Philosophy of language Books

Book SynopsisJason Stanley presents a startling and provocative claim about knowledge: that whether or not someone knows a proposition at a given time is in part determined by his or her practical interests, i.e. by how much is at stake for that person at that time. So whether a true belief is knowledge is not merely a matter of supporting beliefs or reliability; in the case of knowledge, practical rationality and theoretical rationality are intertwined. Stanley defends this thesis against alternative accounts of the phenomena that motivate it, such as the claim that knowledge attributions are linguistically context-sensitive (contextualism about knowledge attributions), and the claim that the truth of a knowledge claim is somehow relative to the person making the claim (relativism about knowledge).In the course of his argument Stanley introduces readers to a number of strategies for resolving philosophical paradox, making the book essential not just for specialists in epistemology but for all philTrade ReviewNeedless to say, I find Stanley's book extremely important and powerfully argued. I recommend it highly, not only to those interested in recent debates over the semantics of knowledge attributions, for whom it is absolutely essential, but also to anyone with a healthy interest in what knowledge is - and indeed to anybody who enjoys well-executed, insightful philosophy books * Keith DeRose, Mind *Jason Stanleys Knowledge and Practical Interests is a brilliant book, combining insights about knowledge with a careful examination of how recent views in epistemology fit with the best of recent linguistic semantics. * Gilbert Harman, Princeton University *Table of ContentsIntroduction ; 1. Contextualism ; 2. Knowledge Ascriptions and Gradability ; 3. Knowledge Ascriptions and Context-Sensitivity ; 4. Contextualism on the Cheap? ; 5. Interest-Relative Invariantism ; 6. Interest-Relative Invariantism vs. Contextualism ; 7. Interest-Relative Invariantism vs. Relativism ; 8. Contextualism, Interest-Relativism, and Philosophical Paradox ; 9. Conclusion

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Book SynopsisThis book contains updated and substantially revised versions of Angelika Kratzer''s classic papers on modals and conditionals, including ''What must and can must and can mean'', ''Partition and Revision'', ''The Notional Category of Modality'', ''Conditionals'', ''An Investigation of the Lumps of Thought'', and ''Facts: Particulars or Information Units?''. The book''s contents add up to some of the most important work on modals and conditionals in particular and on the semantics-syntax interface more generally. It will be of central interest to linguists and philosophers of language of all theoretical persuasions.Trade ReviewThe book's contents add up to some of the most important work on modals and conditionals. It will be of central interest to linguists and philosophers of language of all theoretical persuasions. * MathSciNet *An indispensible resource. * François Recanati, Institut Jean Nicod *This book is a treasure of the puzzles, illustrations, and parables that have shaped the modern view of the language of modals and conditionals. It defines the standard against which all theorizing on the subject is to be measured. A classic. * Barry Schein, University of Southern California *This work collects and dramatically expands upon Angelika Kratzer's now classic papers. There is scarcely an area of philosophy that remains or will remain untouched by their influence. * Jason Stanley, Rutgers University *Table of Contents1. What Must and Can Must and Can Mean ; 2. The Notional Category of Modality ; 3. Partition and Revision: The Semantics of Counterfactuals ; 4. Conditionals ; 5. An Investigation of the Lumps of Thought ; 6. Facts: Particulars or Information Units? ; References ; Index

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Book SynopsisGardeners, poets, lovers, and philosophers are all interested in the redness of roses; but only philosophers wonder how it is that two different roses can share the same property. Are red things red because they resemble each other? Or do they resemble each other because they are red? Since the 1970s philosophers have tended to favour the latter view, and held that a satisfactory account of properties must involve the postulation of either universals or tropes. But Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra revives the dormant alternative theory of resemblance nominalism, showing first that it can withstand the attacks of such eminent opponents as Goodman and Armstrong, and then that there are reasons to prefer it to its rival theories. The clarity and rigour of his arguments will challenge metaphysicians to rethink their views on properties.Trade ReviewRodriguez-Pereyra . . . develops a novel understanding of the problem of universals, offers his own conception of truthmaking and examines the relative virtues of qualitative and quantitative economy. . . . [he] deserves praise for following arguments where they lead and challenging so many of the ingrained assumptions that metaphysicians routinely bring to bear upon the discussion of resemblance nominalism. * Fraser MacBride, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *Dan Dennett's Philosophical Lexicon contains the entry: 'Exhume, v. to revive a position generally thought to be humed.' This book is the most brilliant philosophical exhumation that it has been my pleasure to encounter. This book argues that our attributions of properties and relations can be given satisfactory truthmakers using no more than resemblances holding between ordinary particulars. Many of us had assumed that this program is bankrupt, but now we must think again ... With patient and ingenious argument [Rodriguez-Pereyra] has shown that the theory has more to be said for it than ever I, and I suspect many others, had imagined. The fundamental nature of properties and relations may be the central question in metaphysics. He has made an important contribution to the topic. * D. M. Armstrong, Australasian Journal of Philosophy *Table of ContentsIntroduction ; 1. The Problem of Universals: A Problem about Truthmakers ; 2. The Explananda of the Problems of Universals ; 3. The Many over One ; 4. Resemblance Nominalism ; 5. The Coextension Difficulty ; 6. Russell's Regress ; 7. The Resemblance Structure of Property Classes ; 8. Goodman's Difficulties ; 9. The Imperfect Community Difficulty ; 10. The Companionship Difficulty ; 11. The Mere Intersections Difficulty ; 12. The Superiority of Resemblance Nominalism ; Appendix: On Imperfect Communities and the Non-communities they Entail ; References, Index

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Book SynopsisWhat explains our ability to refer to the objects we perceive? John Campbell argues that our capacity for reference is explained by our capacity to attend selectively to the objects of which we are aware; that this capacity for conscious attention to a perceived object is what provides us with our knowledge of reference. When someone makes a reference to a perceived object, your knowledge of which thing they are talking about is constituted by your consciously attending to the relevant object. Campbell articulates the connections between these three concepts: reference, attention and consciousness. He looks at the metaphysical conception of the environment demanded by such an account, and at the demands imposed on our conception of consciousness by the point that consciousness of objects is what explains our capacity to think about them. He argues that empirical work on the binding problem can illuminate our grasp of the way in which we have knowledge of reference, supplied by conscious attention to the relevant object.Reference and Consciousness illuminates fundamental problems about thought, reference, and experience by looking at the underlying psychological mechanisms on which conscious attention depends. It is an original and stimulating contribution to philosophy and to cognitive science.The Oxford Cognitive Science Series is a forum for the best contemporary work in this flourishing field, where various disciplines - cognitive psychology, philosophy, linguistics, cognitive neuroscience, and computational theory - join forces in the investigation of thought, awareness, understanding, and associated workings of the mind. Each book will constitute an original contribution to its subject, but will be accessible beyond the ranks of specialists, so as to reach a broad interdisciplinary readership. The series will be carefully shaped and steered with the aim of representing the most important developments in the field and bringing together its constituent disciplines.General Editors: Martin Davies, James Higginbotham, Philip Johnson-Laird, Christopher Peacocke, Kim PlunkettTrade ReviewThis is important work which should be widely read. * The Philosophical Quarterly *... this book is an exciting contribution to an area which urgently needs a new sense of direction. Campbell has opened up an original set of problems and has identified links between subjects that have been pursued independently, to the impoverishment of each. * The Philosophical Quarterly *This is the most striking and interesting of the long series of recent books on consciousness. Refreshingly, it has absolutely nothing to say about the philosophical preoccupations standard in this area. * The Philosophical Quarterly *Campbell has many important things to say about the mechanisms that relate perception to action, memory and our awareness of space. All readers will be able to learn from his treatment of these issues. * David Papineau, Times Literary Supplement, 2003 *Table of ContentsIntroduction ; 1. Experiential Highlighting ; 2. What is Knowledge of Reference? ; 3. Space and Action ; 4. Sortals ; 5. Sense ; 6. The Relational View of Experience ; 7. The Explanatory Role of Consciousness ; 8. Joint Attention ; 9. Memory Demonstratives ; 10. The Anti-Realist Alternative ; 11. Indeterminacy and Inscrutability ; 12. Dispositional vs. Categorical ; Bibliography ; Index

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Book SynopsisGraham Priest presents a new, expanded edition of his highly original exploration of the nature and limits of thought. Drawing on recent developments in the field of logic, Priest shows that the description of such limits leads to contradiction, and argues that these contradictions are in fact true. Beginning with an analysis of the way in which these limits arise in pre-Kantian philosophy, Priest goes on to illustrate how the nature of these limits was theorized by Kant and Hegel. He offers new interpretations of Berkeley''s master argument for idealism and Kant on the antinomies. He explores the paradoxes of self-reference, and provides a unified account of the structure of such paradoxes. The book goes on to trace the theme of the limits of thought in modern philosophy of language, including discussions of the ideas of Wittgenstein and Derrida.The second edition includes new chapters on Heidegger and Nagarjuna, as well as reflections on reactions to the first edition. This clear, prTrade ReviewReview from previous edition This book is a splendid tour de force, one which should be read by every philosopher... * Alan Weir, Philosophical Quarterly *clever, resourceful, undogmatic, unpretentious, often sensible and usually clear over a wide range of issues * Timothy Williamson, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science *highly entertaining and provocative... an engaging and instructive tour through some of the most perplexing features of our own conceptual finitude... * A. W. Moore, Times Literary Supplement *Graham Priest combines a deep philosophical appreciation of fundamental logical issues with a marvelously informed reading of both the history of philosophy and contemporary texts. His work is ambitious and insightful... The book is an ambitious attempt to do important philosophical work across major borders - borders of the formal and philosophical, the historical and the contemporary, the Analytical and the Continental traditions. In [this] regard it is a resounding success. * Patrick Grim, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research *Table of Contents1. THE LIMITS OF EXPRESSION ; 5. NOUMENA AND THE CATEGORIES ; 8. ABSOLUTE INFINITY ; 12. THE UNITY OF THOUGHT ; 15. HEIDEGGER AND THE GRAMMAR OF BEING

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Book SynopsisDiscusses topics such as: freedom to act; weakness of the will; the logical form of talk about actions, intentions, and causality; the logic of practical reasoning; Hume's theory of the indirect passions; and the nature and limits of decision theory. This book argues for an ontology which includes events along with persons and other objects.Trade ReviewReview from other book by this author `...these intriguing views are ingeniously argued and fruitfully provocative.' Philosophy.Review from previous edition 'it must be said that this is one of the most impressive works of analytical philosophy to appear for a good many years.' * Peter Strawson, Times Literary Supplement *Review from previous edition 'it must be said that this is one of the most impressive works of analytical philosophy to appear for a good many years... The positions adopted are argued for with an extraordinarily sustained seriousness and determination... the work will become, and deserves to become, a classic in its field.' * Peter Strawson, Times Literary Supplement *Table of Contents1. ACTIONS, REASONS, AND CAUSES (1963) ; 6. THE LOGICAL FORM OF ACTION SENTENCES (1967) ; 11. MENTAL EVENTS (1970)

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Book SynopsisDonald Davidson presents a new edition of the 1984 volume which set out his enormously influential philosophy of language. Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation has been a central point of reference and a focus of controversy in the subject ever since, and its influence has extended into linguistic theory, philosophy of mind, and epistemology. This new edition features an additional essay, previously uncollected.The central question which these essays address is what it is for words to mean what they do. Davidson argues that a philosophically instructive theory of meaning should acknowledge the holistic nature of linguistic understanding, in that it should provide an interpretation of all utterances, actual and potential, of a speaker or group of speakers; and that it should not rely upon the concepts it attempts to explain, in that it should be verifiable independently of knowledge of the detailed propositional attitudes of the speaker. Among the topics covered in the essays are theTrade ReviewDavidson, aside from being one of the most influential philosophers of the last century, shares with many of his generation a capacity to write intelligibly. * The Philosophers' Magazine *Table of Contents1. THEORIES OF MEANING AND LEARNABLE LANGUAGES (1965); 6. QUOTATION (1979); 9. RADICAL INTERPRETATION (1973); 13. ON THE VERY IDEA OF A CONCEPTUAL SCHEME (1974); 17. WHAT METAPHORS MEAN (1978)

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Book SynopsisPaul Horwich, one of the world''s most distinguished philosophers, develops in this book his highly original deflationary conception of language. His main aim in Reflections on Meaning is to explain how mere noises, marks, gestures, and mental symbols are able to capture the world - that is, how words and sentences (in whatever medium) come to mean what they do, to stand for certain things, to be true or false of reality. His answer is an innovative development of Wittgenstein''s idea that the meaning of a term is nothing more than its use.Trade ReviewThis lucid, closely argued, and stimulating book offers Horwich's latest formulation and defence of his Use Theory of Meaning . . . there is a great deal of interesting and nuanced argument on almost every page of this thought-provoking book, including detailed responses to important semantic theorists such as Chomsky, Davidson, Dummett, Fodor, Grice, Kripke, Putnam, and Quine. For anyone interested in the prospects for a use-based theory of meaning, or a naturalistic reduction of semantics, or who wants a clear sense of current issues at the cutting-edge of philosophy of language, Horwich's book is required reading. * David Macarthur, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *Table of ContentsPreface ; 1. The Space of Issues and Options ; 2. A Use Theory of Meaning ; 3. The Pseudo-Problem of Error ; 4. The Sharpness of Vague Terms ; 5. Norms of Truth and Meaning ; 6. Meaning Constitution and Epistemic Rationality ; 7. Meaning and its Place in the Faculty of Language ; 8. Deflating Compositionality

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Book SynopsisGraham Priest presents an expanded edition of his exploration of the nature and limits of thought. Embracing contradiction and challenging traditional logic, he engages with issues across philosophical borders, from the historical to the modern, Eastern to Western, continental to analytic.Trade Review...a welcome new edition... * Carlo Penco, Epistemologia *Table of Contents1. THE LIMITS OF EXPRESSION ; 5. NOUMENA AND THE CATEGORIES ; 8. ABSOLUTE INFINITY ; 12. THE UNITY OF THOUGHT ; 15. HEIDEGGER AND THE GRAMMAR OF BEING

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Book SynopsisThis is a new edition, revised and expanded, of a seminal work in the logic and philosophy of time, originally published in 1968. Arthur N. Prior (1914-1969) was the founding father of temporal logic. His work has attracted increased attention in the decades since his death: its influence stretches beyond philosophy and logic to computer science and formal linguistics. Prior''s fundamental ideas about the logic of time are presented here along with his investigations into the formal properties of time and tense. Already in 1969 Prior had been planning a new edition of Papers on Time and Tense, to incorporate his more recent work. Because of his untimely death this plan was never followed through--till now. Seven important papers have been added to the original selection, as well as a comprehensive bibliography of his work and an illuminating interview with his widow, Mary Prior, about his life and work. In addition, the Polish logic which made the original book difficult for many readeTrade Review[An] excellent collection. Every paper is densely argued and challenging * Philosophy Journal, Vol. 82 *Table of Contents1. LIFE AND WORK OF ARTHUR N. PRIOR: 'AN INTERVIEW WITH MARY PRIOR'

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Book SynopsisIn Contradiction advocates and defends the view that there are true contradictions (dialetheism), a view that flies in the face of orthodoxy in Western philosophy since Aristotle. The book has been at the centre of the controversies surrounding dialetheism ever since its first publication in 1987. This second edition of the book substantially expands upon the original in various ways, and also contains the author''s reflections on developments over the last two decades. Further aspects of dialetheism are discussed in the companion volume, Doubt Truth to be a Liar, also published by Oxford University Press.Trade Reviewafter reading the careful arguments that Priest builds to defend dialetheism, and the passionate attack he launches on classical logic and consistent views of the world, one realizes that dialetheism is a major logical theory, deserving a detailed examination. . . . I strongly recommend its reading to anyone interested in logic and language * José Martínez Fernández, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *Table of ContentsFull contents to follow

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Book SynopsisThis book revives the study of conventional implicatures in natural language semantics. H. Paul Grice first defined the concept. Since then his definition has seen much use and many redefinitions, but it has never enjoyed a stable place in linguistic theory. Christopher Potts returns to the original and uses it as a key into two presently under-studied areas of natural language: supplements (appositives, parentheticals) and expressives (e.g., honorifics, epithets). The account of both depends on a theory in which sentence meanings can be multidimensional. The theory is logically and intuitively compositional, and it minimally extends a familiar kind of intensional logic, thereby providing an adaptable, highly useful tool for semantic analysis. The result is a linguistic theory that is accessible not only to linguists of all stripes, but also philosophers of language, logicians, and computer scientists who have linguistic applications in mind.Trade Reviewa virtuosic blend of astute descriptive observations and technically sophisticated formulations, * Kent Bach, Journal of Linguistics *The Logic of Conventional Implicatures, by Christopher Potts, which I consider one of the highlights of 2005, presents an ingenious new theory for describing the semantic interpretation of sentences that are said to contain 'conventional implicatures' (CIs). * The Year's Work in English Studies *Table of Contents1. Introduction ; 2. A Preliminary Case for Conventional Implicatures ; 3. A Logic for Conventional Implicatures ; 4. Supplements ; 5. Expressive Content ; 6. The Supplement Relation: A Syntactic Analysis ; 7. A Look Outside Grice's Definition ; Appendix ; Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThis book introduces generative grammar as an area of study and asks what it tells us about the human mind. Wolfram Hinzen lays the foundation for the unification of modern generative linguistics with the philosophies of mind and language. He introduces Chomsky''s program of a ''minimalist'' syntax as a novel explanatory vision of the human mind. He explains how the Minimalist Program originated in work in cognitive science, biology, linguistics, and philosophy, and examines its implications for work in these fields. He considers the way the human mind is designed when seen as an arrangement of structural patterns in nature, and argues that its design is the product not so much of adaptive evolutionary history as of principles and processes that are ahistorical and internalist in character. Linguistic meaning, he suggests, arises in the mind as a consequence of structures emerging on formal rather than functional grounds. From this he substantiates an unexpected and deeply unfashionablTable of ContentsPREFACE; ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS; PART I: NATURALLY HUMAN; PART II: DEDUCING VARIATION; PART III: RATIONAL MIND; CONCLUSIONS; REFERENCES

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Book SynopsisKit Fine has since the 1970s been one of the leading contributors to work at the intersection of logic and metaphysics. This is his eagerly-awaited first book in the area. It draws together a series of essays, three of them previously unpublished, on possibility, necessity, and tense. These puzzling aspects of the way the world is have been the focus of considerable philosophical attention in recent decades.Fine gives here the definitive exposition and defence of certain positions for which he is well known: the intelligibility of modality de re; the primitiveness of the modal; and the primacy of the actual over the possible. But the book also argues for several positions that are not so familiar: the existence of distinctive forms of natural and normative necessity, not reducible to any form of metaphysical necessity; the need to make a distinction between the worldly and the unworldly, analogous to the distinction between the tensed and the tenseless; and the viability of a non-standTable of ContentsI. ISSUES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE ; II. ISSUES IN ONTOLOGY ; III. ISSUES IN METAPHYSICS ; IV. REVIEWS

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Book SynopsisGuiding the work of most linguists and philosophers of language today is the assumption that language is governed by prescriptive normative rules. Many believe that it is of the essence of thought itself to follow rules, rules of inference determining the intentional contents of our concepts, and that these rules originate as internalized rules of language. However, exactly what it is for there to be such things as normative rules of language remains distressingly unclear. From what source do these norms flow? What sanctions enforce them? What happens, exactly, if you don''t follow the rules? How do children learn the rules?Ruth Millikan presents a radicallly different way of viewing the partial regularities that language displays, the norms and conventions of language. The central norms applying to language, like those norms of function and behavior that account for the survival and proliferation of biological traits, are non-evaluative norms. Specific linguistic forms survive and areTrade ReviewThe essays are carefully organized to present Millikan's account of language in a novel, systemic manner...it's unapologetically ambitious, uncommonly though-provoking, and is full of insights, in every chapter. Moreover, she does often succeed at making her ideas more accessible than in other of her works...this new collection is often fascinating and consistently thought-provoking, and many of her claims that seem on first look to be obviously wrong become, over time, utterly compelling. The book is a challenge, but it's worth it. * Brian Epstein, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *the individual essays of Language serve to confirm Millikan's status as one of the most innovative and compelling thinkers of our time. * Emma Borg, Times Literary Supplement *Ruth Garrett Millikan is one of the most important thinkers in philosophy of mind and language of the current generation. * Emma Borg, Times Literary Supplement *Table of Contents1. Language Conventions Made Simple ; 2. In Defense of Public Language ; 3. Meaning, Meaning, and Meaning ; 4. The Son and the Daughter: On Sellars, Brandom, and Millikan ; 5. The Language-Thought Partnership ; 6. Why (most) Kinds are not Classes ; 7. Cutting Philosophy of Language Down to Size ; 8. Proper Function and Convention in Speech Acts ; 9. Pushmi-pullyu Representations ; 10. Semantics/Pragmatics (Purposes and Cross-Purposes)

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Book SynopsisThe Essential Davidson compiles the most celebrated papers of one of the twentieth century''s greatest philosophers. It distils Donald Davidson''s seminal contributions to our understanding of ourselves, from three decades of essays, into one thematically organized collection. A new, specially written introduction by Ernie Lepore and Kirk Ludwig, two of the world''s leading authorities on his work, offers a guide through the ideas and arguments, shows how they interconnect, and reveals the systematic coherence of Davidson''s worldview.Davidson''s philosophical program is organized around two connected projects. The first is that of understanding the nature of human agency. The second is that of understanding the nature and function of language, and its relation to the world. Accordingly, the first part of the book presents Davidson''s investigation of reasons, causes, and intentions, which revolutionized the philosophy of action. This leads to his notable doctrine of anomalous monism, Table of ContentsIntroduction ; PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION AND PSYCHOLOGY ; 1. Action, Reasons, and Causes (1963) ; 2. The Logical Form of Action Sentences (with Comments, Criticism, and Defense) (1967) ; 3. How is Weakness of the Will Possible? (1969) ; 4. Individuation of Events (1969) ; 5. Mental Events (1970) (with Emeroses by Other Names (1966)) ; 6. Intending (1978) ; 7. Paradoxes of Irrationality (1982) ; TRUTH, MEANING, AND INTERPRETATION ; 8. Truth and Meaning (1967) ; 9. On Saying That (1968) ; 10. Radical Interpretation (1973) ; 11. On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme (1974) ; 12. What Metaphors Mean (1978) ; 13. A Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge (1983); Afterthoughts (1987) ; 14. First Person Authority (1984) ; 15. A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs (1986)

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Book SynopsisThis is a book about semantic theories of modality. Its main goal is to explain and evaluate important contemporary theories within linguistics and to discuss a wide range of linguistic phenomena from the perspective of these theories. The introduction describes the variety of grammatical phenomena associated with modality, explaining why modal verbs, adjectives, and adverbs represent the core phenomena. Chapters are then devoted to the possible worlds semantics for modality developed in modal logic; current theories of modal semantics within linguistics; and the most important empirical areas of research. The author concludes by discussing the relation between modality and other topics, especially tense, aspect, mood, and discourse meaning.Paul Portner''s accessible guide to this key area of current research will be welcomed by students of linguistics at graduate level and above, as well as by researchers in philosophy, computational science, and related fields.Trade ReviewThis is a most welcome, challenging and insightful book...an invaluable source of information for both students and senior researchers in linguistic semantics. * Ferenc Keifer, The Journal of Linguistics *This book is sure to be recognized as the most thorough systematic survey of the semantics of modality yet undertaken...written with admirable care * Frank Veltman, Professor of Logic and Cognitive Science, University of Amsterdam *...constitutes an ideal introduction for the beginner; but also the expert will learn from it... An extremely valuable, up to date, inspiring resource. * Gennaro Chierchia, Haas Foundations Professor of Linguistics, Harvard University *A self-contained monograph, it does not assume much familiarity on the reader's part with modal logic or any major theory of linguistic modality, so that those who have just started exploring modality will find the book very accessible and helpful. On the other hand, experts will find the book an excellent resource to turn to when they want to have a quick brush-up on one theory of modality or another. An authoritative figure on linguistic modality, Portner takes an unimposing position when presenting his own ideas (where applicable). Overall the book is a great pleasure to read. * Zhiguo Xie, Department of Linguistics, Cornell University *Table of Contents1. Introduction ; 2. Modal Logic ; 3. Major Linguistic Theories of Modality ; 4. Sentential Modality ; 5. Modality and Other Intensional Categories ; Bibliography ; Index

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Book SynopsisMark Wilson investigates the way we get to grips with the world conceptually, and the way that philosophical problems commonly arise from this. He combines traditional philosophical concerns about human conceptual thinking with illuminating data derived from physics and applied mathematics, cognitive psychology, and linguistics.Trade ReviewLate Twentieth Century philosophical theories of concepts confine their movements within a surprisingly constrained Carnapian compass...But there is something wholly new under the sun. Mark Wilson's Wandering Significance represents the intrusion into this tired tradition of a theoretical approach that is both strikingly original and genuinely deep. The evidence, considerations, and ideas he brings into play do not stem from any recognizable prior philosophical school, constellation, or tradition. What he offers is new conceptual framework that is motivated and supported by concrete, detailed investigations of actual concepts "under a microscope" and "pushed to the limit". * Robert Brandom, Philosophical and Phenomenological Research *This monumental volume aims to redirect philosophical work on concepts towards explaining how we can successfully navigate the daunting complexity of the natural world. * Christopher Pincock, Philosophia Mathematica *Table of Contents1. Wide Screen ; 2. Lost Chords ; 3. Classical Glue ; 4. Theory Facades ; 5. The Practical Go of It ; 6. The Virtues of Cracked Reasoning ; 7. Linguistic Wayfaring ; 8. Song of the Master Idea ; 9. Semantic Mimicry ; 10. The Critic of Nature and Genius

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Book SynopsisBetween Saying and Doing aims to reconcile pragmatism (in both its classical American and its Wittgensteinian forms) with analytic philosophy. It investigates the relations between the meaning of linguistic expressions and their use. Giving due weight both to what one has to do in order to count as saying various things and to what one needs to say in order to specify those doings, makes it possible to shed new light on the relations between semantics (the theory of the meanings of utterances and the contents of thoughts) and pragmatics (the theory of the functional relations among meaningful or contentful items). Among the vocabularies whose interrelated use and meaning are considered are: logical, indexical, modal, normative, and intentional vocabulary. As the argument proceeds, new ways of thinking about the classic analytic core programs of empiricism, naturalism, and functionalism are offered, as well as novel insights about the ideas of artificial intelligence, the nature of logiTrade ReviewBetween Saying and Doing is an enriching, enlivening book. This is the work of a generous philosopher at the height of his powers stretching readers to the height of theirs. * Maximilian de Gaynesford, Times Literary Supplement *Table of ContentsLecture One: Extending the Project of Analysis ; Lecture Two: Elaborating Abilities: The Expressive Role of Logic ; Appendix to Lecture Two ; Lecture Three: Artificial Intelligence and Analytic Pragmatism ; Lecture Four: Modality and Normativity: From Hume and Quine to Kant and Sellars ; Lecture Five: Incompatibility, Modal Semantics, and Intrinsic Logic ; Appendix to Lecture Five ; Lecture Six: Intentionality as a Pragmatically Mediated Semantic Relation ; Afterword

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Book SynopsisThis book presents a state-of-the-art account of what we know and would like to know about language, mind, and brain. Chapters by leading researchers in linguistics, psycholinguistics, language acquisition, cognitive neuroscience, comparative cognitive psychology, and evolutionary biology are framed by an introduction and conclusion by Noam Chomsky, who places the biolinguistic enterprise in an historical context and helps define its agenda for the future.The questions explored include: What is our tacit knowledge of language?What is the faculty of language?How does it develop in the individual?How is that knowledge put to use?How is it implemented in the brain?How did that knowledge emerge in the species?The book includes the contributor''s key discussions, which dramatically bring to life their enthusiasm for the enterprise and skill in communicating across disciplines. Everyone seriously interested in how language works and why it works the way it does are certain to find, if not alTrade ReviewThe sheer empirical reach of the book makes it essential reading... David Kirkby, University of DurhamTable of ContentsPART 1: OVERTURES; PART 2: ON LANGUAGE; PART 3: ON ACQUISITION; PART 4: OPEN TALKS ON OPEN INQUIRIES

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Book SynopsisThe Oxford Handbooks series is a major new initiative in academic publishing. Each volume offers an authoritative and up-to-date survey of original research in a particular subject area. Specially commissioned essays from leading figures in the discipline give critical examinations of the progress and direction of debates. Oxford Handbooks provide scholars and graduate students with compelling new perspectives upon a wide range of subjects in the humanities and social sciences. Ernie Lepore and Barry Smith present the definitive reference work for this diverse and fertile field of philosophy. A superb international team contribute more than forty brand-new essays covering topics from the nature of language to meaning, truth, and reference, and the interfaces of philosophy of language with linguistics, psychology, logic, epistemology, and metaphysics. It will be an essential resource for anyone working in the central areas of philosophy, for linguists interested in syntax, semantics, anTrade ReviewThis mammoth book should be read by anyone with an interest not only in philosophy of language, but in semantics and pragmatics, and even, though less centrally, in syntax. Though not introductory in the sense that it could be read by a first year student, it is well worth the effort of reading and, given the overall clarity of the chapters, accessible. The quality of the papers is sustained throughout and is of the highest sandard. * LinguistList *Table of ContentsTHE HISTORICAL CONTEXT; THE NATURE OF LANGUAGE; THE NATURE OF MEANING; THE NATURE OF REFERENCE; THE NATURE OF REFERENCE; SEMANTIC THEORY; LINGUISTIC PHENOMENA; VARIETIES OF SPEECH ACT; THE EPISTEMOLOGY AND METAPHYSICS OF LANGUAGE

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Book SynopsisIn this short, lucid, rich book Michael Dummett sets out his views about some of the deepest questions in philosophy. The fundamental question of metaphysics is: what does reality consist of? To answer this, Dummett holds, it is necessary to say what kinds of fact obtain, and what constitutes their holding good. Facts correspond with true propositions, or true thoughts: when we know which propositions, or thoughts, in general, are true, we shall know what facts there are in general. Dummett considers the relation between metaphysics, our conception of the constitution of reality, and semantics, the theory that explains how statements are determined as true or as false in terms of their composition out of their constituent expressions. He investigates the two concepts on which the bridge that connects semantics to metaphysics rests, meaning and truth, and the role of justification in a theory of meaning. He then examines the special semantic and metaphysical issues that arise with relatTrade ReviewDummett's Thought and Reality... is characteristically brilliant. * John Perry, Mind *Table of ContentsPreface ; 1. Facts and Propositions ; 2. Semantics and Metaphysics ; 3. Truth and Meaning ; 4. Truth-Conditional Semantics ; 5. Justificationist Theories of Meaning ; 6. Tense and Time ; 7. Reality As It Is In Itself ; 8. God and the World

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Book SynopsisNew Essays on Singular Thought presents ten new, specially written essays on an issue central to philosophy of mind, language, and perception: the nature of our thought about the external world. Is our thought about objects in the world always descriptive, mediated by our conceptions of those objects? Or is some of our thought somehow more direct, singular, associated more intimately with our perceptual, linguistic, and socially mediated relations to them? Leading experts in the field contributing to this volume make the case for the singularity of thought and debate a broad spectrum of issues it raises, including the structure of singular thought, the role of acquaintance in perception- and communication-based reference, the semantics of fictional and mythical terms, and the merits of epistemic, cognitive, and linguistic conditions on singular thought. Their essays explore new directions for future research and will be an important resource for anyone working at the interface of semanTrade Reviewthe editor deserves thanks for drawing together these thought-provoking papers and making it easier to see some of the profitable areas for future work on singular thought. * Jose Luis Bermudez, The Philosophical Quarterly *Table of ContentsIntroduction ; I THE STRUCTURE OF SINGULAR THOUGHT ; 1. Getting a Thing Into a Thought ; 2. Three Perspectives on Quantifying In ; 3. On Singularity ; II CONDITIONS ON SINGULAR THOUGHT ; 4. Singular Thought: Acquaintance, Semantic Instrumentalism, and Cognitivism ; 5. Singular Thought: In Defense of Acquaintance ; DEMONSTRATIVE AND COMMUNICATION-BASED REFERENCE AND THOUGHT ; 6. Demonstrative Reference, the Relational View of Experience, and the Proximality Principle ; 7. We Are Acquainted With Ordinary Things ; 8. Millian Externalism ; IV THINKING OF NOTHING ; 9. Fictional Singular Imaginings ; 10. Intentionality Without Exotica ; Index

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Book SynopsisThis volume presents twenty-two uncollected philosophical essays by Sir Peter Strawson, one of the leading philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century. The essays (two of them previously unpublished) are drawn from seven decades of work, from 1949 to 2003. They span the broad range of Strawson''s work: metaphysics, epistemology, philosophical logic, philosophy of language, ethical theory, and history of philosophy, along with metaphilosophical reflections and intellectual autobiography.Table of ContentsPreface ; 1. Ethical Intuitionism ; 2. In Defence of a Dogma ; 3. Construction and Analysis ; 4. Proper Names ; 5. The Post-Linguistic Thaw ; 6. Analysis, Science, and Metaphysics ; 7. Bennett on Kant's Analytic ; 8. Does Knowledge have Foundations? ; 9. Knowledge and Truth ; 10. Scruton and Wright on Anti-Realism ; 11. Perception and its Objects ; 12. Liberty and Necessity ; 13. Sensibility, Understanding, and the Doctrine of Synthesis ; 14. Two Conceptions of Philosophy ; 15. Review of Paul Grice, Studies in the Way of Words ; 16. Knowing from Words ; 17. What have we learned from Philosophy in the Twentieth Century? ; 18. A Category of Particulars ; 19. Paul Grice ; 20. Why Philosophy? ; 21. Intellectual Autobiography ; 22. A Bit of Intellectual Autobiography ; Index

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Book SynopsisA team of leading philosophers presents original work on theories of parthood and of location. Topics covered include how we ought to axiomatise our mereology, whether we can reduce mereological relations to identity or to locative relations, whether Mereological Essentialism is true, different ways in which entities persist through space, time, spacetime, and even hypertime, conflicting intuitions we have about space, and what mereology and propositions can tell us about one another. The breadth and accessibility of the papers make this volume an excellent introduction for those not yet working on these topics. Further, the papers contain important contributions to these central areas of metaphysics, and thus are essential reading for anyone working in the field.Trade ReviewUltimately, Mereology & Location offers detailed discussions of a wide range of topics which have been approached with an eye on connections to locative or mereological concerns. The bibliography at the end provides a good guide to the literature for further study across the topics covered. One underlying theme which arises in many of the contributions is persistence ... As such, those engaged in the debate over persistence may be especially likely to find many of the discussions in this volume valuable. The book is well edited and without exception the articles are clear, lively, and elegantly written--these features make the book all the more engaging. * Paul R. Daniels, The Philosophical Quarterly *This book is awesome in the same way that a new compendium to the Star Wars expanded universe would be to a super-fan: it feels like Christmas in hardback This volume is loaded with interesting papers of the highest quality. Virtually all of them directly engage with the question of the interaction between mereology and the spatial, temporal, and modal dimensionsThe number of original approaches, each worked out with careful (sometimes technical) precision, is striking. Formally inclined metaphysicians will love the book -- a "can't miss" for specialists. Even non-specialists will find something to like -- you'll just have to locate the right part * A. J. Cotnoir, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews Online *Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION ; MEREOLOGY ; 1. THE MANY PRIMITIVES OF MEREOLOGY ; 2. PARTHOOD IS IDENTITY ; 3. MEREOLOGY AND MODALITY ; MEREOLOGY AND LOCATION ; 4. WHERE IT'S AT: MODES OF OCCUPATION AND KINDS OF OCCUPANT ; 5. A SPATIAL APPROACH TO MEREOLOGY ; 6. BALLS AND ALL ; 7. CONFLICTING INTUITIONS ABOUT SPACE ; INTERACTION WITH OTHER TOPICS ; 8. TRANSHYPERTIME IDENTITY ; 9. PARTS OF PROPOSITIONS ; 10. MEREOLOGICAL SUMS AND SINGULAR TERMS ; Notes on the Contributors ; Bibliography ; Index

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Book SynopsisWhat is truth? Michael Lynch defends a bold new answer to this question. Traditional theories hold that all truths are true in the same way. More recent theories claim that the concept of truth is of no real importance. Lynch argues against both these extremes: truth is a functional property whose function can be performed in more than one way.Trade Reviewthis is truly a thought-provoking and admirable book. * Christine Tappolet, Mind *Table of ContentsPreface ; 1. Truisms ; 2. Truth as One ; 3. Truth as Many ; 4. Truth as One and Many ; 5. Deflationism and Explanation ; 6. Expanding the view: Semantic Functionalism ; 7. Truth and the Moral Fabric

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Book SynopsisOne of the most important philosophers of recent times, Elizabeth Anscombe wrote books and articles on a wide range of topics, including the ground-breaking monograph Intention. Her work is original, challenging, often difficult, always insightful; but it has frequently been misunderstood, and its overall significance is still not fully appreciated. This book is the first major study of Anscombe''s philosophical oeuvre. In it, Roger Teichmann presents Anscombe''s main ideas, bringing out their interconnections, elaborating and discussing their implications, pointing out objections and difficulties, and aiming to give a unified overview of her philosophy. Many of Anscombe''s arguments are relevant to contemporary debates, as Teichmann shows, and on a number of topics what Anscombe has to say constitutes a powerful alternative to dominant or popular views. Among the writings discussed are Intention, ''Practical Inference'', ''Modern Moral Philosophy'', ''Rules, Rights and Promises'', ''OTrade Reviewlucid, insightful, and thoroughly well informed by a familiarity with Anscombe's daunting range of philosophical writings ... a worthy tribute to Anscombe's legacy. * Duncan Richter, International Journal of Philosophical Studies *Table of ContentsINTRODUCTION

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Book SynopsisMichael Forster here presents a ground-breaking study of German philosophy of language in the nineteenth century (and beyond). His previous book, After Herder, showed that the eighteenth-century philosopher J.G. Herder played the fundamental role in founding modern philosophy of language, including new theories of interpretation (''hermeneutics'') and translation, as well as in establishing such whole new disciplines concerned with language as anthropology and linguistics. This new volume reveals that Herder''s ideas continued to have a profound impact on such important nineteenth-century thinkers as Friedrich Schlegel (the leading German Romantic), Wilhelm von Humboldt (a founder of linguistics), and G.W.F. Hegel (the leading German Idealist). Forster shows that the most valuable ideas about language in this tradition were continuous with Herder''s, whereas deviations from the latter that occurred tended to be inferior. This book not only sets the historical record straight but also cTrade ReviewMichael Forster's two interconnected books... are vigorous and innovative invitations to look at matters quite differently... the two books offer the most philosophically sustained, searching, and convincing account of Herder's philosophical achievement to date... After Herder and German Philosophy of Language are books to be reckoned with and will amply repay the most serious attention from historians of philosophy, philosophers of language, and social theorists. * Fred Rush, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *[Forster] explores a rich and interesting vein in the history of philosophy. Equipped with massive erudition and a sharp eye for logical distinctions, he presents its achievements in a detailed, but systematic and digestible, form. * Michael Inwood, Mind *Table of ContentsPART I: SCHLEGEL; PART II: HUMBOLDT; PART III: HEGEL; PART IV: AND BEYOND

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Book SynopsisThis volume presents a series of essays published by Charles Kahn over a period of forty years, in which he seeks to explicate the ancient Greek concept of Being. He addresses two distinct but intimately related problems, one linguistic and one historical and philosophical. The linguistic problem concerns the theory of the Greek verb einai, ''to be'': how to replace the conventional but misleading distinction between copula and existential verb with a more adequate theoretical account. The philosophical problem is in principle quite distinct: to understand how the concept of Being became the central topic in Greek philosophy from Parmenides to Aristotle. But these two problems converge on what Kahn calls the veridical use of einai. In the earlier papers he takes that connection between the verb and the concept of truth to be the key to the central role of Being in Greek philosophy. In the later papers he interprets the veridical in terms of a more general semantic function of the verb,Trade ReviewReview from previous edition always engaging and often provocative * Jonathan Barnes, Mind *Table of ContentsIntroduction ; 1. The Greek verb 'to be' and the concept of Being ; 2. The terminology for copula and existence ; 3. Why existence does not emerge as a distinct concept in Greek philosophy ; 4. Some philosophical uses of 'to be' in Plato ; 5. A return to the verb 'to be' and the concept of Being ; 6. The thesis of Parmenides ; 7. Being in Parmenides and Plato ; 8. Parmenides and Plato once more ; Postscript on Parmenides: Parmenides and physics. The direction of the chariot ride in the proem. The epistemic preference for Fire.

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Book SynopsisClaiming to know is more than making a report about one''s epistemic position: one also offers one''s assurance to others. What is an assurance? In this book, Krista Lawlor unites J. L. Austin''s insights about the pragmatics of assurance-giving and the semantics of knowledge claims into a systematic whole. The central theme in the Austinian view is that of reasonableness: appeal to a ''reasonable person'' standard makes the practice of assurance-giving possible, and lets our knowledge claims be true despite differences in practical interests and disagreement among speakers and hearers. Lawlor provides an original account of how the Austinian view addresses a number of difficulties for contextualist semantic theories, resolves closure-based skeptical paradoxes, and helps us to tread the line between acknowledging our fallibility and skepticism.Trade ReviewThere is much to admire in Lawlor's book, and it will surely be an influential addition to the burgeoning field of Austin studies, not to mention the contemporary debates in epistemology and philosophy of language to which her Austinian proposal is directed. * Duncan Pritchard, The Times Literary Supplement *a detailed, expert Austinian account of assurance and knowledge claims . . . Recommended. * Choice *One of the big achievements of Lawlor's book is to mine Austin's works, bringing these various elements together and presenting them in a systematic manner. The other is to display the distinctiveness and power of the resulting view, applying it to perennial epistemological problems (most notably, skepticism) and relating it to currently much-discussed debates (centrally, about the semantics of knowledge attributions) and puzzles (disagreement, the lottery, and others). The result is a welcome contribution to contemporary epistemology, especially given the importance that linguistic considerations have recently assumed in the latter. Throughout, the discussion is clear and insightful and full of fresh thinking about familiar and important issues. I learned from it; other epistemologists will too. * Patrick Rysiew, International Journal for the Study of Skepticism *Lawlor's book is an ambitious and enjoyable read. Her emphasis on the act of assuring gives a fresh and helpful lens through which to view a series of familiar epistemological problems. The book is an important contribution to the growing body of literature at the interface of pragmatics, social epistemology, and traditional epistemology. . . . a distinctive and exciting contribution to epistemology. * Rebecca Kukla, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *recommend this book to both experts and those who are just intrigued to see what an Austinian view of knowledge and knowledge claims might look like * Robin Mckenna, Philosophical Quarterly *Table of ContentsPreface ; 1. The speech act of assurance ; 2. Austinian semantics ; 3. Austinian semantics and linguistic data ; 4. Paradox, Probability, and Inductive Knowledge ; 5. Idiosyncrasy, disagreement and the reasonable person standard ; 6. Assurance and radical skepticism ; Bibliography ; Index

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Book SynopsisPhilosophy of language has for some time now been the very core of the discipline of philosophy. But where did it begin? Frege has sometimes been identified as its father, but in fact its origins lie much further back, in a tradition that arose in eighteenth-century Germany. Michael Forster explores that tradition. He also makes a case that the most important thinker within that tradition was J. G. Herder. It was Herder who established such fundamental principles in the philosophy of language as that thought essentially depends on language and that meaning consists in the usage of words. It was he who on that basis revolutionized the theory of interpretation (hermeneutics) and the theory of translation. And it was he who played the pivotal role in founding such whole new disciplines concerned with language as anthropology and linguistics. In the course of developing these historical points, this book also shows that Herder and his tradition are in many ways superior to dominant trends Trade ReviewThis is a hugely important book. First, it shows that Herder was not only the inventor of modern social anthropology but also of modern hermeneutics, philosophy of language and translation theory; second, it shows that Herder is superior to more recent philosophy of language. * Michael Mack, Times Higher Education *Michael Forster's two interconnected books... are vigorous and innovative invitations to look at matters quite differently... the two books offer the most philosophically sustained, searching, and convincing account of Herder's philosophical achievement to date... After Herder and German Philosophy of Language are books to be reckoned with and will amply repay the most serious attention from historians of philosophy, philosophers of language, and social theorists. * Fred Rush, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *Table of ContentsPART I: HERDER; PART II: HAMANN; PART III: SCHLEIERMACHER

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Book SynopsisFrançois Recanati presents his theory of mental files, a new way of understanding reference in language and thought. He aims to recast the ''nondescriptivist'' approach to reference that has dominated the philosophy of language and mind in the late twentieth century. According to Recanati, we refer through mental files, which play the role of so-called ''modes of presentation''. The reference of linguistic expressions is inherited from that of the files we associate with them. The reference of a file is determined relationally, not satisfactionally: so a file is not to be equated to the body of (mis)information it contains. Files are like singular terms in the language of thought, with a nondescriptivist semantics.In contrast to other philosophers, Recanati offers an indexical model according to which files are typed by their function, which is to store information derived through certain types of relation to objects in the environment. The type of the file corresponds to the type of cTrade ReviewMental Files raises some great issues and investigates some major problems with lucid and rich arguments. Hence, the book is more than worth reading, and its lucidity both induces agreement and helps at clarifying one's dissent. * Paolo Leonardi, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *Table of ContentsPART I. SINGULAR THOUGHT AND ACQUAINTANCE : REJECTING DESCRIPTIVISM; PART II. INTRODUCING FILES; PART III. THE INDEXICAL MODEL; PART IV. MENTAL FILES AND COREFERENCE; PART V. EPISTEMIC TRANSPARENCY; PART VI. BEYOND ACQUAINTANCE; PART VII : VICARIOUS FILES; PART VIII. THE COMMUNICATION OF SINGULAR THOUGHTS; PART IX. CONCLUSION

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Book SynopsisThis book argues that definite descriptions (''the table'', ''the King of France'') refer to individuals, as Gottlob Frege claimed. This apparently simple conclusion flies in the face of philosophical orthodoxy, which incorporates Bertrand Russell''s theory that definite descriptions are devices of quantification. Paul Elbourne presents the first fully-argued defence of the Fregean view. He builds an explicit fragment of English using a version of situation semantics. He uses intrinsic aspects of his system to account for the presupposition projection behaviour of definite descriptions, a range of modal properties, and the problem of incompleteness. At the same time, he draws on an unusually wide range of linguistic and philosophical literature, from early work by Frege, Peano, and Russell to the latest findings in linguistics, philosophy of language, and psycholinguistics. His penultimate chapter addresses the semantics of pronouns and offers a new and more radical version of his earlTrade Review... this book is an important contribution to the literature on definite descriptions, and sets a new standard for the discussion on this topic ... there is much to be learned from this work. * Elizabeth Coppock, Nordic Journal of Linguistics *Definite Descriptions is a master class in philosophical argument and empirical inquiry, covering an impressive number of relevant topics supported by convincing arguments. His engaging monograph is the first in the Oxford Studies in Semantics and Pragmatics series, and if these titles aim to explore new domains in linguistics and philosophy in a careful and original way, Elbournes thought-provoking study proves itself more than worthy of being first out of the gates. * Elliot Murphy, The Linguistic Review *Table of ContentsPreface ; 1. Introduction ; 2. Situation Semantics ; 3. The Definite Article ; 4. Presupposition ; 5. Referential and Attributive ; 6. Anaphora ; 7. Modality Existence Entailments ; 8. Existence Entailments ; 9. Incompleteness ; 10. Pronouns ; 11. Conclusion ; Bibliography ; Index

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Book SynopsisSimon Blackburn presents a selection of his philosophical essays from 1995 to 2010. He offers engaging and illuminating discussions of a wide range of topics, including moral philosophy, the theory of meaning, pragmatism, and the theory of reason and reasoning.Trade ReviewReview from previous edition eloquent and illuminating * Times Higher Education *Table of ContentsI. LANGUAGE AND EPISTEMOLOGY; II. PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY AND ETHICS

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Book SynopsisOne of the most important problems of modern philosophy concerns the place of the mind - and in particular, of consciousness and intentionality - in a purely physical universe. Brian Loar was a major contributor to the discussion of this problem for over four decades.This volume contains two parts; one a selection of Loar''s essays on the philosophy of language, the other on the philosophy of mind. A common thread in Loar''s essays on language is his engagement with the Gricean program of reducing linguistic representation in terms of mental representation. In the philosophy of mind he was mostly concerned with understanding consciousness and intentionality (mental representation) from the subjective perspective. The central concern that unifies Loar''s work in mind and language is how to understand subjectivity in a physical universe. He was committed to the reality and reliability of the subjective perspective; and he found that subjective phenomena like intentionality and consciousness are, in a certain sense, ineliminable and irreducible to objective ones. At the same time he believed that intentionality and consciousness are grounded in the physical. One of his great contributions was showing how to reconcile these two positions by being a conceptual and explanatory anti-reductionist about both consciousness and intentionality but a metaphysical reductionist nonetheless. He had a deep commitment to both physicalism and to the reality and significance of the subjective point of view.Trade ReviewReview from previous edition 'This excellent book . . . provides a new (and wonderful) opportunity to gain a complete image of Loar's worldview . . . Brian Loar's work was wide ranging, systematic, challenging, and deep. This is an important book, and will hopefully lead to Loar's work being better known, and better appreciated, in future.' * Henry Taylor, Philosophy, (2019), 94 (3), pp.473-476 *'We are all grateful to the editors for making these seminal papers available in one volume . . . the philosophical depth and insight manifested throughout the papers is striking' * Joseph Levine, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, (2018) *Table of ContentsPart I Philosophy of Language Stephen Schiffer: Introduction to Part I 1: Reference and Propositional Attitudes 2: Two Theories of Meaning 3: The Semantics of Singular Terms 4: Must Beliefs Be Sentences? 5: Names in Though 6: Truth beyond All Verification 7: The Supervenience of Social Meaning on Speaker's Meaning Part II Philosophy of Mind Katalin Balog: Introduction to Part II 8: Social Content and Psychological Content 9: Subjective Intentionality 10: Phenomenal States 11: Can We Explain Intentionality? 12: Elimination versus Nonreductive Physicalism 13: Reference from the First Person Perspective 14: Transparent Experience and the Availability of Qualia 15: Phenomenal Intentionality as the Basis of Mental Content

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Book SynopsisIt''s an obvious enough observation that the standards that govern whether ordinary speakers will say that someone knows something vary with context: What we are happy to call knowledge in some (low-standards) contexts we''ll deny is knowledge in other (high-standards) contexts. But do these varying standards for when ordinary speakers will attribute knowledge, and for when they are in some important sense warranted in attributing knowledge, reflect varying standards for when it is or would be true for them to attribute knowledge? Or are the standards that govern whether such claims are true always the same? And what are the implications for epistemology if these truth-conditions for knowledge claims shift with context? Contextualism is the view that the epistemic standards a subject must meet, in order for a claim attributing knowledge to her to be true, do vary with context. This has been hotly debated in epistemology and philosophy of language during the last few decades. In The CasTrade ReviewReview from previous edition This volume will be of particular benefit to graduate students and researchers looking to gain initial sympathetic familiarity with contextualism; it is also clear and accessible enough to be suitable for advanced undergraduates. This book will be among the first resources I turn to when students ask for an introduction to "knows" contextualism. * Jonathan Ichikawa, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *Table of Contents1. Contextualism, Invariantism, Skepticism, and What Goes On in Ordinary Conversation ; 2. The Ordinary Language Basis for Contextualism ; 3. Assertion, Knowledge, and Context ; 4. Single Scoreboard Semantics ; 5. "Bamboozled by Our Own Words": Semantic Blindness and Some Objections to Contextualism ; 6. Now You Know It, Now You Don't: Intellectualism, Contextualism, and Subject-Sensitive Invariantism ; 7. Knowledge, Assertion and Action: Contextualism vs. Subject-Sensitive Invariantism ; References

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Book SynopsisIn this updated edition of his brief, engaging book, Robert J. Fogelin examines figures of speech that concern meaning-irony, hyperbole, understatement, similes, metaphors, and others-to show how they work and to explain their attraction.Table of ContentsPREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION; PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION; A CONCLUDING NOTE 134; WORKS CITED 135-37; INDEX

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Book SynopsisIntercultural Pragmatics studies how language systems are used in social encounters between speakers who have different first languages and cultures, yet communicate in a common language. The field first emerged in the early 21st century, joining two seemingly antagonistic approaches to pragmatics research: the cognitive-philosophical approach, which considers intention as an a priori mental state of the speaker, and the sociocultural-interactional approach, which considers it as a post factum construct created by both speaker and hearer though conversation. Istvan Kecskes, an early proponent of intercultural pragmatics, was among the first to propose merging the two to form the socio-cognitive approach now core to the field. In Intercultural Pragmatics, the first book on the subject, Kecskes establishes the foundations of the field, boldly combining the pragmatic view of cooperation with the cognitive view of egocentrism in order to incorporate emerging features of communication. He aTrade ReviewIntercultural Pragmatics provides a state-of-the-art theory-driven account of intercultural communication within the range of pragmatics. Its prodigious arguments on the discursive principles of intercultural encounters and its versatile adaptation of general pragmatic resources to intercultural pragmatics research confirm Istvan Kecskes profile as the most respected authority on intercultural pragmatics. I therefore strongly commend the book to all scholars interested in pragmatics, cultural studies, linguistic anthropology and sociology of language. * Akin Odebunmi, Discourse Studies *I think that his [Kecske's] concern for linguistics as part of the humanities has to be heavily applauded. This is an important book no one can deny this. Furthermore, I suspect this book is only the tip of the iceberg. This book stimulates more to come * Alessandro Capone, University of Messina, Australian journal of Linguistics *I am convinced that Kecskes' volume is likely to become a classic in pragmatics, due to both its respectful debate with traditional theories, and also its exploration of innovative niches of research in language, culture, and society. * Jesus Romero-Trillo, Applied Linguistics *this book makes a substantial contribution in a rapidly developing area. It provides many perceptive insights and discussions that readers of Language and Dialogue will appreciate, and Kecskes makes a convincing case for the contribution of current pragmatic theories to debates in areas such as the theorization of (im)politeness. * Janet Holmes, Language and Dialogue *Intercultural Pragmatics by Istvan Kecskes is an extremely valuable and orginal piece of work for any student, scholar or researcher interested in the huge fields of pragmatics, intercultural pragmatics and interaction across genres, contexts and cultures. * Anita Fetzer, Pragmatics and Cognition *likely to become widely quoted in an area of study that keeps growing through international conferences and journals. * Roberto A. Valdeon, Revista de Lenguas para Fines Específicos *The logical organization of the book, as evident from its sequencing of chapters, makes it reader-friendly. * Mohammad Nodoushan, Pragmatics and Society10/03/2017 *The book Intercultural Pragmatics, with its original synthesis of existing pragmatic theories and detailed discussion of methodological approaches, combined with careful analysis of conversational examples, is an important step forward. * Yi-Ju Lai, Sociolinguistics *Table of ContentsIntroduction ; 1. Current pragmatic theories ; 2. The socio-cognitive approach ; 3. Pragmatic competence ; 4. Encyclopaedic knowledge, cultural models, interculturality ; 5. Formulaic language use ; 6. Context ; 7. Common ground ; 8. Salience ; 9. Politeness and impoliteness ; 10. Methods of analysis ; Epilogue

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Book SynopsisVague words, like tall, rich, and old, lack clear boundaries of application: no clear line divides the tall people from the above average, or the old people from the middle-aged. Because they lack clear boundaries, these ordinary words cause logical and semantic problems in various disciplines including philosophy, decision theory, and the law. Philosophers and linguists have proposed several theories of vagueness to handle these difficulties, but none has been widely accepted.Raffman contends that virtually all previous treatments of vagueness have made two crucial mistakes: they have supposed that a semantic (non-epistemic) theory must abandon bivalence, and they have paid insufficient attention to the character of ordinary speech using vague words. She develops a new theory of vagueness-the multiple range theory-that corrects both of these errors. The new theory begins with the observation that ordinary speakers seem to apply vague words in multiple arbitrarily different but equallyTrade ReviewUnruly Words is a pleasure to read, and it provides plenty of material for thought and discussion. I strongly recommend it for anyone involved or interested in the philosophical debate on vagueness. * Jonas Akerman, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *Table of ContentsPreface ; 1. Introduction and Fundamentals ; 1.1. Whirlwind Tour of Competing Theories of Vagueness ; 1.2. Initial Observations (1): Blurred Boundaries, Sharp Boundaries, and Stopping Places ; 1.3. Initial Observations (2): Vagueness and Gradability ; 1.4. Initial Observations (3): Vagueness and Soriticality ; 1.5. Initial Observations (4): Vagueness and Context-Sensitivity ; 1.6. Vagueness and Rule-following ; 1.7. Two Policies and a Caveat ; 1.8. Selective Review ; 1.9. Looking Ahead ; 2. The In's and Out's of Borderline Cases ; 2.1. Lay of the Land ; 2.2. The Standard Analysis ; 2.3. The Incompatibilist Analysis ; 2.4. Objections and Replies ; 2.5. Symmetry, Indeterminacy, Higher-Order Borderlines, Accessibility; and Some Advantages of the Incompatibilist Analysis ; 2.6. Independently Fishy Features of Higher-Order Borderlines ; 2.7. Selective Review ; 2.8. Looking ahead. ; 3. Framework for a Semantics of Vagueness ; 3.1. Vagueness and Indexicality ; 3.2. Two Ingredients of Sense for Vague Words ; 3.3. A Refinement: Contexts of Utterance vs Intended Contexts ; 3.4. Selective Review ; 3.5. Looking Ahead ; 4. The Multiple Range Theory of Vagueness ; 4.1. Vagueness and Reference ; 4.2. Why Ranges of Application Are Not Precisifications ; 4.3. Progress Report and Two Criteria of Vagueness ; 4.4. Evaluation ; 4.5. Solving the Sorites ; 4.6. Verdicts on Some Specific Predicates ; 4.7. Vagueness, Soriticality, Borderlines, V-index-sensitivity, Gradability, ; and Indeterminacy: Relatives or Just Friends? ; 4.8. Selective Review ; 4.9. Looking Ahead ; Figures ; 5. The Competent Use of Vague Words ; 5.1. A Pragmatic Sorites ; 5.2. Testing for Hysteresis ; 5.3. Non-perceptual Hysteresis: Does Our Hypothesis Generalize? ; 5.4. Meaning and Use: Implementing the Multi-Range Semantics ; 5.5. An Etymological Speculation ; 5.6. The Truth About Tolerance ; 5.7. Looking Back: Rules, Reasons, and the Governing View ; Figures ; Appendix ; Notes ; Bibliography ; Index

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Book SynopsisThis book offers both a naturalistic and critical theory of signs, minds, and meaning-in-the-world. It provides a reconstructive rather than deconstructive theory of the individual, one which both analytically separates and theoretically synthesizes a range of faculties that are often confused and conflated: agency (understood as a causal capacity), subjectivity (understood as a representational capacity), selfhood (understood as a reflexive capacity), and personhood (understood as a sociopolitical capacity attendant on being an agent, subject, or self). It argues that these facilities are best understood from a semiotic stance that supersedes the usual intentional stance. And, in so doing, it offers a pragmatism-grounded approach to meaning and mediation that is general enough to account for processes that are as embodied and embedded as they are articulated and enminded. In particular, while this theory is focused on human-specific modes of meaning, it also offers a general theory of meaning, such that the agents, subjects and selves in question need not always, or even usually, map onto persons. And while this theory foregrounds agents, persons, subjects and selves, it does this by theorizing processes that often remain in the background of such (often erroneously) individuated figures: ontologies (akin to culture, but generalized across agentive collectivities), interaction (not only between people, but also between people and things, and anything outside or in-between), and infrastructure (akin to context, but generalized to include mediation at any degree of remove).Table of ContentsFigures ; Tables ; 1. Semiotic Ontologies ; 1. Signs, Minds, and Meaning-in-the-World ; 2. Ontology, Interaction, and Infrastructure ; 2. Biosemiosis, Technocognition, and Sociogenesis ; 1. Relations between Relations ; 2. Significance and Selection ; 3. Communication between Conspecifics ; 4. The Organization of Cognitive Processes ; 5. Framing ; 6. Artificial and Natural Selection, Sieving and Serendipity ; 7. Lawn-Mowers and Logic Gates ; 8. Relations between Relations Revisited ; 9. Networks of Interconnected Envorganisms ; 10. The Evolution and Epidemiology of Culture ; 3. Enclosing and Disclosing Worlds ; 1. The Neo-Organon ; 2. Semiotic Processes, Social Theories, and Obviated Ontologies ; 3. Social Statuses, Material Substances, and Mental States ; 4. Relatively Emblematic Indices ; 5. Semiotic Agents and Generalized Others ; 6. From Performativity to Transformativity ; 4. Residence in the World ; 1. From Being-in-the-World to Meaning-in-the-World ; 2. Heeding Affordances ; 3. Wielding Instruments ; 4. Undertaking Actions ; 5. Inhabiting Roles ; 6. Fulfilling Identities ; 7. From Acting Under a Description to Comporting Within an Interpretation ; 5. Representations of the World ; 1. Intentionality Reframed ; 2. Cognitive Representations ; 3. Discursive Practices ; 4. From Theory of Mind to the Interpretation of Signs ; 5. Intentionality and Emblemeticity ; 6. Selfhood, Affect, and Value ; 1. I Err Therefore I am ; 2. From Subjectivity to Selfhood ; 3. From Cognition to Affect ; 4. Maps, Terrains, and Travelers ; 5. From Meaning to Value

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Book SynopsisThe divide between liberal and postliberal theology is one of the most important and far-reaching methodological disputes in twentieth-century theology. This split in the understanding of religious language is widely acknowledged, but rigorous philosophical analysis and assessment of these divergent understandings is seldom seen. Liberalism versus Postliberalism provides such analyses, using the developments in analytic philosophy of language over the past forty years. The book provides an original analysis of the theology and falsification debates of the 1950s and 60s. The debates supply the philosophical lens that brings into focus the centrality of the issue of religious language in the methodological dispute between liberal and postliberal theologians in the latter part of the twentieth century. Knight argues that recent philosophical developments reveal serious problems with both positions. His philosophical work clears the ground for a more inclusive method that takes seriously tTrade ReviewThere are few contemporary theological disputes more divisive and acrimonious than that referenced in Knights title, yet his book is a model of precision, analytical rigour and methodological clarity * Travis E. Ables, Theology *Table of ContentsTable of Contents ; Acknowledgments ; Introduction ; Part One: Liberal Theology and the Falsification Challenge ; Chapter 1: Liberal Theology in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries ; Chapter 2: The Falsification Challenge ; Chapter 3: The Liberal Response ; Chapter 4: A Purified Liberal Theology ; Part Two: Postliberal Theology and Ordinary Language Philosophy ; Chapter 5: The Barthian Project in Postliberal Perspective ; Chapter 6: Allies for Barth's Heirs: Wittgenstein and Ordinary Language Philosophy ; Chapter 7: Earlier Postliberalism: Narrative Theology and Hans Frei's Synthesis of Wittgenstein and Barth ; Chapter 8: Postliberalism II: George Lindbeck and Frei's Later Work ; Part Three: Problems and Prospects ; Chapter 9: A Tale of Two Dead Ends: The Linguistic Problems of Liberal and Postliberal Theology ; Chapter 10: Conclusion: Navigating the Divide Between Liberal and Postliberal Theology ; Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThis important new book is the first of a series of volumes collecting the essential articles by the eminent and highly influential philosopher Saul A. Kripke. It presents a mixture of published and unpublished articles from various stages of Kripke's storied career.Trade ReviewWhat comes out from a collection like this is the recurring brilliance of insight that Kripke brings to whatever he reflects on. This collection is indispensable to serious students of Kripke. And that should include all of us. This is a monumental collection. * Michael Luntley, Philosophical Investigations *Table of ContentsContents ; Introduction ; Acknowledgements ; Chapter 1. Identity and Necessity ; Chapter 2. On Two Paradoxes of Knowledge ; Chapter 3. Vacuous Names and Fictional Entities ; Chapter 4. Outline of a Theory of Truth ; Chapter 5. Speaker's Reference and Semantic Reference ; Chapter 6. A Puzzle About Belief ; Chapter 7. Nozick on Knowledge ; Chapter 8. Russell's Notion of Scope ; Chapter 9. Frege's Theory of Sense and Reference: Some Exegetical Notes ; Chapter 10. The First Person ; Chapter 11. Unrestricted Exportation and and Some Morals for the Philosophy of Language ; Chapter 12. Presupposition and Anaphora: ; Remarks on the Formulation of the Projection Problem ; Chapter 13. A Paradox about Time and Thought ; Index

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Book SynopsisA study of the fundamental building blocks that serve to organise natural language systems. The author argues that there are two distinct forms of agreement in linguistic theory: feature compatibility and an abstract syntactic relation. Her primary source of evidence is Chamorro, an Austro-nesian language spoken on Guam and Saipan.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 1: Introduction 2: The Surface Design of Chamorro 3: Configurationality 4: On Deriving VSO 5: A Syntactic Agreement Relation 6: The Morphology of Extraction 7: Topic and Focus 8: Syntactic Agreement and Locality 9: Adjunct Extraction 10: On the Design of Agreement App. A: Orthography App. B: Morpheme-by-Morpheme Glosses App. C. Sources Notes References Index

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Book SynopsisA study of the fundamental building blocks that serve to organise natural language systems. The author argues that there are two distinct forms of agreement in linguistic theory: feature compatibility and an abstract syntactic relation. Her primary source of evidence is Chamorro, an Austro-nesian language spoken on Guam and Saipan.

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Book SynopsisIn this study of the cognitive paradigm, De Mey applies the study of computer models of human perception to the philosophy and sociology of science.

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Book SynopsisConsider Miles Davis, horn held high, sculpting a powerful musical statement full of tonal patterns, inside jokes, and thrilling climactic phrases all on the fly. Or think of a comedy troupe riffing on a couple of cues from the audience until the whole room is erupting with laughter. Or maybe it's a team of software engineers brainstorming their way to the next Google, or the Einsteins of the world code-cracking the mysteries of nature. Maybe it's simply a child playing with her toys. What do all of these activities share? With wisdom, humor, and joy, philosopher Stephen T. Asma answers that question in this book: imagination. And from there he takes us on an extraordinary tour of the human creative spirit. Guided by neuroscience, animal behavior, evolution, philosophy, and psychology, Asma burrows deep into the human psyche to look right at the enigmatic but powerful engine that is our improvisational creativity the source, he argues, of our remarkable imaginational capacity. How is it, he asks, that a story can evoke a whole world inside of us? How are we able to rehearse a skill, a speech, or even an entire scenario simply by thinking about it?How does creativity go beyond experience and help us make something completely new? And how does our moral imagination help us sculpt a better society? As he shows, we live in a world that is only partly happening in reality. Huge swaths of our cognitive experiences are made up by what-ifs, almosts, and maybes, an imagined terrain that churns out one of the most overlooked but necessary resources for our flourishing: possibilities. Considering everything from how imagination works in our physical bodies to the ways we make images, from the mechanics of language and our ability to tell stories to the creative composition of self-consciousness, Asma expands our personal and day-to-day forms of imagination into a grand scale: as one of the decisive evolutionary forces that has guided human development from the Paleolithic era to today. The result is an inspiring look at the rich relationships among improvisation, imagination, and culture, and a privileged glimpse into the unique nature of our evolved minds.

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