Talk:Philosophy of language

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Former good articlePhilosophy of language was one of the Philosophy and religion good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
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November 25, 2006Good article nomineeListed
November 15, 2009Good article reassessmentDelisted
Current status: Delisted good article
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Language and thought and Emergentism

The paragraph was introduced to describe a strand of emergentism.  Preceding unsigned comment added by Razum (talkcontribs) 14:48, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Philosophical link?

@Favonian Is there any reason why philosophical shouldn't be the first link in this article? I don't think the attempts to make it a link aren't in good faith- its a reasonable link to make, even if it coincidentally makes WP:GTP true. HadesTTW (he/him  talk) 21:18, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

See WP:OVERLINK. You made clear here it was more of an incidental bonus, but it's worth reiterating that making edits with a active concern for WP:GPT just seems like clear-cut wilful disruptive editing to me. Remsense 🌈  06:35, 26 October 2025 (UTC)
I'm not necessarily sure if WP:OVERLINK applies to the link to "philosophy." It doesn't seem to be uniformly followed in other "philosophy of" articles- e.g. Philosophy of science, Philosophy of mind, and Metaphilosophy. It probably does apply as something that would "aid a reader's understanding" as noted in the policy. HadesTTW (he/him  talk) 17:21, 26 October 2025 (UTC)

Content of "Nature of language" section

@Botterweg, I summon thee!

Herr B-Weg has removed this section, citing concerns about WP:SYNTH & source-fidelity, as well as general relevance & validity as a (natural/coherent/extant) topic.

I think the latter two criticisms are correct; the section certainly seems to have gathered too many disparate notions under its putative "conceptual umbrella", and (my impression is that it)¹ sort of strayed a bit too far into "history of linguistics" over "philosophy of language".

That said... it seems perhaps a shame to incinerate the entire thing (& all the effort that—probably—went into it)...?

Of course, "it took effort" is no criterion for keeping something, heh—but I think some sub-sections therein were largely okay (though maybe not so much the middle-to-latter paragraphs);¹ and while I initially thought that the cited sources did not support, e.g., the bit about predication / Thomas of Erfurt / transitive constructions, I found that actually the ref just cited the wrong pages (I might suggest roughly pp. 31–35 & 301–304 for Seuren, and pp. 750–753 & 759–761 for Allan/Itkonen).


What say you, Freund Botterweg (and/or any other readers—@Remsense? @HadesTTW?):

  • Are any parts of the removed section worth rescuing & sticking somewhere else? / Are any parts objectionable even in isolation?

Cheers,

–H


¹ (Note: I admit to skimming the latter parts of the section, pending input on whether or not attempting to chop up & transpose bits of it will be wasted effort or not—so my advocacy of "yes let's do that" is not to be taken as a very firm position, heh!)

Himaldrmann (talk) 21:46, 27 October 2025 (UTC)

I am summoned! I agree that it's a pity to remove text. But when I removed the section, it was after trying and failing to reconstitute it into something accurate and coherent. I can't swear that a future improved version of the article wouldn't be able to incorporate some of the old text but definitely not all of it. The discussion of ancient views could be accurate for all I know, but the discussion of 20th century work is not even accurate as a history of linguistics. Botterweg (talk) 00:24, 28 October 2025 (UTC)
Okay, upon attempting to do the same—i.e. find a place for the removed content—I realize:  no, you're right, much of it isn't relevant + even for the rest, I can't really find anywhere good to stick it.¹ 
I might try to rescue that tiny bit about ol' Tom of Erf., and place it in the section we currently have on the Modistae (which is only one line, IIRC)... but that's about it, I think.
So—nvm, mostly... whoops, heh.  Once again, I seem to have called up an entity too mighty for the piddling occasion it turned out to be—your pardon, O B'ot'tur-Weg the Deleter!
 

¹ (An all-too-familiar problem, for me... wait, no, I mean–)
Himaldrmann (talk) 22:42, 28 October 2025 (UTC)

The Links contained in the following Footnotes are inaccessible/dead/expired :


26 Putnam, H. (1975) "The Meaning of 'Meaning'" Archived 2013-06-18 at the Wayback Machine. In Language, Mind and Knowledge. ed. K. Gunderson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 88-459-0257-9

32 Stanley, Jason. (2006). Philosophy of Language in the Twentieth Century Archived 2006-04-24 at the Wayback Machine. Forthcoming in the Routledge Guide to Twentieth Century Philosophy.

52 "csjarchive.cogsci.rpi.edu/Proceedings/2009/papers/559/paper559.pdf" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-04-26. Retrieved 2011-12-23

56 "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-11-02. Retrieved 2013-07-24. Oliver Krieger (talk) 13:06, 6 November 2025 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Jour303 Editing for Digital Media

This article is currently the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 12 January 2026 and 7 May 2026. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Awunl (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by BigRedSjo (talk) 00:21, 23 March 2026 (UTC)

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