About the project
Philosophy of language did not begin in 1892.
The history of Western philosophy of language (HOWPOL) is typically treated as starting with Frege and Russell. In fact there are some 2,300 years of philosophical reflection on language, from the Ancient Greeks to J. S. Mill. HOWPOL is a five-year research programme to tell that history, to study part of it in depth, and to build a community of scholars and students who can carry it forward.
Two objectives
Knowledge. Produce new historical and philosophical work: two co-authored introductory books and at least three journal articles, all in open access.
Capacity. Build a Canada-wide network of faculty, expanding internationally; train undergraduate and graduate students; and help HOWPOL emerge as a recognized sub-field, with Canada as a centre of excellence.
Three themes
i. Varieties of meaning
What did philosophers across the centuries take meaning to be, and what different kinds of meaning did they recognize?
ii. Mind, language and world
How do mind, words and the world interconnect? From Aristotle’s mental representations, through Locke’s ideas, to Herder and Humboldt, who turn the order on its head.
iii. The metaphysics of languages
Are languages abstract objects, concrete natural phenomena, norm-governed social practices, or some hybrid? And does being meaningful commit us to there being something the word is about?
A long semiotic tradition, running from Aristotle through Augustine and Roger Bacon and beyond, ties directly into all three themes.
Three directions of work
Two accessible books. Introducing the History of Western Philosophy of Language tells the narrative of trends and countertrends across 2,300 years. Episodes in the History of Philosophy of Language: Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern takes roughly a dozen thinkers, from Plato and Aristotle to Herder, Humboldt and Mill, asking both what questions each raised about language and what answers each might give to today’s dominant questions.
Detailed studies of the Early Modern period. At least three journal articles on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, using the framework historians of philosophy call contextualized reconstruction: close reading of the texts, reconstruction of their arguments and commitments, and grounding in historical context.
A network. Bi-weekly online meetings, symposia and workshops in Canada and abroad, student training, this website, and the recruitment of further team members.
What this project is not
It is a history of Western philosophy of language only. There were crucial insights about language in Indian, Chinese and Islamic philosophy over the same period, but the team lacks the resources and expertise to describe all of them; where appropriate, the project will compare and contrast. The historical figures to be discussed are all men, which reflects the near-total exclusion of women from formal academic training through much of Western intellectual history. The project will highlight the contributions of contemporary women to the secondary literature and explain how that omission came about.
Where things stand
- Fall 2025: Hill and Stainton co-taught a fourth-year and graduate seminar on the Ancient and Medieval periods (Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics; Augustine, Abelard, Roger Bacon, Ockham and Buridan).
- 2026: a panel at the Canadian Philosophical Association meeting at Dalhousie on whether philosophy of language emerges with Frege and Russell, with papers by Gillon, Ungureanu and Wyatt and commentary by Leisinger.
- A detailed proposal for the two books has been prepared.
- An application to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) is under review. Everything described on this site as planned depends on that funding.
HOWPOL, Western University, London, Ontario · Benjamin Hill bhill28@uwo.ca · Robert Stainton rstainto@uwo.ca
