Introduction

Abstract

The recent path and influence of philosophy of language can be traced back to its origins in logical positivism and the subsequent demise of logical positivism at the hands of Quine.¹ Logical positivism aimed to make philosophy scientific, and tried to do so by appeal to an empiricist theory of knowledge grounded in a verificationist theory of meaning. Although the theory of meaning was inherently problematic, the rigour, clarity and respect for argument that the logical positivists advocated had a profound and long-lasting effect on philosophy as a discipline. The positivist movement, influenced by Frege through Russell, Carnap, and Wittgenstein, propagated the view that linguistic meaning (rather than first principles or the nature of concepts) was the proper starting point of philosophy, and there was a sharp break from philosophy’s historical legacy.