Course description Mental Phenomena Philosophy of Linguistics The issues that are raised in this course are the following: 1. What is the essence of (true) nature of language? Is language something material, behavioral, mental, biological, social, cultural or abstract? 2. What kind of knowledge is linguistic knowledge? Different objections are given to Chomsky's claim that speakers know or cognize their language. Is this knowledge knowledge-that or knowledge-how? 3. If linguistic entities exist, where do we find them? The proposal of the mentalist is that they are in the mind. Others even try to be eliminativist about linguistic entities. 4. Is there an externalized language (E-language)? What is the relevance of language conventions and do they have any explanatory power? These themes continue a venerable thread and the participants in this course ( in its third year of running) hope to throw new light on such important issues.