Every philosophical involvement with language centres on the notion of representation. There is controversy over what language represents. The answers can be classified and used as a basis for a systematic survey:
1. Language represents the world.
2. Language does not represent the world but our ideas of the world.
3. Language represents our ideas (of the world) badly.
4. Language not only represents badly; it does not represent anything.
5. Without language there would be no representation of a higher order and thus no thought.
The main intention behind this introduction to linguistic philosophy lies in revealing the underlying ordering principle for the many simultaneous and non-simultaneous attempts at a philosophy of language.