Table of Contents

1: Language Conventions Made Simple
2: In Defense of Public Language
3: Meaning, Meaning, and Meaning
4: The Son and the Daughter: On Sellars, Brandom, and Millikan
5: The Language-Thought Partnership
6: Why (most) Kinds are not Classes
7: Cutting Philosophy of Language Down to Size
8: Proper Function and Convention in Speech Acts
9: Pushmi-pullyu Representations
10: Semantics/Pragmatics (Purposes and Cross-Purposes)

About the Author

Ruth Millikan is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut.

Reviews

The essays are carefully organized to present Millikan's account of language in a novel, systemic manner...it's unapologetically ambitious, uncommonly though-provoking, and is full of insights, in every chapter. Moreover, she does often succeed at making her ideas more accessible than in other of her works...this new collection is often fascinating and consistently thought-provoking, and many of her claims that seem on first look to be obviously wrong become, over time, utterly compelling. The book is a challenge, but it's worth it. Brian Epstein, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews the individual essays of Language serve to confirm Millikan's status as one of the most innovative and compelling thinkers of our time. Emma Borg, Times Literary Supplement Ruth Garrett Millikan is one of the most important thinkers in philosophy of mind and language of the current generation. Emma Borg, Times Literary Supplement