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Philosophy of Language (Princeton Foundations of Contemporary Philosophy #2)
by Scott SoamesA masterful overview of the philosophy of language from one of its most important thinkersIn this book one of the world's foremost philosophers of language presents his unifying vision of the field—its principal achievements, its most pressing current questions, and its most promising future directions. In addition to explaining the progress philosophers have made toward creating a theoretical framework for the study of language, Scott Soames investigates foundational concepts—such as truth, reference, and meaning—that are central to the philosophy of language and important to philosophy as a whole. The first part of the book describes how philosophers from Frege, Russell, Tarski, and Carnap to Kripke, Kaplan, and Montague developed precise techniques for understanding the languages of logic and mathematics, and how these techniques have been refined and extended to the study of natural human languages. The book then builds on this account, exploring new thinking about propositions, possibility, and the relationship between meaning, assertion, and other aspects of language use.An invaluable overview of the philosophy of language by one of its most important practitioners, this book will be essential reading for all serious students of philosophy.
Philosophy of Language and Webs of Information (Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy #45)
by Heimir GeirssonThe nature of propositions and the cognitive value of names have been the focal point of philosophy of language for the last few decades. The advocates of the causal reference theory have favored the view that the semantic contents of proper names are their referents. However, Frege’s puzzle about the different cognitive value of coreferential names has made this identification seem impossible. Geirsson provides a detailed overview of the debate to date, and then develops a novel account that explains our reluctance, even when we know about the relevant identity, to substitute coreferential names in both simple sentences and belief contexts while nevertheless accepting the view that the semantic content of names is their referents. The account focuses on subjects organizing information in webs; a name can then access and elicit information from a given web. Geirsson proceeds to extend the account of information to non-referring names, but they have long provided a serious challenge to the causal reference theorist.
The Philosophy of Literary Form: Studies In Symbolic Action (classic Reprint)
by Kenneth BurkeFrom the ForewordThese pieces are selections from work done in the Thirties, a decade so changeable that I at first thought of assembling them under the title, "While Everything Flows." Their primary interest is in speculation on the nature of linguistic, or symbolic, or literary action--and in a search for more precise ways of locating or defining such action. Words are aspects of a much wider communicative context, most of which is not verbal at all. Yet words also have a nature peculiarly their own. And when discussing them as modes of action, we must consider both this nature as words in themselves and the nature they get from the non-verbal scenes that support their acts. I shall be happy if the reader can say of this book that, while always considering words as acts upon a scene, it avoids the excess of environmentalist schools which are usually so eager to trace the relationships between act and scene that they neglect to trace the structure of the act itself.
The Philosophy of Literary Translation: Dialogue, Movement, Ecology
by Clive ScottWhile reading transforms texts through memories, associations and re-imaginings, translation allows us to act out our reading experience, inscribe it in a new text, and engage in a dialogic and dynamic relationship with the original. In this highly original new study, Clive Scott reveals the existential and ecological values that literary translation can embody in its perceptual transformation of texts. The transfer of a text from one language into another is merely the platform from which translation launches its larger ambitions, including the existential expansion and re-situation of text towards new expressive futures and ways of inhabiting the world. Recasting language as a living organism and as part of humanity's ongoing duration, this study uncovers its tireless capacity to cross perceptual boundaries, to multiply relations between the human and the non-human and to engage with forms of language which evoke unfamiliar modes of psycho-perception and eco-modelling.
The Philosophy of Literature: Contemporary and Classic Readings - An Anthology
by Eileen John Dominic Mciver LopesThis anthology contains forty-five substantial and carefully chosen essays and extracts and provides a coherent overview of developments in the field including influential work on fiction, interpretation, metaphor and literary value.
Philosophy of Logical Systems (Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy)
by Jaroslav PeregrinThis book addresses the hasty development of modern logic, especially its introducing and embracing various kinds of artificial languages and moving from the study of natural languages to that of artificial ones. This shift seemed extremely helpful and managed to elevate logic to a new level of rigor and clarity. However, the change that logic underwent in this way was in no way insignificant, and it is also far from an insignificant matter to determine to what extent the "new logic" only engaged new and more powerful instruments to answer the questions posed by the "old" one, and to what extent it replaced these questions with new ones. Hence, this movement has generated brand new kinds of philosophical problems that have still not been dealt with systematically. Philosophy of Logical Systems addresses these new kinds of philosophical problems that are intertwined with the development of modern logic. Jaroslav Peregrin analyzes the rationale behind the introduction of the artificial languages of logic; classifies the various tools which were adopted to build such languages; gives an overview of the various kinds of languages introduced in the course of modern logic and the motifs of their employment; discusses what can actually be achieved by relocating the problems of logic from natural language into them; and reaches certain conclusions with respect to the possibilities and limitations of this "formal turn" of logic. This book is both an important scholarly contribution to the philosophy of logic and a systematic survey of the standard (and not so standard) logical systems that were established during the short history of modern logic.
The Philosophy of Parochialism
by Radomir KonstantinovicThe Philosophy of Parochialism is Radomir Konstantinovic’s (1928–2011) most celebrated and reviled book. First published in Belgrade as Filosofija palanke in 1969, it attracted keen attention and controversy through its unsparing critique of Serbian and any other nationalism in Yugoslavia and beyond. The book was prophetic, seeming to anticipate not only the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, but also the totalitarian turn in politics across the globe in the first decades of the new century. With this translation, English-speaking audiences can at last discover one of the most original writers of eastern European late modernism, and gain an important and original perspective into contemporary politics and culture in the West and beyond. This is a book that seems to age in reverse, as its meanings become deeper and more universal with the passage of time. Konstantinovic’sbookresists easy classification, mixing classical, Montaigne-like essay, prose poetry, novel, and literary history. The word “philosophy” in the book’s title refers to the solitary activity of reflection and critical thinking, and is also paradoxical: according to the author, a defining characteristic of parochialism is precisely its intolerance toward this kind of self-reflexivity. In Konstantinovic’s analysis, parochialism is not a simply a characteristic of a geographical region or a cultural, political, and historical formation—these are all just manifestations of the parochial spirit as the spirit of insularity. His book illuminates the current moment, in which insularity undergirds not only ethnic and national divisions, but also dictates the very structure of everyday life, and where individuals can easily find themselves locked in an echo chamber of social media. The Philosophy of Parochialism can help us understand better not only the dead ends of ethnic nationalism and other atavistic ideologies, but also of those cultural forces such as digital technologies that have been built on the promise of overcoming those ideologies.
The Philosophy of Poetry: The Genius of Lucretius
by Henri BergsonThis is a partial translation by Wade Baskin of the original French work Ecrits et Paroles (a 3 volume set, 665 pages) published between 1957 and 1959 by Henri Bergson. It includes the translation from Bergson&’s introduction to a French ed. of De rerum natura, by Lucretius published in 1884 under the title: Extraits de Lucre`ce.
The Philosophy of Poetry: The Genius of Lucretius
by Henri BergsonThis is a partial translation by Wade Baskin of the original French work Ecrits et Paroles (a 3 volume set, 665 pages) published between 1957 and 1959 by Henri Bergson. It includes the translation from Bergson&’s introduction to a French ed. of De rerum natura, by Lucretius published in 1884 under the title: Extraits de Lucre`ce.
Philosophy of Race: An Introduction (Palgrave Philosophy Today)
by Naomi ZackPhilosophy of Race: An Introduction provides plainly written access to a new subfield that has been in the background of philosophy since Plato and Aristotle. The second edition is updated to include contemporary developments such as digital racisms, metaphysical othering and metaphysical racism, and the rise of populist movements. Its focus has also been expanded to address non-white racial groups in the Americas, Europe, and beyond, such as the Roma and Uighur people. Part I provides an overview of ideas of race and ethnicity in the philosophical canon, egalitarian traditions, race in biology, and race in American and Continental Philosophy. Part II addresses race as it operates in life through colonialism and development, social constructions and institutions, racism, political philosophy, gender, and populist movements. This book constructs an outline that will serve as a resource for students, nonspecialists, and general readers in thinking, talking, and writing about philosophy of race.
The Philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Routledge Studies in American Philosophy)
by Joseph UrbasThis study offers the first comprehensive account of Emerson's philosophy since his philosophical rehabilitation began in the late 1970s. It builds on the historical reconstruction proposed in the author's previous book, Emerson's Metaphysics, and like that study draws on the entire Emerson corpus—the poetry and sermons included. The aim here is expository. The overall though not exclusive emphasis is on identity, as the first term of Emerson's metaphysics of identity and flowing or metamorphosis. This metaphysics, or general conception of the nature of reality, is what grounds his epistemology and ethics, as well as his esthetic, religious, and political thought. Acknowledging its primacy enables a general account like this to avoid the anti-realist overemphasis on epistemology and language that has often characterized rehabilitation readings of his philosophy. After an initial chapter on Emerson's metaphysics, the subsequent chapters devoted to the other branches of his thought also begin with their "necessary foundation" in identity, which is the law of things and the law of mind alike. Perception of identity in metamorphosis is what characterizes the philosopher, the poet, the scientist, the reformer, and the man of faith and virtue. Identity of mind and world is felt in what Emerson calls the moral sentiment. Identity is Emerson's answer to the Sphinx-riddle of life experienced as a puzzling succession of facts and events.
The Philosophy of Rhetoric V7
by I. A. RichardsThis is Volume seven in a collection of ten of the Selected Works of I.A. Richards. Perhaps since his death the most widely known of all Richards' books, certainly the most read, The Philosophy of Rhetoric 1936 is a simplified treatment of the major theoretical concerns of Interpretation in Teaching.
A Philosophy of Second Language Acquisition
by Marysia JohnsonHow does a person learn a second language? In this provocative book, Marysia Johnson proposes a new model of second language acquisition (SLA)--a model that shifts the focus from language competence (the ability to pass a language exam) to language performance (using language competently in real-life contexts). Johnson argues that current SLA theory and research is heavily biased in the direction of the cognitive and experimental scientific tradition. She draws on Vygotsky's sociocultural theory and Bakhtin's literary theory to construct an alternative framework for second language theory, research, teaching, and testing. The origin of second language acquisition is not located exclusively in the learner's mind, the author says, but in dialogical interaction conducted in a variety of settings.
The Philosophy of Sherlock Holmes (The Philosophy of Popular Culture)
by Philip Tallon and David BaggettEssays about the famed fictional detective and the mysteries of life: &“Both elegantly erudite and consistently entertaining&” (E. J. Wagner, Edgar Award–winning author of The Science of Sherlock Holmes). Sir Arthur Conan Doyle&’s detective has stood as a unique figure for more than a century with his reliance on logical rigor, his analytic precision, and his disregard of social mores. A true classic, the Sherlock Holmes character continues to entertain twenty-first-century audiences on the page, stage, and screen. In The Philosophy of Sherlock Holmes, a team of leading scholars uses the beloved character as a window into the quandaries of existence, from questions of reality to the search for knowledge. The essays explore the sleuth&’s role in revealing some of the world's most fundamental philosophical issues, discussing subjects such as the nature of deception, the lessons enemies can teach us, Holmes&’s own potential for criminality, and the detective&’s unique but effective style of inductive reasoning. Emphasizing the philosophical debates raised by generations of devoted fans, this intriguing volume will be of interest to philosophers and Holmes enthusiasts alike.
The Philosophy of Software: Code and Mediation in the Digital Age
by D. BerryThis book is a critical introduction to code and software that develops an understanding of its social and philosophical implications in the digital age. Written specifically for people interested in the subject from a non-technical background, the book provides a lively and interesting analysis of these new media forms.
Philosophy of the Name (NIU Series in Orthodox Christian Studies)
by Sergii BulgakovThis is the first English translation, by Thomas Allan Smith, of Philosophy of the Name (Filosofiia imeni). Sergii Bulgakov (1871–1944) wrote the book in response to a theological controversy that erupted in Russia just before the outbreak of World War I. Bulgakov develops a philosophy of language that aims to justify the truthfulness of the statement "the Name of God is God himself," a claim provoking debate on the meaning of names, and the Name of God in particular. Philosophy of the Name investigates the nature of words and human language, considers grammar and parts of speech, and concludes with an exposition on the Name of God.Name-glorifying, a spiritual movement connected with the Orthodox practice of the Jesus Prayer, was initially censured by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the controversy raised profound questions that continue to vex ecclesiastical authorities and theologians today. The controversy exposed a vital question concerning the ability of human language to express experiences of the Divine truthfully and authentically. Bulgakov examines the idea that humans do not create words, rather, objects speak their word to human beings, and words are the incarnation of thought in a sonic body conveying meaning.Philosophy of the Name offers a philosophy of language for contemporary theologians of all confessions who wrestle with the issue of language and God. It is a persuasive apologia for the mysterious power of words and an appeal to make use of words responsibly not only when speaking about God but equally when communicating with others.
Philosophy of the Novel
by Barry StockerThis book explores the aesthetics of the novel from the perspective of Continental European philosophy, presenting a theory on the philosophical definition and importance of the novel as a literary genre. It analyses a variety of individuals whose work is reflected in both theoretical literary criticism and Continental European aesthetics, including Mikhail Bakhtin, Georg Lukács, Theodor Adorno, and Walter Benjamin. Moving through material from eighteenth century and ancient Greek philosophy and aesthetics, the book provides comprehensive coverage of the major positions on the philosophy of the novel. Distinctive features include the importance of Vico’s view of the epic to understanding the novel, the importance of Kierkegaard’s view of the novel and irony along with his other aesthetic views, the different possibilities associated with seeing the novel as ‘mimetic’ and the importance of Proust in understanding the genre in all its philosophical aspects, relating the issue of the philosophical aesthetics of the novel with the issue of philosophy written as a novel and the interaction between these two alternative positions.
A Philosophy of the Screenplay (Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy)
by Ted NannicelliRecently, scholars in a variety of disciplines—including philosophy, film and media studies, and literary studies—have become interested in the aesthetics, definition, and ontology of the screenplay. To this end, this volume addresses the fundamental philosophical questions about the nature of the screenplay: What is a screenplay? Is the screenplay art—more specifically, literature? What kind of a thing is a screenplay? Nannicelli argues that the screenplay is a kind of artefact; as such, its boundaries are determined collectively by screenwriters, and its ontological nature is determined collectively by both writers and readers of screenplays. Any plausible philosophical account of the screenplay must be strictly constrained by our collective creative and appreciative practices, and must recognize that those practices indicate that at least some screenplays are artworks.
The Philosophy of Theoretical Linguistics: A Contemporary Outlook
by Ryan M. NefdtWhat is the remit of theoretical linguistics? How are human languages different from animal calls or artificial languages? What philosophical insights about language can be gleaned from phonology, pragmatics, probabilistic linguistics, and deep learning? This book addresses the current philosophical issues at the heart of theoretical linguistics, which are widely debated not only by linguists, but also philosophers, psychologists, and computer scientists. It delves into hitherto uncharted territory, putting philosophy in direct conversation with phonology, sign language studies, supersemantics, computational linguistics, and language evolution. A range of theoretical positions are covered, from optimality theory and autosegmental phonology to generative syntax, dynamic semantics, and natural language processing with deep learning techniques. By both unwinding the complexities of natural language and delving into the nature of the science that studies it, this book ultimately improves our tools of discovery aimed at one of the most essential features of our humanity, our language.
The Philosophy of Tragedy
by Julian YoungThis book is a full survey of the philosophy of tragedy from antiquity to the present. From Aristotle to Žižek the focal question has been: why, in spite of its distressing content, do we value tragic drama? What is the nature of the 'tragic effect'? Some philosophers point to a certain kind of pleasure that results from tragedy. Others, while not excluding pleasure, emphasize the knowledge we gain from tragedy – of psychology, ethics, freedom or immortality. Through a critical engagement with these and other philosophers, the book concludes by suggesting an answer to the question of what it is that constitutes tragedy 'in its highest vocation'. This book will be of equal interest to students of philosophy and of literature.
The Philosophy of Translation
by Damion SearlsA deep dive into the nature of translation from one of its most acclaimed practitioners Avoiding theoretical debates and clichéd metaphors, award‑winning translator Damion Searls has written a fresh, approachable, and convincing account of what translation really is and what translators actually do. As the translator of sixty books from multiple languages, Searls has spent decades grappling with words on the most granular level: nouns and verbs, accents on people&’s names, rhymes, rhythm, &“untranslatable&” cultural nuances. Here, he connects a wealth of specific examples to larger philosophical issues of reading and perception. Translation, he argues, is fundamentally a way of reading—but reading is much more than taking in information, and translating is far from a mechanical process of converting one word to another. This sharp and inviting exploration of the theory and practice of translation is for anyone who has ever marveled at the beauty, force, and movement of language.
Philosophy, Revision, Critique: Rereading Practices in Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Emerson
by David WittenbergPhilosophers have almost always relegated the topic of revision to the sidelines of their discipline, if they have thought about it at all. This book contends that acts of revision are central and indispensable to the project of philosophizing and that philosophy should be construed essentially as a practice of rereading and rewriting. The book focuses chiefly on Heidegger’s highly influential interpretation of Nietzsche, conducted in lectures during the 1930s and 1940s and published in 1961. The author closely analyzes the rhetorical means by which Heidegger repositions Nietzsche’s thinking within a broad history of metaphysics, even as Heidegger positions his own reinterpretation as that history’s more “proper” reading. The author argues that Heidegger’s revisionist project recasts the philosophical text as paralipsis, a special kind of ironic statement that when “properly” received by the philosophical rereader, expresses what the text did not and could not say. The study of such paraliptical revisionism within the philosophical canon offers a new way of understanding the basic historicity of the philosophical text, a text that is critically indistinguishable from its own future history of interpretations. Philosophy itself is revision, a deeply historicist rereading practice, a continuous reappropriation of its own improper textual past. In addition to being the first book-length published study of Heidegger’s interpretation of Nietzsche, the book also examines the work of Hans-Robert Jauss, Harold Bloom, and other critics of revision. In particular, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s early essays on history, read both with and against Heidegger’s analysis of metaphysics, demonstrate why the historical intervention achieved by revisionist reading is not only a formal and thematic alteration of the past, but also a rhetorical coercion of future interpretive tendencies. No philosophical reader is simply a user or victim of revisionist methods: in rereading philosophical pasts, the reader is the very mechanism by which such interpretive tendencies are first formed into problems or thoughts within the philosophical canon.
Philosophy, Rhetoric, and the End of Knowledge: A New Beginning for Science and Technology Studies
by Steve Fuller James H. CollierIn this second edition of Steve Fuller's original work Philosophy, Rhetoric, and the End of Knowledge: A New Beginning for Science and Technology Studies, James Collier joins Fuller in developing an updated and accessible version of Fuller's classic volume. The new edition shifts focus slightly to balance the discussions of theory and practice, and the writing style is oriented to advanced students. It addresses the contemporary problems of knowledge to develop the basis for a more publicly accountable science. The resources of social epistemology are deployed to provide a positive agenda of research, teaching, and political action designed to bring out the best in both the ancient discipline of rhetoric and the emerging field of science and technology studies (STS). The authors reclaim and integrate STS and rhetoric to explore the problems of knowledge as a social process--problems of increasing public interest that extend beyond traditional disciplinary resources. In so doing, the differences among disciplines must be questioned (the exercise of STS) and the disciplinary boundaries must be renegotiated (the exercise of rhetoric). This book innovatively integrates a sophisticated theoretical approach to the social processes of creating knowledge with a developing pedagogical apparatus. The thought questions at the end of each chapter, the postscript, and the appendix allow the reader to actively engage the text in order to discuss and apply its theoretical insights. Creating new standards for interdisciplinary scholarship and communication, the authors bring numerous disciplines into conversation in formulating a new kind of rhetoric geared toward greater democratic participation in the knowledge-making process. This volume is intended for students and scholars in rhetoric of science, science studies, philosophy, and communication, and will be of interest in English, sociology, and knowledge management arenas as well.
Philosophy Through Film
by Burton PorterThe Second Edition of Philosophy Through Film continues to break new ground for the Introductory philosophy course by using classic and contemporary films to illustrate traditional philosophic works. The philosophical contents comples alive as never before as it is linked with students' contemporary experience. Classic readings from Plato's Republic through J.S. Mills' Utilitarianism through C.S. Lewis' The Problem of Pain continue to anchor the text, and provide the thematic structure as the reader moves from the study of epistemology through metaphysics, ethics, religion and politics. The new edition brings the illustrative material up to the present with the inclusion of films such as Crash, The Minority Report, and The Truman Show as well as the addition of classic productions such as Diary of a Country Priest and To Kill a Mockingbird.
Philosophy Through The Looking-Glass: Language, Nonsense, Desire
by Jean-Jacques LecercleIt is generally accepted that language is primarily a means of communication. But do we always mean what we say – must we mean something when we talk? This book explores the other side of language, where words are incoherent and meaning fails us. it argues that this shadey side of language is more important in our everyday speech than linguists and philosophers recognize. Historically this other side of language known as has attracted more attention in France than elsewhere. It is particularly interesting because it brings together texts from a wide range of fields, including fiction, poetry and linguistics. The author also discusses the kind of linguistics that must be developed to deal with such texts, a linguistics which makes use of psychoanalytic knowledge. This tradition of writing has produced a major philosopher, Gilles Deleuze. This book provides an introduction to his work, an account of his original theory of meaning and an analysis of the celebrated Anti-Oedipus, which takes délire as one of its main themes.