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Abstract

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophical method of #2 is that of trying to make sense of a philosophical idea by trying to “make the idea real”, that is, to “describe or imagine a situation to which the philosophical idea in question truly applies” (Stroud 1983).  I argue, with Barry Stroud, that the method of #2 can be used to rule out reductionist accounts of meaning, but, against Stroud, that it can also be used to rule out the possibility of both private and solitary languages.  Moreover, constructive claims about meaning can be generated when the method is applied to the idea of a shared or social language.

Bio

Professor Claudine Verheggen has research and teaching interests in the philosophy of language and related issues in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and epistemology. These include normativity, objectivity, truth, non-reductionism, and philosophical scepticism. She also have a special interest in Wittgenstein and Davidson. Currently, Professor Verheggen is a Professor of Philosophy at York University, where she has taught since 2006. She has published numerous books, edited collections through presses including Polity, Cambridge University Press, and Routledge. She has also published numerous papers and book chapters in venues such as Oxford University Press, Topoi, The Philosophical Quarterly, Synthese, Metaphilosophy, and elsewhere.