Later theorists of language, like Roland Barthes, who is most famous for his ideas about the “death of the author”, viewed language as a much more public enterprise. According to this view, mistakes in understanding language are mistakes in correctly interpreting the intent or ideas of the speaker.

So if someone talks about a tree, the word “tree” doesn’t strictly refer to a concrete object that exists, but only represents the idea of a tree in the mind of a person attempting to communicate. He more or less described language as a representation of the ideas of the speaker, rather than referring to external objects in the world. John Locke gave us one of the first modern theories of language, well before philosophy of language really took off. You can support the comic on Patreon! Here’s their “Eowyn Kills the Witch King” comic: So thank you for that dear commenter!Īnyway, Existential Comics is a philosophy comic about the inevitable anguish of living in an absurd world. Someone brought this comic to our attention when we posted The Lord of the Rings Mansplaining. But in this version philosophers John Locke and Roland Barthes show up to offer some insight. Existential Comics created this funny comic about Eowyn killing the Witch-king of Angmar in The Lord of the Rings.

Lego lord of the rings witch king