Abstract

This article explores the use of philosophical methodology in linguistics and the role of linguistic methodology in philosophy. More specifically, it considers the borrowing of prima facie philosophical methodologies by linguistics and vice versa, gives some examples of this methodological borrowing, clarifies what the aim of it has been, and makes the case for the fruitfulness of these efforts. It also discusses the role of appeals to semantics in metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of language, and examines whether the prima facie distinction between linguistic and philosophical methodology holds up in any interesting sense. Finally, it suggests that methodology in linguistics and in particular the semantics of natural language is intimately intertwined with methodology in numerous areas of philosophy.