sound of Sense', basically how certain sounds and stresses rub off onto sentences due to the way the words are arranged. I think Grice's theory of conventional implicature and Hornsby's paper on gesturalism really makes sense of this phenomena.

Course Reflection [Hui Yang]

I enjoy the slur part the most, although I do enjoy the rest of the course as well. I am one of those who always go after people after they say something, asking "what do you mean exactly when you say ****/use that word?" Without knowing I was discussing "Philosophy of Language," I'd already discussed it a lot before I took this class. However, I could never comfortably discuss slurs here, even with friends. I always feel like mentioning "Lord Voldemort" in Harry Porter, whenever I want to mention any slurs. I have no bad intention, but how can others know?! So I am just really happy I get a chance to freely (not quite) talk about some "taboos" in this class and humbly share opinions with others.

Coming from a country that does not quite have an idea of slurs, I never quite understand slurs very well. On Facebook, whenever someone posts a picture, his/her friends and families definitely comment "oh, you are so pretty, my dear", or "you guys look soooo cute together"... If anyone even just tries to joke (by saying something negative), there is a good chance that someone will comment "rude" or "you are so messed up" later. Growing up, whenever my friends or I post pictures on Chinese social website, we only get comments like "ugh, you must gain some weight", "your photoshop skill is getting better", or "your girlfriend must be retarded or blind to find you". But, we do not get mad at all, because we think "they must feel very close to us to say something like this without worrying". In fact, the people who comment first or most usually have a crush on the person who posts stuff. Just some fun facts! :-P

Reflections [Alex Rowell]

(B) The sense and reference unit was the most interesting to me, as it made me consider how I use language to communicate with other people. Realizing that so much effort has gone in to explaining the way in which we reference objects, use names, and use senses to explain meaning was very interesting. Specifically, the process of moving through the different theories with each paper and realizing the pros and cons of them one step at a time was valuable. Then moving to another theory that attacked the previous one, or added to it in a new an interesting way, causing me to keep reevaluating the theories I thought were good ones. In the end, I felt like I had a better understanding of language in general as well as reference. Also, as an added bonus, two of my roommates also now have strong opinions about theories of reference based on my attempts to explain them.

Reflections [Hayley Thompson]

I found the names unit to be one of the most interesting in the course. The non-circularity thesis and Kripke's refutation of it were especially interesting. On its fundamental level the non-circularity thesis makes sense, since circularity occurs when, on some level, a name is defined by itself, which should not add any meaning. However, after reading Kripke's lecture's, I realized that circularity in definitions occurs all the time. All names take their definitions in relation to other named objects. In some way, every defined name is part of a giant circle that relates to every other name. When we learn new definitions, we learn how they fit in with ones we currently know.  This makes me wonder if our semantic understanding of the world rests in the way things truly are, their place in relation to everything else in the world. It also makes me wonder how this semantic understanding first originates if we have no language or semantic connections from birth.

Reflections [Christina Sanchez]

The unit of this course that I found the most interesting was definitely the unit on slurs. This is because we read a variety of papers on different perspectives on slurs, and I had never really given slurs and how we actually use them in every day language (or not every day language) much thought. We just hear slurs on the street or in conversation, but we never really think about the context or the reasoning or meaning behind the use of the slur itself. When I read Hornsby's piece and the concept of "uselessness" was brought up, that really got me thinking about how deep the substance behind using slurs really goes. Seeing the plethora of perspectives brought to the table about slurs really got me thinking about the general meaning and concepts behind slurs and other parts of language because it just shows how many different thoughts can be produced about something as simple, or not so simple, as a slur, or any other part of our language. Overall, this unit on slurs just reflects the huge amount of perspectives that we have learned can be brought up with each part of our language.

Course Reflection [Arthur Toland-Barber]

I think the papers about slurs made me consider language differently more than naming conventions. I have always known that slurs were offensive but I haven’t considered why or for what reasons. My base idea was that they didn’t show respect toward the people they referred to (which is also the case), but through these last few papers I found that there was more to slurs than I originally thought. Interesting cases like quotations exist which seem to prove that slurs have a separate linguistic category than other words since despite a supposed neutral aspect, still invoke a reaction. They are also a category of words which seem to have a sense of uselessness (unwarranted perhaps is a better term) to them, which also makes them unique. In short, slurs are more complicated than I thought and these papers have shown me that. 

Reflection [Evan Cottingham]

For me, the most interesting unit was the unit on definite descriptions. Particularly it was interesting to look at the varying viewpoints on definite descriptions as it seems to be a controversial topic within the philosophy of language. Looking at different philosophers refute other theories on definite descriptions while proposing and defending their own, each theory brought up very interesting and valid points. As we went deeper into the idea of definite descriptions, I found the discussions surrounding the cluster theory of descriptions to be the most interesting, especially our investigation of Kripke's argument attacking the classical descriptivist view on the cluster theory of descriptions for our second essay. Kripke's amendment to the varying theses of the cluster theory was most interesting to me because I found that his viewpoint largely lined up with my own personal, more realistic, view on descriptions and on the purpose and use of language.

Course Reflection

I thoroughly enjoyed the first unit on sense and references. More specifically I enjoyed a lot of Gottlob Frege’s reading on sense and reference. In the past I never really thought about the association that a word has to the meaning. It wasn’t that I disagreed with the fact that a word can have different meanings depending on the context, but it was more of something that you only begin to think about once you are exposed to the idea. The particular reading I found interesting was Frege talking about the difference in meaning of two words that have the same reference, venus. Thinking about how the morning star and the evening star both refer to Venus, yet give a different meaning to venus was quite interesting. This expanded my view on thinking about how words can be referenced in many ways but still have different meanings depending on when or how you use the word.

Class Reflections [André Robert]

The slurs unit was definitely helpful in thinking about how slurs function linguistically. Given how slurs seem to "scope out" I had not previously given much thought to how they actually work as words in our language, which having read about them I feel is important to know so that one might have the right attitude towards them. While I didn't fully agree with any of the papers we read about slurs, they did help me to develop what my own thoughts/beliefs about how slurs function were/ Hornsby's "uselessness" idea ended up being closest to how I think slurs function (though she probably could have picked a different word) though I think the other papers had useful things to say about slurs (Hom's emphasis on institutions  for example). I found it interesting (and slightly disappointing) that none of the papers on slurs gave an actual argument for why slurs could be "appropriated" rather than just being struck form the language entirely. This has always confused me and is probably why Hornsby's paper ended up being the one I most agreed with.

Course Reflection [Yuchen Jiang]

In this course, I find several papers are pretty interesting since they provide some perspectives of language that are usually ignored by people. For, example, Putnam's Paper addressing the reference of names, where he provide this model of the twin earth which, I take to be a precise demonstration of the social or institutional perspective of how can a word to be understand as being indexical and at the same time as a rigid designator. A name is indexical since the reference of its extension is not fixed by any application in an individual level, rather an institution is required for establish a paradigm that determines the extension of that name. Then, once a name is determined institutionally, it can be a rigid designator, which would have a fixed reference in all possible world.His account captures two features that I have taken to be most important to the language, first, extension of names varies under different context, which means that language can evolve or at least mutate. On the other hand, at a specific given period, a name that is institutionally fixed is able to refer to a specific entity in any given circumstance. I think this account it insightful since it employs a way that can state clearly what would the core of language be like.

On the other hand, the topic about slurs really shows what are some application of philosophy regard common use of language. and various accounts are provided for that matter, some thinks that slurs are semantically different from neutral words while other think slurs are different semantically yet having the same reference with their neutral counterpart. Some believes that slurs and slurring uses are not intrinsic parts of those words rather determining some words are slurs or are involved in slurring uses requires contextual examination. Overall, I regard that this discussion of slurs is pretty bizarre for me, showing me more of how philosophy can be used. Yet moreover, I think the use of slurs can not only be analyzed analytically (statically), meaning here as examining as a fixed given fact, it can also be analyzed dynamically, which requires more work of observing. This discussion of slurs mirrors my understanding of philosophy as being a constant dynamic struggle that occasionally cause sparks that can help to ignite and preserve the fire of humanity.