Lecture Notes

Autumn, 2008

The notes listed below fall into two groups. In group (A) are brief outlines or summaries of topics or arguments to be presented or mentioned in class. In group (B) are much ampler sets of lecture notes, which include a lot of detail that is omitted in the pages of group (A). There is thus a lot of overlap between the two groups. For example, the first two entries in group (A) are included in (but are only a small part of) the lecture entitled ‘Preliminaries’ in group (B).

A. Brief outlines and summaries

• The Liar Paradox
• Sentences, Propositions, and Indexicals
• Grice: Meaning
• Sharpening Frege’s Argument against the metalinguistic understanding of identity statements
• A more general objection to the metalinguistic understanding
• Fregean Semantics: Denotation and Sense
• Compositionality and Oblique Contexts
• Russell’s Theory of Descriptions
• Donnellan’s Referential-Attributive Distinction
• Mill: The 3 Grand Divisions of Names
• Kripke: Naming and Necessity
• Kripke: Rigid Designators
• The Cluster Theory of Proper Names
• Putnam: The Meaning of “Meaning”
• Kaplan on Demonstratives
• Kaplan vs. Frege on Demonstratives
• De Dicto vs. De Re Belief Ascriptions
• Quine on Quantifiers and Propositional Attitudes
• Kaplan: Quantifying In
• Kripke: A Puzzle about Belief
• Grice: Logic and Conversation

B. Lecture Notes

• Preliminaries: Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics; Sentences and Propositions; Types and Tokens; Inscriptions and Utterances; Use Mention, and Quotation; Self-reference and the Liar Paradox; Object Language and Metalanguage; Ambiguity, Vagueness, and Indexicality
• Grice: Meaning
• Frege: On Sense and Denotation
• The Slingshot
• Russell: On Denoting
• Strawson: On Referring
• Donnellan: Reference and Definite Descriptions
• Mill: Of Names
• Kripke: Naming and Necessity
• Putnam: Meaning and Reference
• Evans: The Causal Theory of Names
• Searle: Proper Names and Intentionality
• Kaplan: Demonstratives
• Perry: The Problem of the Essential Indexical
• Quine: Quantifiers and Propositional Attitudes
• Kaplan: Quantifying In
• Grice: Logic and Conversation

  Send e-mail to Professor Cohen at

Copyright © 2003 - S. Marc Cohen
All Rights Reserved