For most of the 20th century the question of language dominated philosophy, and the hunt was on for a theory to connect language to the world once and for all. But more than a hundred years have passed since Bertrand Russell began the project, and many now conclude that no credible theory has been found and the project has failed.
So where does philosophy go from here? Was the so called 'linguistic turn' just a mistake? Can we simply forget about the language puzzle and focus on other topics? Or has the failure to describe the relationship between language and the world vitiated all philosophy in its wake?
Pulitzer Prize winning poet Paul Muldoon, controversial philosophy professor Herman Cappelen, post-realist philosopher Hilary Lawson, and philosophy lecturer Rebecca Roache lock horns over the importance of language.