Concise encyclopedia of syntactic theories Ed. by Keith Brown and Jim Miller, and: Concise encyclopedia of philosophy of language Ed. by Peter V. Lamarque

Language ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 76 (1) ◽  
pp. 231-232
Author(s):  
Michael A. Covington
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Syntactic Theories

Language and Meaning in the Age of Modernism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James McElvenny
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Vienna Circle ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Personal Connection ◽  
International Language ◽  
Academic Philosophy ◽  
Significant Figures ◽  
Basic English ◽  
And Linguistics

This book is a historical study of influential currents in the philosophy of language and linguistics of the first half of the twentieth century, explored from the perspective of the English scholar C. K. Ogden (1889–1957). Although no ‘Great Man’ in his own right, Ogden had a personal connection, reflected in his work, to several of the most significant figures of the age. The background to the ideas espoused in Ogden’s book The Meaning of Meaning, co-authored with I.A. Richards (1893–1979), is examined in detail, along with the application of these ideas in his international language project Basic English. A richly interlaced network of connections is revealed between early analytic philosophy, semiotics and linguistics, all inevitably shaped by the contemporary cultural and political environment. In particular, significant interaction is shown between Ogden’s ideas, the varying versions of ‘logical atomism’ of Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) and Ludwig Wittgensten (1889–1951), Victoria Lady Welby’s (1837–1912) ‘significs’, and the philosophy and political activism of Otto Neurath (1882–1945) and Rudolf Carnap (1891–1970) of the Vienna Circle. Amid these interactions emerges a previously little known mutual exchange between the academic philosophy and linguistics of the period and the practically oriented efforts of the international language movement.

Aboutness

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Yablo
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Library Science ◽  
Philosophical Methodology ◽  
Major Advance ◽  
Truth Conditions ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Made In

Aboutness has been studied from any number of angles. Brentano made it the defining feature of the mental. Phenomenologists try to pin down the aboutness features of particular mental states. Materialists sometimes claim to have grounded aboutness in natural regularities. Attempts have even been made, in library science and information theory, to operationalize the notion. However, it has played no real role in philosophical semantics, which is surprising. This is the first book to examine through a philosophical lens the role of subject matter in meaning. A long-standing tradition sees meaning as truth conditions, to be specified by listing the scenarios in which a sentence is true. Nothing is said about the principle of selection—about what in a scenario gets it onto the list. Subject matter is the missing link here. A sentence is true because of how matters stand where its subject matter is concerned. This book maintains that this is not just a feature of subject matter, but its essence. One indicates what a sentence is about by mapping out logical space according to its changing ways of being true or false. The notion of content that results—directed content—is brought to bear on a range of philosophical topics, including ontology, verisimilitude, knowledge, loose talk, assertive content, and philosophical methodology. The book represents a major advance in semantics and the philosophy of language.

Beyond Concepts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Garrett Millikan
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Conceptual Development ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Language Function ◽  
Natural Signs ◽  
Transmission Of Information ◽  
The World ◽  
Natural Information ◽  
Natural Ontology

This book weaves together themes from natural ontology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and information, areas of inquiry that have not recently been treated together. The sprawling topic is Kant’s how is knowledge possible? but viewed from a contemporary naturalist standpoint. The assumption is that we are evolved creatures that use cognition as a guide in dealing with the natural world, and that the natural world is roughly as natural science has tried to describe it. Very unlike Kant, then, we must begin with ontology, with a rough understanding of what the world is like prior to cognition, only later developing theories about the nature of cognition within that world and how it manages to reflect the rest of nature. And in trying to get from ontology to cognition we must traverse another non-Kantian domain: questions about the transmission of information both through natural signs and through purposeful signs including, especially, language. Novelties are the introduction of unitrackers and unicepts whose job is to recognize the same again as manifested through the jargon of experience, a direct reference theory for common nouns and other extensional terms, a naturalist sketch of uniceptual—roughly conceptual— development, a theory of natural information and of language function that shows how properly functioning language carries natural information, a novel description of the semantics/pragmatics distinction, a discussion of perception as translation from natural informational signs, new descriptions of indexicals and demonstratives and of intensional contexts and a new analysis of the reference of incomplete descriptions.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Wolterstorff
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Mental Activity ◽  
Philosophy Of Art ◽  
Liturgical Theology ◽  
Ritual Studies ◽  
Subsequent Discussion ◽  
Art Philosophy ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Mind

This chapter considers why contemporary analytic philosophers of religion have neglected liturgy and focused almost all of their attention on religious belief. Following Descartes, reflections on mental activity and the mind have been central in modern philosophy. But that has not prevented the emergence of philosophy of art, philosophy of language, and political philosophy, none of which deal with mental activity or the mind. So why not philosophy of liturgy? Several explanations are considered; but none is found to be fully satisfactory. The Introduction concludes with an explanation of how the subsequent discussion relates to liturgical theology and to anthropological ritual studies.

Testimonial Pessimism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Elizabeth Fraser
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
De Re

Recent epistemological history has inclined towards ‘testimonial optimism’, keen to stress the division of epistemic labour and how ubiquitously we depend upon the words of others. Its counterpart, ‘testimonial pessimism’, marks out a cluster of gloomier views, which stress—in different ways—testimony’s epistemic shortcomings. This chapter’s project is to establish a robust connection between pessimist readings of testimony, and two different commitments one might have in the philosophy of language: ‘emotionism’, and what the author calls ‘strong’ readings of the de re. The author does not aim to say, in this chapter, what she thinks we ought to do with these connections; that is, she aims to remain agnostic on whether we should take the connections she sketches to give us a way of vindicating pessimism, or whether they are better read as part of an error theoretic project.

Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion Volume 9

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Inclusive Approach ◽  
Past Half

This is the ninth volume of Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion. As with earlier volumes, these essays follow the tradition of providing a non-sectarian and non-partisan snapshot of the subdiscipline of philosophy of religion. This subdiscipline has become an increasingly important one within philosophy over the last century, and especially over the past half century, having emerged as an identifiable subfield with this timeframe along with other emerging subfields such as the philosophy of science and the philosophy of language. This volume continues the initial intention behind the series of attracting the best work from the premier philosophers of religion, as well as including work by top philosophers outside this area when their work and interests intersect with issues in the philosophy of religion. This inclusive approach to the series provides an opportunity to mitigate some of the costs of greater specialization in our discipline, while at the same time inviting wider interest in the work being done in the philosophy of religion.

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