Since Donald Davidson issued his challenge to anticausalism in 1963, most philosophers have espoused the view that our actions are causally explained by the reasons why we do them. This Davidsonian consensus, however, rests on a faulty argument. Davidson’s challenge has been met, in more than one way, by anticausalists such as C. Ginet, G. Wilson, and S. Sehon. Hence I endeavor to support causalism with a stronger argument. Our actions are correlated with our motivating reasons; to wit, we often (...) do what we have reason to do. In yet other words, we are often rational. Our frequent rationality is easily explained if causalism is correct, but looks like a staggering coincidence otherwise. Anticausalism thus appears to be ill-equipped to account for the very existence of rational behavior, and so far no attempts in this direction have succeeded. (shrink)

Now in its Third Edition, Philosophy of Language: A Contemporary Introduction introduces students to the main issues and theories in twentieth-century philosophy of language, focusing specifically on linguistic phenomena. Author William G. Lycan structures the book into four general parts. Part I, Reference and Referring, includes topics such as Russell's theory of descriptions (and its objections), Donnellan's distinction, problems of anaphora, the description theory of proper names, Searle's cluster theory, and the causal-historical theory. Part II, Theories of Meaning, (...) surveys the competing theories of linguistic meaning and compares their various advantages and liabilities. Part III, Pragmatics and Speech Acts, introduces the basic concepts of linguistic pragmatics and includes a detailed discussion of the problem of indirect force. Part IV, The Expressive and the Figurative, examines various forms of expressive language and what "metaphorical meaning" is and how most listeners readily grasp it. (shrink)

Many beginning students in philosophy of language find themselves grappling with dense and difficult texts not easily understood by someone new to the field. This book offers an introduction to philosophy of language by explaining ten classic, often anthologized, texts. Accessible and thorough, written with a unique combination of informality and careful formulation, the book addresses sense and reference, proper names, definite descriptions, indexicals, the definition of truth, truth and meaning, and the nature of speaker meaning, as addressed (...) by Frege, Kripke, Russell, Donnellan, Kaplan, Evans, Putnam, Tarski, Davidson, and Grice. The explanations aim to be as simple as possible without sacrificing accuracy; critical assessments are included with the exposition in order to stimulate further thought and discussion. Philosophy of Language will be an essential resource for undergraduates in a typical philosophy of language course or for graduate students with no background in the field. It can be used in conjunction with an anthology of classic texts, sparing the instructor much arduous exegesis. ContentsFrege on Sense and Reference • Kripke on Names • Russell on Definite Descriptions • Donnellan's Distinction • Kaplan on Demonstratives • Evans on Understanding Demonstratives • Putnam on Semantic Externalism • Tarski's Theory of Truth • Davidson's Semantics for Natural Language • Grice's Theory of Speaker Meaning. (shrink)

In 1963 Vilem Flusser presented a series of lectures at the Brazilian Institute of Philosophy (IBF) in Sao Paulo concerning the philosophy of language. The resulting ten essays would eventually be published in 1965 in the annual magazine of the Brazilian Institute of Technology and Aeronautics (ITA), and published here for the first time in book form. Flusser prepared each lecture as a response to the dialogs that followed the preceding lecture, thereby expanding and explicating his philosophy (...) of language in an intense dialogical process. Despite the fact that the other side of the dialogue was not recorded, it becomes clear to the reader that the resulting discussions and polemics generated by the lectures progressively and profoundly changed Flusser's intended trajectory for the course. This kind of philosophy in fieri was in part the result of a group effort between all of those present, and subsequently synthesized by Flusser in every essay. As a result of this experience, Flusser adopted this dialogic method as an integral part of his future work -- Provided by publisher. (shrink)

This book has arisen out of lectures I gave in recent years at the Uni versities of Munich and Regensburg, and it is intended to serve as a textbook for courses in the Philosophy of Language. In my lectures I was able to presuppose that the students had taken an introductory course in logic. Some knowledge of logic will also be helpful in studying this book - as it is almost everywhere else in philosophy -, especially in Section (...) 3. 2, but it is no prerequisite. I would like to give my sincere thanks to Prof. Terrell for his excellent translation of the book, which is based on the second, revised and en larged German edition. Regensburg, May 1975 FRANZ VON KUTSCHERA INTRODUCTION Language has become one of philosophy's most important and pressing themes during this century. This preoccupation with language has its ori gins in the most diverse areas of philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

Book Information Dummett: Philosophy of Language. By Karen Green. Polity Press. Cambridge. 2002. Pp. xi + 220. Hardback, £55. Paperback, £14.99.

This collection of classic and contemporary essays in philosophy of language offers a concise introduction to the field for students in graduate and upper-division undergraduate courses. It includes some of the most important basic sources in philosophy of language, as well as new essays by scholars on the leading edge of innovation in this increasingly influential area of philosophy. Each chapter is preceded the editors' introduction.

Meta-ethical discussions commonly distinguish 'subjectivism' from 'emotivism', or 'expressivism'. But Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit have argued that plausible assumptions in the philosophy of language entail that expressivism collapses into subjectivism. Though there have been responses to their argument, I think the responses have not adequately diagnosed the real weakness in it. I suggest my own diagnosis, and defend expressivism as a viable theory distinct from subjectivism.

This book provides beginners with a sense of the questions and methods that make up the philosophy of language. The first four chapters develop the idea that language is a system that allows us to exchange information with each other, and the second four chapters the idea that language is a tool we can use to perform actions, like promising, insulting, and socially positioning ourselves. The first part of the book traces an arc connecting questions like: What is linguistic (...) meaning? Where does meaning come from? How do we use meanings to send messages to each other? The second part of the book takes up questions like: Does pornography silence women? What is offensive about slurs? What do we lose when languages go extinct? With a glossary of key terms, questions for reflection, and suggestions for further reading, Philosophy of Language: The Basics is the place to start for anyone who is or knows someone who is curious about how high the seas of language rise. (shrink)

Review of Philosophy of Language, by Scott Soames.

A survey of the emergence of the philosophy of language in 17th- and 18th-century European philosophy as an independent subdiscipline of philosophy.

Philosophy of language, according to Hare, contributes significantly to ethics, because it provides a logical structure for moral thinking. Referring to J. L. Austin's theory of speech acts, Hare distinguishes two kinds or genera of speech acts, the descriptive and the prescriptive; and he also discusses Austin's distinction between illocutionary and perlocutionary acts. Moral judgements, e.g. those judgements expressed by ‘ought’, are prescriptive speech acts, but they also have a descriptive meaning. This is because moral judgements share with normative (...) judgements the logical feature Hare calls universalizability. Alongside prescriptivity and universalizability, a third element of Hare's account of moral judgement is the identification of one's will with that of another moral agent's will in hypothetical situations. (shrink)

Experimental philosophy of language uses experimental methods developed in the cognitive sciences to investigate topics of interest to philosophers of language. This article describes the methodological background for the development of experimental approaches to topics in philosophy of language, distinguishes negative and positive projects in experimental philosophy of language, and evaluates experimental work on the reference of proper names and natural kind terms. The reliability of expert judgments vs. the judgments of ordinary speakers, the role that ambiguity (...) plays in influencing responses to experiments, and the reliability of metalinguistic judgments are also assessed. (shrink)

The content of this book provides a unified and coherent treatment of a number of important issues in the philosophy of language and logical theory.

_Philosophy of Language_ introduces the student to the main issues and theories in twentieth-century philosophy of language. Topics are structured in three parts in the book. Part I, Reference and Referring Expressions, includes topics such as Russell's Theory of Desciptions, Donnellan's distinction, problems of anaphora, the description theory of proper names, Searle's cluster theory, and the causal-historical theory. Part II, Theories of Meaning, surveys the competing theories of linguistic meaning and compares their various advantages and liabilities. Part III, Pragmatics (...) and Speech Acts, introduces the basic concepts of linguistic pragmatics, includes a detailed discussion of the problem of indirect force and surveys approaches to metaphor. Unique features of the text: * chapter overviews and summaries * clear supportive examples * study questions * annotated further reading * glossary. (shrink)

This book develops the general theory of language implicitly contained in the writings of G.W.F. Hegel. It offers novel readings of Hegel's central works in order to explain his views on some long neglected topics and as such demonstrates that his accounts of representation, the concept and the speculative sentence can be used to create sophisticated theories of language acquisition, universal grammar and linguistic practice. Hegel's defence of a scientific philosophy that is necessary and universal seems to eliminate the (...) need for a philosophical linguistics. Since thought is demonstrably objective in itself, questions about the language through which it is expressed appear to be external to philosophy. This has caused many commentators to neglect the real problems that the historical and cultural associations of language pose for the adequate expression of universal thought. Others, exploiting this apparent inadequacy, have argued that the lack of rigorous linguistic analysis in Hegel's philosophy is its greatest, and perhaps fatal, flaw. Although the very idea of a Hegelian linguistics is controversial, this book argues that there are resources within the texts of Hegel for developing a general theory of language as the reciprocal grounding of a universal grammatical form and a particular lexical content. Moreover, it uses this theory to resolve the apparent tension between the necessity of Hegelian philosophy and the contingency of its linguistic expression. In the light of Hegel's critical relation to contemporary debates in Continental and Anglo-American philosophy, coupled with the central role that philosophy of language plays in both streams, this important new study offers the first comprehensive, integrated and fully developed analysis of Hegel's theory of language. (shrink)

Connecting poetry and philosophy of language, Philip Mills bridges the continental and analytical divide by bringing together the writings of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein. Through an expressivist philosophy of poetry, he argues that we can understand some of the core questions in the philosophy of language. Mills highlights the continuity of poetic language with ordinary language, and positions Nietzsche and Wittgenstein's thinking as the clearest way to expand the philosophy of poetry. By tracing the expressivist tradition of (...) philosophy of language, this study locates its roots in German Romanticism right through to the work of contemporary expressivists such as Huw Price and Robert Brandom. Where poetry has been difficult to grasp with the traditional philosophical tools used by aestheticians, A Poetic Philosophy of Language operates at the crossroads between philosophy of art and language, proposing a new philosophy of poetry with wide-ranging potentialities. (shrink)

No detailed description available for "Philosophies of language in eighteenth-century France".

Philosophy of language is an extraordinarily rich field. It has a history stretching back, in the Western tradition, to the pre-Socratics. And, in the last century or so, it has been of central concern in both the Anglo-American and Continental traditions. Obviously, a brief survey cannot hope to cover such intellectual abundance. What’s more, as this encyclopedia itself attests to, pragmatics is an equally rich academic endeavour. Any mere overview of their intersection must, then, narrow its focus. As a (...) result, my specific topic will be: What has Anglo-American philosophy of language contributed to the study of utterance meaning in context? (shrink)

This highly acclaimed book is a major contribution to the philosophy of language as well as a systematic interpretation of Frege, indisputably the father of ...

The paper begins with an account of the emergence of analytic philosophy of language in the twentieth century in the context of the development of logic and the linguistic turn. Subsequently, it describes two examples of analytic philosophy of language in its heyday when the discipline was conceived as first philosophy. Finally, it provides, by way of conclusion, a succinct outline of the current state of philosophy of language, marked by modesty and fragmentation. It is claimed (...) that even if one retains optimism about the prospects of philosophy of language in the first century of the new millennium, it would be unreasonable to disagree with the opinion that the present-day philosophy of language is a highly specialized and diversified discipline and no longer so central for philosophical enterprise as it used to be. (shrink)

From the vantage point of doing philosophy of language comparatively, _Philosophy of Language, Chinese Language, Chinese Philosophy_ explores how reflective elaboration of some distinct features of Chinese and of relevant resources in Chinese philosophy and the development of philosophy of language can contribute to each other.

Volume I. Foundational articles -- volume II. Semantics -- volume III. Singular terms, propositional attitudes, and modality -- volume IV. Pragmatics, thought, and some contemporary issues.

The relationship of words to the things they represent and to the mind that forms them has long been the subject of linguistic enquiry. Joseph Graham's challenging book takes this debate into the field of literary theory, making a searching enquiry into the nature of literary representation. It reviews the arguments of Plato's Cratylus on how words signify things, and of Chomsky's theory of the innate "natural" status of language (contrasted with Saussure's notion of its essential arbitrariness). In the process, (...) Graham explores the issues of meaning and intentionality in representation, and questions of how the mind represents the world. Graham's use of linguistic theories and models leads him to a new response to Wimsatt's notion of the verbal icon, Stanley Fish's concept of literature as self-consuming artifact, and de Man's idea of its function as an allegory of reading. In showing them in fact to be complementary, he transcends the current controversies among literary theorists, arguing that the solution lies not in epistemology or philosophy, but in psychology and the study of how literature teaches and why humans learn best by example. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Meaning as Use Language Games Mind and Matter Mathematics and Other Sciences Science, Myth, and Religion Seeing Aspects World Pictures The Inner and the Outer A Field of Diversity Further reading.

This article focuses on Emerson’s emphasis on the limits of language. This emphasis is important because for Emerson self-expression in language is an essential part of the process of becoming self-reliant. Emerson thus shows us the way in which language often prevents us from becoming self-reliant. Emerson performatively shows the limits of language in an effort to inspire his audience to develop self-reliance in speaking for themselves. The article locates Emerson’s emphasis on the limits of language within the context of (...) nineteenth-century thought. His approach is contrasted with German Idealists such as Fichte and Hegel and Romantic poets such as Wordsworth. Moreover, the article emphasizes similarities between Emerson and Europeans such as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. (shrink)

Contributed papers presented at the Three Day National Seminar on 'Indian and Western Philosophy of Language' held at Varanasi from February 10-12th, 2011 by IGNCA in collaboration with Department of Vyākaraṇa, Sanskrit Vidya Dharmavijnana Sankaya, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.

The philosophers and scholars of the Hellenistic world laid the foundations upon which the Western tradition based analytical grammar, linguistics, philosophy of language, and other disciplines probing the nature and origin of human communication. Building on the pioneering work of Plato and Aristotle, these thinkers developed a wide range of theories about the nature and origin of language which reflected broader philosophical commitments. In this collection of nine essays, a team of distinguished scholars examines the philosophies of language developed (...) by, among others, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, the Stoics, and Lucretius. They probe the early thinkers' philosophical adequacy and their impact on later theorists. With discussions ranging from the Stoics on the origin of language to the theories of language in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the collection will be of interest to students of philosophy and of language in the classical period and beyond. (shrink)

In this article, I develop the concept and practice of ‘listening to difference,’ examining J.G. Herder’s aural theory of cultural diversity as primarily worked out in the ‘Treatise on the Origin of Language’ (1772). I examine the sources Herder critiqued to outline his aural theory of linguistic and cultural difference, which have thus far only been summarily mentioned if at all in scholarship despite the prominence of the ‘Treatise’ in intellectual history and philosophy. These sources comprise the travelogues of (...) seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century French scientists, mathematicians, diplomats, and Jesuit missionaries who described the inadequacy of Romanized orthography to accurately transcribe the sounds and pronunciations of the indigenous peoples they encountered throughout the Americas, Thailand, and China. Herder’s critical readings of travelogues showcased the unintended failures and interruptions in European colonial practices of listening. I argue that it was the French travellers’ failure to erase difference, to transform it into identity or, in other words, into a universalist monolingualism, which produced a consciousness of cultural and linguistic difference, even if repressed. The sounds of the spoken indigenous languages exposed the limits of the paradigms of Catholic and European linguistic classification. Instead, the exemplary technologies for preserving difference in scriptural and listening practices were for Herder the Hebrew alphabet and the oral transmission of poetry in ancient and Indigenous cultures. Listening to difference, as I define it, involves an openness to listening to the voices and sounds of the othered by listeners who recognize their distinct situated, embodied positionalities. It offers alternate possibilities to conceive of human diversity as continually in formation and not as a static or progressive hierarchy. (shrink)

Scholarship on Xunzi in English has been plagued by imprecise readings of the text and general philosophical naivete. It is hoped that this account will provide a sympathetic and accurate reading of this central thinker. ;The Introduction addresses the problems of interpretation raised by the text at hand, and all philosophical texts like it. A method of "interpretation as integrity," modeled on the theory of "law as integrity" put forward by Ronald Dworkin, is finally defended and adopted. ;Chapter I takes (...) up Xunzi's celebrated criticism of the earlier philosopher Mencius, pointing out Xunzi's fundamental analogy between ruler and polity on the one hand, and mind and person on the other. The discussion leads to a consideration of Xunzi's philosophy of mind. It is concluded that the refutation of Mencius is no refutation at all, but an excellent point of departure for a study of Xunzi's thought. ;Chapter II considers Xunzi's view of Heaven. Xunzi's mechanism is compared, and ultimately contrasted, with the deism of Tindal: there is a dimension to Xunzi's Heaven that finds no analogue in Tindal's cosmos. The chapter ends with a rejection of the commonplace that Xunzi is a conventionalist. ;Chapter III begins with an overview of Western approaches to the problem of ritual, gravitating towards an emphasis on contractarianism, since this model comes closest to what we find in Xunzi. But it is shown how the differences between Xunzi and Hobbes, a frequent comparandum, highlight the unmistakable absolutism in Xunzi's style of contractarianism. ;Chapter IV opens with an account of the Dialecticians, an unfederated group of sophists whom Xunzi criticized frequently and earnestly. The reasons behind Xunzi's animadversions are found in his theory of language. Despite the vast freedom of names that Xunzi allows, in anticipation of Saussure and others, Xunzi is shown not to countenance ontological relativity. Instead, Xunzi postulates a Way , a universal ontology. The ramifications of this commitment are wide-ranging and contribute to the basic character of Xunzi's philosophy. (shrink)

Only one adult in a hundred gets his food and clothing without doing anything directly in exchange for them. The other ninety-nine form active parts of the system of relations in society which will be called, in what follows here, economic; and even the one in the hundred who does not give, takes something, as children and imbeciles take, out of the store of services which are economic life. Boots and bread are but the bridges over which one man is (...) connected with another, through services exchanged. The philosophy of social life, therefore, must “place” these economic relations in the whole complex unity of human experience. The science of economics analyses some of the aspects of the relations of men in exchanging services, and it provides a language which is already sufficiently current to be used here without full explanation of the terms. Therefore, without more ado, the philosophical aspects of the economic system may be considered in the terms of economic science, but outside the frontiers proper to that partial analysis. (shrink)

Introduction to a special issue on the philosophy of historiography.

Decision theorists and philosophers of language have a lot to learn from one another. In the first of this two-part series, Anna Mahtani looks at the use and interpretation of credences and preferences.

This Article is a review of Barry Smith and Ernest Lepore's "Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Language".

These essays by some of the most prominent figures in linguistics, artificial intelligence, and psychology explore the problems involved in creating a general cognitive science that will treat language, thought, and behavior in an integrated fashion. They address the fundamental questions of the relations between linguistic structures and cognitive processes, between cognitive processes and language behavior, and between language behavior and linguistic structure. Contents: Introduction, Thomas G. Bever (Columbia University), John M. Carroll and Lance A. Miller (IBM Thomas J. Watson (...) Research Center). "Philosophy and "Linguistics: An Outline of Platonist Grammar, Jerrold J. Katz (CUNY). Sense and Reference in a Psychologically Based Semantics, Ray Jackendoff (Brandeis University). Some Thoughts on the Boundaries and Components of Linguistics, Charles J. Fillmore (University of California, Berkeley). Psychology: Approaches to the Study of the Psychology of Language, Walter Kintsch (University of Colorado). Toward An Abstract Performance Grammar, Charles E. Osgood (University of Illinois). Upgrading a Mind, David Premack (University of Pennsylvania). Computational "Models: "Memory, Meaning, and Syntax, Roger Schank (Yale University) and Lawrence Birnbaum (Yale University). Some Inadequate Theories of Human Language Processing, Mitchell P. Marcus (AT&T Bell Laboratories). (shrink)

This collection of fourteen original essays addresses the seminal contribution of Franz Brentano and his heirs, to philosophy of language. Despite the great interest provoked by the Brentanian tradition and its multiple connections with early analytic philosophy, precious little is known about the Brentanian contribution to philosophy of language. The aim of this new collection is to fill this gap by providing the reader with a more thorough understanding of the legacy of Brentano and his school, in (...) their pursuit of a unique research programme according to which the analysis of meaning is inseparable from philosophical inquiries into what goes on in the mind and what there is in the world. In three parts, the volume first reconstructs Brentano’s pathbreaking thoughts on meaning and grammatical illusions, exploring their strong connections with the Austro-German tradition and analytic philosophy. It then addresses the multifaceted debates on the objectivity of meaning in the Brentano School and its aftermath. Finally, part three explores Brentano’s wider legacy, namely: Husserl’s theory of modification and typicality, Bühler’s theory of linguistic and non-linguistic expressions, and Wittgenstein’s thoughts on guidance and rule-following. The result is a unique collection of essays which shows the significance, originality and timely character of the Brentanian philosophy of language. (shrink)

Still wanting is a systematic examination of the various aspects of his analytic method which, collectively, give to his philosophy of language its ...