Includes bibliographical references (p. [205]-216) and index.

""Philosophy of Language a Contemporary Introduction""; ""Copyright""; ""Contents""; ""Preface""; ""Acknowledgements""; ""Acknowledgements for the Second Edition""; ""1 Introduction: meaning and reference""; ""Overview""; ""Meaning and understanding""; ""The Referential Theory""; ""Summary""; ""Questions""; ""Further reading""; ""Part I Reference and referring""; ""2 Definite descriptions""; ""Overview""; ""Singular terms""; ""Russell's Theory of Descriptions""; ""Objections to Russell's theory""; ""Summary""; ""Questions""; ""Further reading""; ""3 Proper names: the Description Theory"" ""Overview""""Frege and the puzzles""; ""Opening objections""; ""Searle's Cluster Theory""; ""Kripke's critique""; ""Summary""; ""Questions""; ""Further reading""; ""4 Proper names: Direct Reference and the Causal-Historical Theory""; ""Overview""; ""Possible worlds""; ""Rigidity and proper names""; ""Direct Reference""; ""The Causal-Historical Theory""; ""Problems for the Causal-Historical Theory""; ""Natural-kind terms and "Twin Earth"""; ""Summary""; ""Questions""; ""Further reading""; ""Part II Theories of meaning""; ""5 Traditional theories of meaning""; ""Overview"" ""The Proposition Theory""""Summary""; ""Questions""; ""Further reading""; ""6 "Use" theories""; ""Overview""; """Use" in a roughly Wittgensteinian sense""; ""Objections and some replies""; ""Inferentialism""; ""Summary""; ""Questions""; ""Further reading""; ""7 Psychological theories: Grice's program""; ""Overview""; ""Grice's basic idea""; ""Speaker-meaning""; ""Sentence meaning""; ""Summary""; ""Questions""; ""Further reading""; ""8 Verificationism""; ""Overview""; ""The theory and its motivation""; ""Some objections""; ""The big one""; ""Summary""; ""Questions""; ""Further reading"" ""9 Truth-Condition Theories: Davidson's program""""Overview""; ""Truth conditions""; ""Truth-defining natural languages""; ""Objections to the Davidsonian version""; ""Summary""; ""Questions""; ""Further reading""; ""10 Truth-Condition Theories: possible worlds and intensional semantics""; ""Overview""; ""Truth conditions reconceived""; ""Advantages over Davidson's view""; ""Remaining objections""; ""Summary""; ""Questions""; ""Further reading""; ""Part III Pragmatics and speech acts""; ""11 Semantic pragmatics""; ""Overview""; ""Semantic pragmatics vs. pragmatic pragmatics"" ""The problem of deixis""""The work of semantic pragmatics""; ""Summary""; ""Questions""; ""Further reading""; ""12 Speech acts and illocutionary force""; ""Overview""; ""Performatives""; ""Infelicities and constitutive rules""; ""Cohen's problem""; ""Illocutionary theories of meaning""; ""Summary""; ""Questions""; ""Further reading""; ""13 Implicative relations""; ""Overview""; ""Conveyed meanings and invited inferences""; ""Conversational implicature""; ""Presupposition and conventional implicature""; ""Relevance Theory""; ""Indirect force""; ""Summary""; ""Questions""; ""Further reading""

Philosophy of Language: A Contemporary Introduction introduces the student to the main issues and theories in twentieth century philosophy of language, focusing specifically on linguistic phenomena. Topics are structured in four parts in the book. Part I, Reference and Referring Expressions, includes topics such as Russell's Theory of Desciptions, Donnellan's distinction, problems of anaphora, the description theory of proper names, Searle's cluster theory, and the causal-historical theory. Part II, Theories of Meaning, surveys the competing theories of linguistic mea