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.