The Analytic Salon 9

You know how people make fun of philosophers for puzzling over how many grains of sand a heap must have or how many hairs you need to lose to count as bald. Well, let's puzzle over that this time! The **NINTH** session of the Analytic Salon will be on the philosophy of language, a super central area of philosophy in the 20th century. We will talk about the Sorites paradox, one that has persisted to this day since antiquity. It's tougher to crack than it sounds. We will then also move on to a puzzle posed by Kripke's (we are the Kripke Center after all!) interpretation of Wittgenstein: Kripke was a terrific mathematician; yet he came to doubt whether any of us know what on earth we mean when we use addition. (Don't worry --- no more math will be used beyond second-grade.) Combined, the two puzzles raise questions about how much in control we are of meaning. Or, even, whether there really is such a thing as grasping the meaning of an expression. If you love language and languages, you will not want to miss this session. Here is a fun little bit on having a private language all to yourself (which we might touch on): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE3GR1mWluk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eE3GR1mWluk) And here is a bit more on Sorites (from our formerly own philosopher, Graham Priest): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n4xcECjAXE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n4xcECjAXE) \-\-\-\- As always: No prior philosophy knowledge required. We will define all terms.