CHAPTER THREE

LOGIC AND LANGUAGE

Lesson 1: Philosophy of Language: An overview
Philosophy of Language is the reasoned inquiry into the origins of language, nature of meaning, the usage and
cognition of language, and the relationship between language and reality. Language is a body of standard
meanings of words and the form of speech used as a means of expressing the feeling, emotion, desire, thought etc
in a consistent pattern of communication. In this lesson, we will see an overview of philosophy of language,
particularly, the meaning and nature of philosophy of language, the history and philosophical debates of
philosophy of language, and some major philosophical approaches to the nature of meaning.
1.1 What is Philosophy of Language?
One of the most fundamental questions asked in Philosophy of Language is "what is language (in general
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terms)?" According to semiotics, language is the mere manipulation and use of symbols in order to draw attention
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to signified content. Semiotics is the study of sign processes in communication and of how meaning is constructed
and understood.
Philosophy of Language is the reasoned inquiry into the origins of language, nature of meaning, the usage and
cognition of language, and the relationship between language and reality. It is an important discipline in its own
right, and hence, it poses questions like "What is meaning?", "How does language refer to the real world?", "Is
language learned or is it innate?", "How does the meaning of a sentence emerge out of its parts?, and other related
issues.
Philosophy of language, however, should not be confused with Linguistics, because Linguistics is the field of
study that asks questions like: What distinguishes one particular language from another e.g. what is it that makes
"English" English? What is the difference between Spanish and French? Linguists, like Noam Chomsky, a figure
who has come to define the 20th century linguistics, have emphasized the role of "grammar" and syntax (the rules
that govern the structure of sentences) as a characteristic of any language. Chomsky believes that humans are born
with an innate understanding of what he calls "universal grammar" (an innate set of linguistic principles shared by
all humans) and a child's exposure to a particular language just triggers this antecedent knowledge. Chomsky
begins with the study of people's internal language (what he calls "I-languages"), which are based upon certain
rules which generate grammars, supported in part by the conviction that there is no clear, general and principled
difference between one language and the next, and which may apply across the field of all languages. Other
attempts, which he dubs "E-languages", have tried to explain a language as usage within a specific speech
community with a specific set of well-formed utterances in mind.
Translation and interpretation present other problems to philosophers of language. The resulting view is called
Semantic Holism, a type of Holism which holds that meaning is not something that is associated with a single
word or sentence, but can only be attributed to a whole language (if at all).
1.2 A Brief Note on the Debates and History of Philosophy of Language
In the Western tradition, the early work was covered, by Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics of Ancient Greece. Plato
generally considered that the names of things are determined by nature, with each phoneme (the smallest
structural unit that distinguishes meaning) representing basic ideas or sentiments, and that convention only has a
small part to play. Aristotle held that the meaning of a predicate (the way a subject is modified or described in a
sentence) is established through an abstraction of the similarities between various individual things (a theory later
known as Nominalism). His assumption that these similarities are constituted by a real commonality of form,
however, also makes him a proponent of moderate Realism.
The Stoic philosophers made important contributions to the analysis of grammar, distinguishing five parts of
speech: nouns, verbs, appellatives, conjunctions and articles. What they called the lektón (the meaning, or sense,
of every term) gave rise to the important concept of the proposition of a sentence (its ability to be considered an
assertion, which can be either true or false). The Scholastics of the Medieval era were greatly interested in the
subtleties of language and its usage, provoked to some extent by the necessity of translating Greek texts into
Latin. They considered Logic to be a "science of language", and anticipated many of the most interesting
problems of modern Philosophy of Language, including the phenomena of vagueness and ambiguity, the
doctrines of proper and improper supposition (the interpretation of a term in a specific context), and the study of
categorematic and syncategorematic words and terms. Linguists of the Renaissance period were particularly
interested in the idea of a philosophical language (or universal language), spurred on by the gradual discovery in
the West of Chinese characters and Egyptian hieroglyphs.
The philosophical study of language, finally, began to play a more central role in Western philosophy in the late
19thand 20th Centuries, especially philosophical branches of Analytic Philosophy and philosophy as a whole was
understood to be purely a matter of Philosophy of Language.
To sum up, philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language. As a
topic, the philosophy of language, particularly for analytic Philosophers, has been concerned with four central
problems: the nature of meaning, language use, language cognition, and the relationship between language, logic
and reality. For continental philosophers, however, the philosophy of language tends to be dealt with, not as a
separate topic, but as a part of logic and other field of studies.
1.3 Some Philosophical Approaches to the Nature of Meaning
The question, "what is meaning?", is not immediately obvious. Most frequently, “Meaning" can be described as
the content carried by the words or signs exchanged by people when communicating through language. Arguably,
there are two essentially different types of linguistic meaning: conceptual meaning (which refers to the
definitions of words themselves, and the features of those definitions, which can be treated using semantic feature
analysis) and associative meaning (which refers to the individual mental understandings of the speaker, and
which may be connotative, collocative, social, affective, reflected or thematic).
There are several approaches to the philosophical nature of meaning. Among others, the following are the major
ones:
1) Idea theories: these theories claim that meanings are purely mental contents provoked by signs. This
approach is mainly associated with the British Empiricist traditions of John Locke, George Berkeley and
 David Hume, though some contemporary theorists have renewed it under the guise of semantic
internalism.
2) Truth-conditional theories: these theories hold meaning to be the conditions under which an expression
may be true or false. This tradition goes back to Gottlob Frege, although there has also been much
modern work in this area.
3) Use theories: these theories understand meaning to involve or be related to speech acts and particular
utterances, not the expressions themselves. This approach was pioneered by Ludwig Wittgenstein and his
Communitarian view of language.
4) Reference theories (or semantic externalism): these theories view meaning to be equivalent to those
things in the world that are actually connected to signs. Tyler Burge and Saul Kripke are the best known
proponents of this approach.
5) Verificationist theories: these theories associate the meaning of a sentence with its method of
verification or falsification. This Verificationist approach was adopted by the Logical Positivists of the
early 20th century.
6) Pragmatist theories: these theories maintain that the meaning or understanding of a sentence is
determined by the consequences of its application?
Lesson 2: Logic and Meaning
2.1 The Functions of Language: Cognitive and Emotive Meanings
Among other things, language is used to:
Ask questions Tell jokes
Tell stories Flirt with someone
Tell lies Give directions
Guess at answers Sing songs
Form hypotheses Issue commands
Launch verbal assaults Greet someone and so on.
For our purpose, two linguistic functions are particularly important: (1) to convey information and (2) to express
or evoke feelings. Consider, for example, the following Statements:
Examples:
“Death penalty, which is legal in thirty-six states, has been carried out most often in Georgia; however, since
1977 Texas holds the record for the greatest number of executions.”
“Death penalty is a cruel and inhuman form of punishment in which hapless prisoners are dragged from their
cells and summarily slaughtered only to satiate the bloodlust of a vengeful public.”
The statement in Example 1 is intended primarily to convey information while the statement in Example 2 is
intended, at least in part, to express or evoke feelings.
These statements accomplish their respective functions through the distinct kinds of terminology in which they
are phrased. Terminology that conveys information is said to have cognitive meaning, and terminology that
expresses or evokes feelings is said to have emotive meaning. Thus, in Example 1 the words ‘‘legal,’’ ‘‘thirty-
six,’’ ‘‘most often,’’ ‘‘Georgia,’’ ‘‘record,’’ etc. have primarily a cognitive meaning, while in Example 2 the
words ‘‘cruel,’’ ‘‘inhuman,’’ ‘‘hapless,’’ ‘‘dragged,’’ ‘‘slaughtered,’’ ‘‘bloodlust,’’ and ‘‘vengeful’’ have a strong
emotive meaning. Of course, these latter words have cognitive meaning as well. ‘‘Cruel’’ means tending to hurt
others, ‘‘inhuman’’ means inappropriate for humans, ‘‘hapless’’ means unfortunate, and so on.
2.1.1 Emotive Terminologies in Arguments
Let us now consider emotive terminology as it occurs in arguments. In arguments, emotive terminology
accomplishes basically the same function as emotive terminology in statements. It allows the arguer to make
value claims about the subject matter of the argument without providing evidence, and it gives the argument a
kind of steamroller quality by which it tends to crush potential counter arguments before the reader or listener has
a chance to think of them.
Words are usually considered to be symbols, and the entities they symbolize are usually called meanings. Terms,
being made up of words, are also symbols, but the meanings they symbolize are of two kinds: intensional and
extensional. The intensional meaning (which is otherwise known as intension or connotation) consists of the
qualities or attributes that the term connotes, and the extensional meaning (which is otherwise known as
extension or denotation) consists of the members of the class that the term denotes. For example, the intensional
meaning of the term ‘‘cat’’ consists of the attributes of being furry, of having four legs, of moving in a certain
way, of emitting certain sounds, and so on, while the extensional meaning consists of cats themselves- all the cats
in the universe. The term connotes the attributes and denotes the cats. ‘‘Intension’’ and ‘‘extension’’ are roughly
equivalent to the more modern terms ‘‘sense’’ and ‘‘reference,’’ respectively. Also, it should be noted that logic
uses the terms ‘‘connotation’’ and ‘‘denotation’’ differently from the way they are used in grammar. In grammar,
‘‘connotation’’ refers to the subtle nuances of a word, whereas ‘‘denotation’’ refers to the word’s direct and
specific meaning.
Because terms symbolize meanings to individual persons, it is inevitable for subjective elements to invade the
notion of connotation. To a cat lover the term ‘‘cat’’, for example, might connote the attributes of being cuddly
and adorable, while to someone who hates cats it might connote the attributes of being obnoxious and disgusting.
To avoid this problem, logicians typically restrict the meaning of connotation to what is usually called the
conventional connotation. The conventional connotation of a term includes the attributes that the term commonly
calls forth in the minds of competent speakers of the language. Under this interpretation, the connotation of a term
remains more or less the same from person to person and from time to time.
The denotation of a term also typically remains the same from person to person, but it may change with the
passage of time. The denotation of ‘‘currently living cat,’’ for example, is constantly fluctuating as some cats die
and others are born. The denotation of the term ‘‘cat,’’ on the other hand, is presumably constant because it
denotes all cats, past, present, and future. Sometimes the denotation of a term can change radically with the
passage of time. The terms ‘‘currently living dodo bird’’ and ‘‘current king of France,’’ for example, at one time
denoted actually existing entities, but today all such entities have perished. Accordingly, these terms now have
what is called empty extension. They are said to denote the empty (or ‘‘null’’) class, the class that has no
members. While these terms have empty extension, however, they do not have empty intension, for they connote
a variety of intelligible attributes.
The fact that some terms have empty extension leads us to an important connection between extension and
intension- that intension determines extension. The intensional meaning of a term serves as the criterion for
deciding what the extension consists of. Because we know the attributes connoted by the term ‘‘unicorn’’- a term
with empty extension-,w for example, we know that the term has empty extension. That is, we know that there are
no four-legged mammals having a single straight horn projecting from their forehead. Similarly, the intension of
the word ‘‘cat’’ serves as the criterion for determining what is and what is not a member of the class of cats.
One kind of term that raises problems for the intension-determines-extension rule is proper names. For example,
the name ‘‘Abebe’’ might not appear to have any intension, but it denotes the person who has this name.
Although philosophers have disagreed about this, it would seem that proper names must have some kind of
intension or we would not know what persons, if any, they denote. Thus, we solve the problem. One possible
solution to this problem is that names are shorthand symbols for descriptions or bundles of descriptions.
Lesson 3: Meaning, Types, and Purposes of Definitions
3.1 The Meaning of Definition

For most logicians, definitions are intended exclusively to explicate the meaning of words. Hence, we may define
definition as a group of words that assigns a meaning to some word or group of words. Accordingly, every
definition consists of two parts: the definiendum and the definiens.
The definiendum is the word or group of words that is supposed to be defined, and the definiens is the word or
group of words that does the defining. For example, in the definition ‘‘‘Tiger’ means a large, striped, ferocious
feline indigenous to the jungles of India and Asia,’’ the word ‘‘tiger’’ is the definiendum, and everything after the
word ‘‘means’’ is the definiens. The definiens is not itself the meaning of the definiendum; rather, it is the group
of words that symbolizes (or that is supposed to symbolize) the same meaning as the definiendum.
Because we presumably know in advance what the definiens symbolizes, we are led, via the definition, to
understand what the definiendum symbolizes. It is in this way that the definition ‘‘assigns’’ a meaning to its
definiendum.
3.2 The Types and Purposes of Definitions

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life. Based on the functions that they
actually serve, definitions can be classified into five: stipulative, lexical, précising, theoretical, and persuasive
definitions. Let us discuss them in detail
1) Stipulative Definitions
A stipulative definition assigns a meaning to a word for the first time. This may involve either coining a new word
or giving a new meaning to an old word. The purpose of a stipulative definition is usually to replace a more
complex expression with a simpler one.
The need for a stipulative definition is often occasioned by some new phenomenon or development. For example,
the attempt, which has made a few years ago at a certain zoo to crossbreed tigers and lions, has been succeeded
because of the genetic similarity of the two species- that offspring were produced from a male tiger and a female
lion and from a male lion and a female tiger. When the offspring were born, it became appropriate to give them
names. Of course, the names ‘‘offspring of male tiger and female lion’’ and ‘‘offspring of male lion and female
tiger’’ could have been used, but these names were hardly convenient. Instead, the names ‘‘tigon’’ and ‘‘liger’’
were selected. Any two new words would have sufficed equally well for naming the offspring- ‘‘topar’’ and
‘‘largine’’, for example, but ‘‘tigon’’ and ‘‘liger’’ were considered more appropriate, for obvious reasons. Hence,
‘‘Tigon’’ was taken to mean the offspring of a male tiger and a female lion, and ‘‘liger’’ the offspring of a male
lion and a female tiger. These assignments of meanings were accomplished through stipulative definitions.
Another use for stipulative definitions is to set up secret codes. For example, during World War II, ‘‘Tora, Tora,
Tora’’ was the code name Admiral Yamamoto transmitted to the war office in Tokyo signaling that the Japanese
fleet had not been spotted in the hours preceding the bombing of Pearl Harbor. More recently, ‘‘Operation Desert
Storm’’ was the code name given to the military invasion of Iraq. Law enforcement organizations have adopted
similar code names for sting operations against organized crime.
2) Lexical Definitions
This definition is used to report the meaning that a word already has in a language. Dictionary definitions are all
instances of lexical definitions. Thus, in contrast with a stipulative definition, a lexical definition may be true or
false depending on whether it does or does not report the way a word is actually used. Because words are
frequently used in more than one way, lexical definitions have the further purpose of eliminating the ambiguity
that would otherwise arise if one of these meanings were to be confused with another.
Précising Definitions
The purpose of a précising definition is to reduce the vagueness of a word. As we saw in the first section of this
chapter, an expression is vague if there are borderline cases in which it is impossible to tell if the word applies or
does not apply. Words such as ‘‘fresh,’’ ‘‘rich,’’ and ‘‘poor’’ are vague. Once the vagueness of such words is
reduced by a précising definition, one can reach a decision as to the applicability of the word to a specific
situation. For example, if legislation were ever introduced to give direct financial assistance to the poor, a
précising definition would have to be supplied specifying exactly who is poor and who is not. The definition
‘‘‘Poor’ means having an annual income of less than $4,000 and a net worth of less than $20,000’’ is an example
of a précising definition.
Whenever words are taken from ordinary usage and used in a highly systematic context such as science,
mathematics, medicine, or law, they must always be clarified by means of a précising definition. The terms
‘‘force,’’ ‘‘energy,’’ ‘‘acid,’’ ‘‘element,’’ ‘‘number,’’ ‘‘equality,’’ ‘‘contract,’’ and ‘‘agent’’ have all been given
précising definitions by specific disciplines.
3) Theoretical Definitions
A theoretical definition assigns a meaning to a word by suggesting a theory that gives a certain characterization to
the entities that the term denotes. Such a definition provides a way of viewing or conceiving these entities that
suggests deductive consequences, further investigation (experimental or otherwise), and whatever else would be
entailed by the acceptance of a theory governing these entities. The definition of the term ‘‘heat’’ found in texts
dealing with the kinetic theory of heat provides a good example: ‘‘‘heat’ means the energy associated with the
random motion of the molecules of a substance.’’ This definition does more than merely assign a meaning to a
word; it provides a way of conceiving the physical phenomenon that is heat. In so doing, it suggests the deductive
consequence that as the molecules of a substance speed up the temperature of the substance increases.
4. Persuasive Definitions
The purpose of a persuasive definition is to engender a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward what is denoted
by the definiendum. This purpose is accomplished by assigning an emotionally charged or value-laden meaning to
a word while making it appears that the word really has (or ought to have) that meaning in the language in which
it is used. Thus, persuasive definitions amount to a certain synthesis of stipulative, lexical, and, possibly,
theoretical definitions backed by the rhetorical motive to engender a certain attitude. As a result of this synthesis,
a persuasive definition masquerades as an honest assignment of meaning to a term while condemning or blessing
with approval the subject matter of the definiendum. Let us see the following examples:
“Abortion’’ means the ruthless murdering of innocent human beings. ‘‘Abortion’’ means a safe
and established surgical procedure whereby a woman is relieved of an unwanted burden.
Taxation’’ means the procedure by means of which our commonwealth is preserved and
sustained.
‘‘Taxation’’ means the procedure used by bureaucrats to rip off the people who elected them.
Lesson 4: Techniques of Definition
4.1 The Extensional (Denotative) Definitional Techniques
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An extensional definition is one that assigns a meaning to a term by indicating the members of the class that the
definiendum denotes. There are at least three ways of indicating the members of a class: pointing to them
(demonstrative or ostensive definitions), naming them individually (enumerative definitions), and naming them in
groups (definitions by subclass).
1) Demonstrative (Ostensive) Definitions
Demonstrative (Ostensive) Definitions are probably the most primitive form of definition. All one need know to
understand such a definition is the meaning of pointing. Such definitions may be either partial or complete,
depending on whether all or only some of the members of the class denoted by the definiendum are pointed to.
Here are some examples:
“Chair’’ means this and this and this- as you point to a number of chairs, one after the other.
“Washington Monument’’ means that- as you point to it.
If you were attempting to teach a foreigner your own native language, and neither of you understood a word of
each other’s language, demonstrative definition would almost certainly be one of the methods you would use.
Demonstrative definitions are also the most limited. In addition to the limitations affecting all extensional
definitions, there is the obvious limitation that the required objects be available for being pointed at. For example,
if one wishes to define the word ‘‘sun’’ and it happens to be nighttime, a demonstrative definition cannot be used.
Demonstrative definitions differ from the other kinds of definitions in that the definiens is constituted at least in
part by a gesture- the gesture of pointing. Since the definiens in any definition is a group of words, however, a
gesture, such as pointing, must count as a word. While this conclusion may appear strange at first, it is supported
by the fact that the ‘‘words’’ in many sign languages consist exclusively of gestures.
2) Enumerative Definitions
Enumerative Definitions assign a meaning to a term by naming the members of the class the term denotes. Like
demonstrative definitions, they may also be either partial or complete.
Example:
“Actor’’ means a person such as Abebe Balicha, Samsom Taddesse, or Mahder Assefa.
Complete enumerative definitions are usually more satisfying than partial ones because they identify the
definiendum with greater assurance. However, relatively few classes can be completely enumerated.
3) Definition by Subclass
Definition by Subclass assigns a meaning to a term by naming subclasses of the class denoted by the term. Such a
definition, too, may be either partial or complete, depending on whether the subclasses named, when taken
together, include all the members of the class or only some of them. See the following examples, the first is
partial, the second is complete:
‘‘Tree’’ means an oak, pine, elm, spruce, maple, and the like.
“Fictional work’’ means a poem, a play, a novel, or a short story.
4.2 The Intensional (Connotative) Definitional Techniques

An intensional definition one that assigns a meaning to a word by indicating the qualities or attributes that the
word connotes. There are at least four strategies that may be used to indicate the attributes/qualities that a word
connotes. These strategies result synonymous definitions, etymological definitions, operational definitions,
definitions by genus and difference.
1) Synonymous Definition
Synonymous Definition is one in which the definiens is a single word that connotes the same attributes as the
definiendum- that the definiens is a synonym of the word being defined.
Examples:
“Physician” means doctor.
“Observe “means see.
When a single word can be found that has the same intensional meaning as the word beng defined, a synonymous
definition is a highly concise way of assigning a meaning. However, many words have subtle shades of meaning
that are not connoted by any other single word. For example, the word “wisdom” is not synonymous with either
“knowledge”, “understanding”, or “sense”.
2) Etymological Definition
Etymological Definition assigns a meaning to a word by disclosing the word’s ancestry in both its own language
and other languages. For example, the English word ‘‘license’’ is derived from the Latin verb licere, which means
to be permitted. Etymological definitions have special importance for at least two reasons. The first reason is that
the etymological definition of a word often conveys the word’s root meaning or seminal meaning from which all
other associated meanings are derived. Unless one is familiar with this root meaning, one often fails to place other
meanings in their proper light or to grasp the meaning of the word when it is used in its most proper sense. For
example, the word ‘‘principle’’ derives from the Latin word principium, which means beginning or source.
3) Operational Definition
Operational Definition assigns a meaning to a word by specifying certain experimental procedures that determine
whether or not the word applies to a certain thing.
Examples:
One substance is ‘‘harder than’’ another if and only if one scratches the other when the two are rubbed together.
A solution is an ‘‘acid’’ if and only if litmus paper turns red when dipped into it.
Each of these definitions prescribes an operation to be performed. The first prescribes that the two substances in
question be rubbed together, the second that the litmus paper be placed in the solution and observed for color
change. Unless it specifies such an operation, a definition cannot be an operational definition. For example, the
definition ‘‘A solution is an ‘acid’ if and only if it has a pH of less than 7,’’ while good in other respects, is not an
operational definition because it prescribes no operation.
Operational definitions were invented for the purpose of tying down relatively abstract concepts to the solid
ground of empirical reality. In this they succeed fairly well; yet, from the standpoint of ordinary language usage,
they involve certain deficiencies.
4) Definition by Genus and Difference
Definition by Genus and Difference assigns a meaning to a term by identifying a genus term and one or more
difference words that, when combined, convey the meaning of the term being defined. It is is more generally
applicable and achieves more adequate results than any of the other kinds of intensional definition. To explain
how it works, we must first explain the meanings of the terms ‘‘genus,’’ ‘‘species,’’ and ‘‘specific difference.’
In logic, ‘‘genus’’ and ‘‘species’’ have a somewhat different meaning than they have in biology. In logic,
‘‘genus’’ simply means a relatively larger class, and ‘‘species’’ means a relatively smaller subclass of the genus.
Let us construct a definition by genus and difference for the word ‘‘ice.’’ The first step is to identify a genus of
which ice is the species. The required genus is water. Next we must identify a specific difference (attribute) that
makes ice a special form of water. The required difference is frozen. The completed definition may now be
written out:
Species Difference Genus
“Ice” means frozen water
Therefore, it is easy to construct a definition by genus and difference. Simply select a term that is more general
than the term to be defined. Then narrow it down so that it means the same thing as the term being defined. Let us
see some other similar examples:
Species Difference Genus
“Daughter” means female offspring
“Husband” means married man