This important book proposes a new account of the nature of language, founded upon an original interpretation of Wittgenstein. The authors deny the existence of a direct referential relationship between words and things. Rather, the link between language and world is a two-stage one, in which meaning is used and in which a natural language should be understood as fundamentally a collection of socially devised and maintained practices. Arguing against the philosophical mainstream descending from Frege and Russell to Quine, Davidson, (...) Dummett, McDowell, Evans, Putnam, Kripke and others, the authors demonstrate that discarding the notion of reference does not entail relativism or semantic nihilism. A provocative re-examination of the interrelations of language and social practice, this book will interest not only philosophers of language but also linguists, psycholinguists, students of communication and all those concerned with the nature and acquisition of human linguistic capacities. (shrink)

The dominant view of the status of knowledge of language is that it is theoretical or what Gilbert Ryle called knowledge-that. Defenders of this thesis may differ among themselves over the precise nature of the knowledge which underlies language, as for example, Michael Dummett and Noam Chomsky differ over the issue of unconscious knowledge; however, they all agree that acquisition, understanding and use of language require that the speaker have access to a theory of language. In this paper, I argue (...) that this view is mistaken. Knowledge of language is properly seen as practical knowledge, knowledge-how. My target is Michael Dummett’s treatment of theory of meaning in The Seas of Language. If my argument goes through, underlying assumptions about the nature of cognition as computational must be adjusted to allow for other forms of knowledge, which are arguably more basic, and which underlie knowledge-that. (shrink)

In “Practical Knowledge of Language”, C.-h. Tsai criticizes the arguments in “Swimming and Speaking Spanish” (this issue, pp. 331–341), on the grounds that its account of knowledge of language as knowledge-how is mistaken. In its place, he proposes an alternative account in terms of Russell’s concept “knowledge-by-acquaintance”. In this paper, I show that this account succeeds neither in displacing the account in Swimming and Speaking Spanish nor in addressing Tsai’s main concern: solving the “delivery problem”.

Argues that Searle is confused, and underestimates computers. Weak.

In "A Puzzle About Belief" (_Meaning and Use, A. Margalit (ed.), D. Reidel (1979), pp. 239-283), Saul Kripke argues that linguistic moves to all appearances normal in reporting the beliefs of others can be shown to generate paradox. In this paper, I argue that the supposed paradox is one in appearance only, and that the appearance rests on a covert vacillation in Kripke's paper between two conceptions of linguistic understanding, a weak, or 'minimal' one, and a 'strong' one. Only the (...) weak conception allows Kripke to set up the example which allegedly generates the paradox; only the strong allows the actual generation of the paradox. (shrink)

More than being a volume about the philosophy of Bernard Harrison, this volume is about how Harrison conceptualizes the creation of the human world. One might be tempted to classify Harrison as a major voice in many diverse discussions—philosophy of literature, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, color studies, epistemology, metaphysics, moral philosophy, philosophy of culture, Wittgenstein, antisemitism, and more—without recognizing a unifying strand that ties them together. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Harrison contests and destabilizes a persistent (...) and misleading alignment of culture with subjectivity—whether found in unexamined distinctions between nature and culture or appearance and reality. His general aim has been to undermine the belief that human culture deals in smoke and mirrors, and that the only realities are those of extra-human nature. He emphasizes the paraxial foundation of meaning, and argues that the creative inventions of language and culture are as real as any extra-linguistic reality. While not dismissing the possibility that some extra-human reality exists, he holds that the pre-conceptual world is unorganized; he emphasizes that the only world that we can access is, indeed, the human world that is the outcome of human cognition. This volume offers new critical essays that examine Harrison’s corpus, written by distinguished voices in philosophy and literary studies. It bridges many of the abysses of conflicting opinion opened by the culture wars of the past half-century. Importantly, it includes an opening essay by Harrison that elucidates the unifying strand running through his variegated philosophical writings, and concludes with a chapter in which he replies to and reflects on the other critical essays herein. (shrink)

In his later writings, Wittgenstein is generally taken as committed to anti-realism. In this paper, I argue that this is mistaken. Although he is committed to ontic anti-realism, this does not preclude his acceptance of epistemic realism. I argue that the possibility of using practices to fix meanings and to provide aframework for conceptual differentiation of our experiences rests upon a version of realism, which I call "praxial realism", which does not presuppose anything like a Kantian noumenal world.

This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract Introduction Anti ‐ Realism and Meaning Two Types of Anti ‐ Realism What Functions Are “Language ‐ Games” Supposed to Serve? Realism and (Dummett's) Anti ‐ Realism Resisting Transcendentalism Wittgensteinian Realism References.

In this interesting study, Shalom Lappin argues that any adequate theory of sortal incorrectness must meet four requirements. First, it must account for the truth valuelessness of sortally incorrect sentences. Second, it must provide a means of distinguishing truth valuelessness arising from sortal incorrectness from other sources of truth valuelessness. Third, it must be able to capture inferences which depend on sortal factors, while preserving those implications and formulae of classical logic which are unaffected by sortal factors. And fourth, it (...) must supply an account of a significant but often overlooked class of sortally incorrect sentences, viz., those whose sortal incorrectness is introduced via adverbial phrases. (shrink)

The paper analyzes a handful of works for children and youth that are based on mythology and deal with depression, a topic that is becoming more frequent in contemporary children’s and young adults’ culture, mainly because of the need to break the mental he­alth taboo. These are the newest edition of Laura Orvieto’s Storie di bambini molto antichi, Rachel Smythe’s digital comics Lore Olympus, Patricia Satjawatcha­raphong’s short animation Reflection, and the webcomic series Therapy created by Anastasia Gorshkova. They provide (...) examples from literary and audio-visual culture for very young re­aders and more adult teenagers and youth, raising the issue of deep sadness utilizing storytelling and not in a didactic way. Some of the protagonists struggling with the problem are far from lively chara­cters in conventional interpretations of the myths, so the texts play upon stereotypes entrenched in the culture. It appears that children’s works inspired by classical antiquity have significant interpretative potential and educational value – as well as the ability to surprise the audience. (shrink)

Of all the well-known doctrines in Kant's first Critique, the transcendental psychology is perhaps the most notorious. Frege's and Husserl's famous fin de siècle critiques of "logical psychologism," together with Strawson's withering scorn in The Bounds of Sense, have combined to make Kant's explicitly psychological approach to issues in epistemology, metaphysics, and the theory of meaning seem old-fashioned at best and simply embarrassing at worst. Patricia Kitcher's Kant's Transcendental Psychology aims to change all that; she offers a revisionist reading (...) of the Critique of Pure Reason in which transcendental psychology is understood to be not only central to Kant's overall argument, but quite defensible on its own terms. (shrink)

This is a unique book. It is excellently written, crammed with information, wise and a pleasure to read.' ---Daniel C. Dennett, Tufts University.

Philosopher, theologian, educational theorist, feminist and political pamphleteer, Mary Astell was an important figure in the history of ideas of the early modern period. Among the first systematic critics of John Locke's entire corpus, she is best known for the famous question which prefaces her Reflections on Marriage: 'If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?' She is claimed by modern Republican theorists and feminists alike but, as a Royalist High Church Tory, the (...) peculiar constellation of her views sits uneasily with modern commentators. Patricia Springborg's study addresses these apparent paradoxes, recovering the historical and philosophical contexts to her thought. She shows that Astell was not alone in her views; rather, she was part of a cohort of early modern women philosophers who were important for the reception of Descartes and who grappled with the existential problems of a new age. (shrink)

In the early years of the twentieth century, Gottlob Frege and David Hilbert, two titans of mathematical logic, engaged in a controversy regarding the correct understanding of the role of axioms in mathematical theories, and the correct way to demonstrate consistency and independence results for such axioms. The controversy touches on a number of difficult questions in logic and the philosophy of logic, and marks an important turning-point in the development of modern logic. This entry gives an overview of that (...) controversy and of its philosophical underpinnings. (shrink)

Fließende Identität ist zum Wunschtraum einer ‚androgyn-multiplen‘ Kultur geworden. Utopien im Sinne des totalen Selbstentwurfs verwischen bisherigen Grenzen zwischen Fleisch und Plastik, Körper und Computer. Im postmodernen Plural gilt das Subjekt nur als Momentaufnahme im Fluss weiterer Verwandlungen. Es bedarf mehr denn je eines sinnvollen Durchdenkens: Was ist der Mensch? Edith Steins Denken legt frei, dass es eine Entfaltung gibt vom Unbelebten zum Belebten, über Pflanze und Tier bis zu jenem Wesen, das über Freiheit und Selbstbewusstsein verfügt: dem Menschen. Und (...) zugleich gelangt er aus sich selbst in einem Überstieg, ja, in eine lösende Beziehung: ‚In der Vereinigung mit der Göttlichen Liebe umfasst der geschaffene Geist auch erkennend, selig und frei bejahend sich selbst.‘ Das ist die Identität, um die es dem Menschen in seiner Sinnsuche geht. (shrink)

This essay contrasts Damaris Masham and Catharine Trotter Cockburn’s respective moral philosophies. It argues that their views are both remarkably innovative, yet strikingly similar. By focusing on Masham and Cockburn’s accounts of agency and virtue, it is demonstrated that both thinkers take human nature as a sort of guide to moral behavior – i.e., it shows that the moral agent operates under the perception of moral principles as arising from human nature. While both thinkers are known to have been directly (...) influenced by John Locke, it is also argued that both of their moral philosophies bear significant dissimilarities to Lockean morality. (shrink)

Can consideration of the emotions help to solve the problem of other minds? Intuitively, it should. We often think of emotions as public: as observable in the body, face, and voice of others. Perhaps you can simply see another's disgust or anger, say, in her demeanour and expression; or hear the sadness clearly in his voice. Publicity of mind, meanwhile, is just what is demanded by some solutions to the problem. But what does this demand amount to, and do emotions (...) actually meet it? This paper has three parts. First, I consider the nature of the problem of other minds. Second, I consider the publicity of emotions. And third, I bring these together to show how emotions can help to solve the problem. (shrink)

Recently, Michael Huemer has defended the Principle of Phenomenal Conservatism: If it seems to S that p, then, in the absence of defeaters, S thereby has at least some degree of justification for believing that p. This principle has potentially far-reaching implications. Huemer uses it to argue against skepticism and to defend a version of ethical intuitionism. I employ a reductio to show that PC is false. If PC is true, beliefs can yield justification for believing their contents in cases (...) where, intuitively, they should not be able to do so. I argue that there are cases where a belief that p can behave like an appearance that p and thereby make it seem to one that p. (shrink)

This edition contains quaestiones 1-5 of book III of the commentary on the Sentences, by Marsilius of Inghen (†1396), the founding rector and first doctor of theology of the University of Heidelberg. These questions are devoted to the Christology, Mariology, and Trinitology, and deal with the issue of the Incarnation of Christ, with quaestiones 1-3 considering it in relation to the individual Persons of the Trinity, and quaestiones 4-5 in relation to the Blessed Virgin Mary. In all questions, Marsilius advocates (...) the _via media_ of sound faith, even above any school traditions. (shrink)

Introduction to the Institutional Logics Perspective -- Precursors to the Institutional Logics Perspective -- Defining the Inter-institutional System -- The Emergence, Stability and Change of the Inter-institutional System -- Micro-Foundations of Institutional Logics -- The Dynamics of Organizational Practices and Identities -- The Emergence and Evolution of Field-Level Logics -- Implications for Future Research.

The history of the recovery movement began with a pushback against treatment, and the philosophies that it was founded upon still have relevant applications to contemporary social work practice. Financial aspects of service provision for people with serious mental illnesses have enabled other actors in the medical model of psychosis treatment to benefit, while disempowering and dehumanizing the consumers of those services. Since then, other movements like Psychopolitics and the Mad Movement have helped empower psychosis survivors to advocate for their (...) right to self-determination amid the epistemological pressure to identify as disabled. Social workers would like to believe that the field has moved beyond the philosophies that perpetuated institutionalization of people with serious mental illnesses. Contemporary examples, however, reveal how social services in the US maintain the status quo of sanism for psychosis survivors. (shrink)