If those hours are inconvenient for you, then we can arrange an appointment for an alternative time. The overall plan of our course is for us to read the Pinker book swiftly, then the Martin book slowly. You will have been introduced to many of the major problems in the philosophy of language. You will have some opinions about how to solve those problems and how not to solve them, and so you will have the beginning of a philosophy of language of your own. You also will have developed your philosophical skills for making progress in other areas of philosophy.
Language is good for some things and poor for others.
It's a good way to order cheeseburgers. It's is poor at describing faces. The philosophy of language sets out to provide deep insights into certain general features of language such as reference, truth, meaning and necessity. 20th and 21st century analytic philosophers believe that the great problems of philosophy should be studied, not only directly, but also via a focus on the language they employ. These philosophers believe that they have new and better approaches to the great problems than did the philosophers of previous centuries.