Philosophy of Language Commons^™

How To Do Things With Little Talking Tubes: Nonideal Speech Acts In The Digital Age, Anthony Holdier

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this work, I develop a view about what it means to share a social or conversational context with others, as well as what is normatively entailed by doing so. Working from a broadly Austinian perspective about the moral foundations of language use and how we use words to position ourselves within social space, as well as from a generally Stalnakerian social ontology (demarcating groups by dint of aligned or overlapping sets of commitments), I present three papers demonstrating how nonidealized, ordinary language philosophy can make sense of complex, real-world phenomena. Through analyses of heretical utterances, context collapse, and chatbot …

The Riddle Of Religious Language, Luke Hillman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The following project analyzes religious life through the lens of religious language. Motivated by ideas of Wittgenstein and Wittgensteinians, religious language is shown to be nonsensical, and yet significant. Wittgenstein connects how we understand language with how we understand life, and this connection extends to religious life. This project offers an answer to how religious language is unique by comparing religious language to riddles and the process of answering riddles. In addition, religious language becomes understandable with imagination, a relationship with the transcendent, and an understanding of the kinds of language present in religious discourse. These ideas are solidified with …

On The Variations Of 'Occupatio' In "Richard Ii", William Kelly Reeder

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent scholarship of Shakespeare’s Richard II has been interested in or preoccupied with its historical relations. Particularly the plays association with the Essex Rising of 1601, and the censorship of the deposition scene, both of which seem to resonate for history with Elizabeth’s enigmatic comment expressing her identification with Shakespeare’s portrayal of Richard II.

This paper proposes to resolve the question of the play’s censorship by interpreting the deposition scene as a dramatization of transubstantiation, perhaps triggering Elizabethan censors.

Transubstantiation is the doctrine by which the Catholic Church interprets the Eucharist using the distinction between substance and accidens (eternal and …