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Philosophy for Lunch - “Language and Reality”

Thursday, May 6, 2021 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM

Are some ways of describing reality better than others? For instance, ordinary English recognizes a distinction between dogs and cats––we have different words for each sort of thing. But consider an imaginary language: Shmenglish. Shmenglish lacks the words ‘dog’ and ‘cat’ and, instead, has a single term ‘dog-cat’ that refers to anything that is either a dog or a cat. And given how the term is used in this language, Shmenglish speakers can say something true when they point to a golden retriever and exclaim, "He's a good dog-cat." Are Schmenglish speakers missing out on some feature of reality? Is English a better means of describing the world than Schmenglish? And how could we decide? In this P4L, we’ll focus on this last question and explore whether the notion of ontological structure might help us answer it.

Location: Zoom
Fees: Free and Open to All
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