Researchers

Lars Dänzer

PhD Researcher

Research

I did my undergraduate studies at the University of Zurich (Switzerland), the University of Reading (England) and the University of Bielefeld (Germany), from where I got my B.A. in 2007. I finished my M.A. at the University of Bielefeld in 2009.

My main interests lie in the philosophy of language, the philosophy of linguistics and the philosophy of mind and cognition, as well as in bordering areas of metaphysics, epistemology and the theory of rules and normativity.

In my M.A. thesis I have argued against Frank Jackson’s recent attempts to revive the description theory of reference for natural kind terms. I object to Jackson’s views on the grounds that they are incompatible with the compelling view that most of our linguistic activities involve the use of expressions that are part of a public language and that the reference and semantic content of a speaker’s use of such expressions is determined in general by the meaning they have in this public language rather than by the particular ideas that the speaker associates with them.

My PhD research focuses on the nature of linguistic understanding, an intruiging topic at the interface of the philosophy of language, epistemology and the philosophy of mind. What exactly is it for someone to understand a word / a sentence / an utterance / a language? In addition to the intrinsic interest of these questions, answering them promises to have important implications for (at least) questions concerning the nature of linguistic meaning, the proper object of linguistic theorizing and the possibility of knowledge on the basis of linguistic understanding alone.