
- UCAS course code
- VL53
- UCAS institution code
- M20
Course unit details:
Language and Analysis
Unit code | PHIL30351 |
---|---|
Credit rating | 20 |
Unit level | Level 3 |
Teaching period(s) | Semester 1 |
Offered by | School of Social Sciences |
Available as a free choice unit? | No |
Pre/co-requisites
Unit title | Unit code | Requirement type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
20th Century Analytical Philosophy | PHIL20242 | Pre-Requisite | Optional |
Formal Logic | PHIL20042 | Pre-Requisite | Compulsory |
Must have taken PHIL20042 OR PHIL20242
Aims
The course unit aims to: introduce students to some of the foundational debates of early and mid analytic philosophy concerning the relationship of language to the world: logical and linguistic analysis, ontology, and modal language. Students will closely read and interpret some classic texts on language, analysis, and language-world relations, as well as some lesser-known but worth-while texts by marginalised female figures of the period. Students will also dissect and assess the arguments of those texts, compare them to contemporary accounts, and form and defend their own views on the course themes in language and analysis.
Learning outcomes
Student should be able to
Knowledge and Understanding: Students should acquire knowledge of some of the central debates on language, ontology, philosophy of logic, and analysis of facts and language of the history of analytic philosophy, and to understand how they have influenced and informed contemporary philosophical arguments and debates.
Intellectual skills: Skills in analysing and constructing arguments, and in explaining and assessing central debates in the history of analytic philosophy.
Practical skills: skills in time-management, in independent working, and formulating and finding evidence for own views, writing skills, presentation skills.
Transferable skills and personal qualities: skills in reading, understanding, and critically interrogating demanding texts, interpreting and assessing historical texts, writing skills, argumentation analysis, skills in formulating and presenting independent arguments.
Teaching and learning methods
Lectures, seminars, Blackboard material.
Please note the information in scheduled activity hours are only a guidance and may change.
Assessment methods
Method | Weight |
---|---|
Other | 10% |
Written assignment (inc essay) | 75% |
Oral assessment/presentation | 15% |
Assessment task | Length required | Weighting within unit | Feedback |
Essay 1 | 1,200 words | 30% | Yes, written |
Essay 2 | 2,200 words | 45% | Yes, written |
Presentation Tutorial performance | 10 min. n/a | 15% 10% | Yes, written Yes, verbal |
Recommended reading
Susan Stebbing, A Modern Introduction to Logic, Methuen 1933. Appendix on Logical Constructions.
Alfred Tarski, 1944, “The semantic conception of truth”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 4 (3): 341–376.
W.V Quine, From a Logical Point of View, Harvard UP 1953. Essays 1, 4, and 8.
Alice Ambrose, Essays in Analysis, George Allen and Unwin, 1966. Essays 8 and 9.
Donald Davidson, Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation, Clarendon 1984. Essays 2, 3, 9, 13, and 14
Ruth Barcan Marcus, Modalities, Oxford UP 1990. Essays 1, 7, 8, and 13.
Study hours
Scheduled activity hours | |
---|---|
Lectures | 20 |
Tutorials | 10 |
Independent study hours | |
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Independent study | 170 |
Teaching staff
Staff member | Role |
---|---|
Frederique Janssen-Lauret | Unit coordinator |