Philosophy of language Books

Book SynopsisThe Phonology / Paraphonology Interface and the Sounds of German Across Time is an excursion into the phonology of the German language in the present, the remote prehistoric past (Indo-European and Germanic), and throughout the almost thousand-year historical era. It accordingly addresses all eras pertaining to the study of the German language in its innermost core, namely, its phonology. This book makes accessible to linguists and non-linguists alike the elements of acoustic and articulatory phonetics. It provides the reader with insight into phonological methods from the Prague Structuralism and Chomskyan Generativism of the last seventy-five years to an array of today's non-linear approaches by applying them to given phonological changes that act as leitmotifs in the research of German sounds through time. The dynamic acts that infuse the structure of German phonology, such as ablaut, umlaut, and various other assimilations, diphthongizations, monophthongizations, and consona

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Book SynopsisThis book is a study of the category of definiteness in the light of research on mental spaces and frames. The author formulates a set of eight uniform rules for the use of the definite, indefinite, and zero articles in English and German. The Concept of Definiteness presents an algorithm for nominal reference resolution that uses the definiteness value of each noun phrase to guide the search for its referent. The book discusses the results of the application of an automated system based on the proposed algorithm to texts in modern English. It also demonstrates applicability of the selected approach to text fragments representing all major historical variants of the German language.

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Book SynopsisVersatility in Versification grew out of an international conference organized by the University of Iceland and the Nordic Society for Metrical Studies and held at Reykholt, Iceland, the thirteenth-century home of Snorri Sturluson. Although medieval Icelandic poetic culture was highlighted at the conference, the range of subjects remained diverse and discussion became dynamic. Similarly, this volume brings together the work of a broad range of scholars who embark on a discourse across disciplines, addressing aspects of poetry and poetics within the Germanic language family in particular. The subjects range from runic metrical inscriptions to literature and poetics of the modern day, the medieval period becoming a nexus of attention through which the various subjects in this historical scope are interwoven and united. Approaches range from theoretical linguistics and generative metrics to cognitive theory and folkloristics. The discourse initiated at the conference has both contiTable of ContentsContents: Kristján Árnason: Preface and Acknowledgments – Frog/Tonya Kim Dewey: Introduction – Michael Schulte: Early Runic ‘metrical’ inscriptions - How metrical are they? – Guðrún Nordal: Metrical learning and the First Grammatical Treatise – Kristján Árnason: On Kuhn’s Laws and Craigie’s Law in Old Icelandic poetry – Thórhallur Eythórsson: The syntax of the verb in Old Icelandic: Evidence from poetry – Tonya Kim Dewey: The effect of prosody on the linear structure of adpositional phrases in eddic verse – Ragnar Ingi Aðalsteinsson: Alliteration and grammatical categories – Chris Golston: Old English feet – Tomas Riad: Accents left and right – Nigel Fabb: Formal interactions in poetic meter – Stefano Versace: How Germanic features can appear in Italian metrical poetry – Sissel Furuseth: The poem as a site of inherited structures and artistic innovation – Jacqueline Pattison Ekgren: Dipod rules: Norwegian stev, paired accents and accentual poetry – Frog: Speech-acts in skaldic verse: Genre, compositional strategies and improvisation – Helgi Skúli Kjartansson: No royal road: The extremes of dróttkvætt lines in Snorri’s Háttatal – Bergljót Soffía Kristjánsdóttir: Gnast and brast: On metrics, enjambment and more in two ditties in Gísla saga, the shorter version – Eva Lilja: Towards a theory of aesthetic rhythm.

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Book SynopsisIn the Pauline literature of the New Testament, the characteristics of the Spirit and Christian life are described through the use of metaphor. An interpreter of Paul must understand his metaphors in order to arrive at a complete understanding of the Pauline pneumatological perspective. Thus, The Pauline Metaphors of the Holy Spirit examines how the Pauline Spirit metaphors express the intangible Spirit's tangible presence in the life of the Christian. Rhetoricians prior to and contemporary with Paul discussed the appropriate usage of metaphor. Aristotle's thoughts provided the foundation from which these rhetoricians framed their arguments. In this context, The Pauline Metaphors surveys the use of metaphor in the Greco-Roman world during the NT period and also studies modern approaches to metaphor. The modern linguistic theories of substitution, comparison, and verbal opposition are offered as representative examples, as well as the conceptual theories of interaction, co

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Book SynopsisHow we address people, where we sit, what we disclose about ourselves, how we make eye contact, and where and when we touch are signs of attitudes and emotions. Because we may not be conscious of the social or psychological significance of these signs, they are the stealth aspect of conversation. One goal of this book is to demonstrate that address, self-disclosure, seating, eye-contact, and touch are the five vital signs of conversation. Another is to increase the reader's awareness of the fact that whatever the topic of a conversation, interlocutors are also expressing their attitudes and emotions by means of these five vital signs. A final goal is to show the reader that the use of these signs varies with ethnicity, gender, and relationship. To accomplish these goals, this book provides relevant scientific information in a popular style that makes it accessible to a broad spectrum of readers concerned with interpersonal communication.

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Book SynopsisThe 2006 discovery of the Old Saxon Heliand manuscript fragment (MS L) in Leipzig is conspicuous. Besides its proximity to Wittenberg, the Leipzig University Library site of the discovery was first dedicated by Martin Luther in 1545. Given this relationship between the Reformer and the discovery location, it seems possible that the Reformer once had access to an original version of the Old Saxon Heliand, perhaps as an aid in his efforts to render Biblical Hebraisms into vernacular German idioms at a time of budding German nationalism. Indeed, long before the Old Saxon epic received the name by which it is currently known, rumors arose about Luther's possession of an ancient vernacular Germanic Bible with a Latin preface. Even so, the source and age of these rumors are enigmatic. Were these rumors merely a myth created by later Protestants to counter Rome's denunciation of Luther as a heretic? Following the trail of the rumors' sources, Luther's Heliand untang

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Book SynopsisHow we address people, where we sit, what we disclose about ourselves, how we make eye contact, and where and when we touch are signs of attitudes and emotions. Because we may not be conscious of the social or psychological significance of these signs, they are the stealth aspect of conversation. One goal of this book is to demonstrate that address, self-disclosure, seating, eye-contact, and touch are the five vital signs of conversation. Another is to increase the reader's awareness of the fact that whatever the topic of a conversation, interlocutors are also expressing their attitudes and emotions by means of these five vital signs. A final goal is to show the reader that the use of these signs varies with ethnicity, gender, and relationship. To accomplish these goals, this book provides relevant scientific information in a popular style that makes it accessible to a broad spectrum of readers concerned with interpersonal communication.

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Book SynopsisSufi oral discourse in Senegal is overwhelmingly dominated by stories about past and current shaykhs. An important corpus of oral narratives about Sufi clerics is not only (re)told by Sufi speakers throughout Senegal but also in the Senegalese diasporas in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. These accounts are interwoven by multiple speakers among followers of Senegalese Sufi brotherhoods and passed down from generation to generation in Senegal and its diasporas. The weaving together and spreading of such texts themselves are part of the Sufi praxis. These oral texts, deeply rooted in their context of production, which dictates their form and functions, are still generally unknown to scholars of Islam in Senegal and West Africa. By filling this gap, this book contributes to the discourse of religions in general and Sufi Islam in particular.Trade Review«In this remarkable study, Mamarame Seck provides a richly detailed ethnographic exploration of oral narratives from the Sufi communities of Senegal and their diaspora. His discourse analysis illuminates the linguistic function of the stories of Sufi saints and provides valuable examples of these tales. Students of Islamic mysticism and African studies will welcome this important contribution to the study of Sufism.» (Carl W. Ernst, Kenan Distinguished Professor, Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)

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Book SynopsisThe sixteen chapters comprising this book on the Bay Area German Linguistic Fieldwork Project offer over twenty-five years of research into the changing language of native speakers and first-generation American-German speakers residing in the San Francisco Bay Area. Since 1984 the principal project investigator, Irmengard Rauch, together with students of Germanic linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, has elicited and analyzed an array of linguistic phenomena that include politically correct (PC) German, the German language of vulgarity and civility, and the grammar of e-mailing and texting German as well as that of snail-mail German. Comparison data were also gathered from Berlin in the case of the PC German and from Bonn in the case of the vulgarity/civility project. In recording the sounds of spoken German in the Bay Area, the BAG fieldworkers interviewed not only German-speaking adults but also first-generation German-speaking children (yielding a Kinderlect) to comTable of ContentsContents: Contrastive Linguistics, Linguistic Fieldwork, and the Bay Area German Project – BAG Pilot Study – Is There an Aspect Distinction in Certain German Strong/Weak Verb Alternations? Evidence from German in the San Francisco Bay Area – Bilingual Pragmatics: Evidence from the San Francisco Bay Area German Project – BAG IV: Phonological Interference – English Phonetic Contrasts – BAG V: PC German – BAG VI: Toward a Grammar of German E-Mail – BAG VI–2: Toward a Grammar of German Snail-Mail – On the German Language of Civility/Vulgarity: Evidence from the San Francisco Bay Area – On the German Language of Civility/Vulgarity: Evidence from Bonn – BAG VIII: Emotion, Gesture, Language – BAG 9: Toward the Architecture of the Apology – BAG X: Toward the Architecture of the Lie – BAG XI: Toward Human : Canine Communication – BAG XII: German Netspeak/Textspeak.

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Book SynopsisFrom Digital to Analog delves into the origins of digitization and its effects on contemporary culture. The book challenges the common sense assertion that digitization is just another step in the evolution of the culture of the editorial, film and recorded music industries and their enforcement of copyright laws. Digital technologies in contemporary culture have paradoxically undermined and, at the same time, strengthened such practices, provoking an unprecedented quarrel over the possession of, and access to, cultural products. Agustín Berti uses the release of Agrippa (A Book of the Dead) in 1992 to study this paradox. The importance of Agrippa for digital culture studies is proven through the discussion of the frequently understated importance of the materiality of digital culture. The book develops a critique of digital technology and its alleged neutrality and transparency. Ultimately, it illustrates how Agrippa anticipated a number of contemporary phenomena such asTrade Review«From Digital to Analog engagingly reveals the hidden significance of anomalous, unusual digital objects such as the early electronic literary project, Agrippa (A Book of the Dead), and of diverse practices of piracy, hacking, bootlegging, remixing, e-poetry, digital memes, leaks, clones, and zombies to understanding the strange life of digital objects and the current cultural formations they unsettle, redouble, and preserve. Its roundabout, thick description of the backalleys of digital culture and critical pursuit of what may appear to be momentary aberrations to acceptable, standardized digital reproduction effectively mobilizes recent philosophy of technology to unpack a series of persistent, unavoidable questions digital objects pose today. The book sheds crucial light on seemingly contradictory traits, such as digital objects' notoriously immaterial materiality, and underscores the pressing at once technical, aesthetic, political, and economic – importance of confronting this unacknowledged, underexplored complexity. Recontextualizing and rejecting predominant ideologies of the digital as «pure content» by reading them through and against the oblique shadows, contours, and diffractions provided by stray digital literary experiments and other unexpected digital forays, From Digital to Analog reasserts and significantly expands the value of reading electronic literature, print and digital hybrids, and other variously experimental digital practices with full awareness of their critical contributions to digital cultures face to face with their technicity.» (Laura Shackelford, Associate Professor of English, Rochester Institute of Technology / Author of Tactics of the Human: Experimental Technics in American Fiction) «From Digital to Analog surpasses expectations as a critical reading device. It comes with a spectrum of well-chosen case studies running from the pre-digital to the digital culture, and authoritative discussions on such topics as the materiality -and its degradation from the originals- of literary, artistic, game works, the analog/digital divide, hybrid (re)production and circulation, opacity and transparency of technology in a genealogical perspective, crafting and cracking codes (the "evasive ontology [and ethics] of copies"), copy rights and piracy, and the everchanging modalities of their conflicting preservation. It is a book that will become indispensable for the study of what the author states as the grounding of codes, and will certainly entice its readers to rethink their assumptions when exposed to our mutating activity of encoding/inscribing/recording and transmitting culture in all its institutionalized/professionalized areas, including the tech industry. Highly recommended for students, scholars, and anyone who wants to know more about certain compelling issues within our digital humanities multiverse.» (Luis Correa-Diaz, University of Georgia/Academia Chilena de la Lengua)«From Digital to Analog surpasses expectations as a critical reading device. Highly recommended for students, scholars, and anyone who wants to know more about certain compelling issues within our digital humanities multiverse.» Luis Correa-Diaz, University of Georgia, Academia Chilena de la Lengua «From Digital to Analog engagingly reveals the hidden significance of anomalous, unusual digital objects (...). The book sheds crucial light on seemingly contradictory traits (...) and underscores the pressing (...) importance of confronting this unacknowledged, underexplored complexity.» Laura Shackelford, Associate Professor of English, Rochester Institute of TechnologyTable of ContentsContents: Pirate Havens and Digital Coyotes – Milestones between matter and digits – Bit Rot – Crossing Borders. Pre-digital works in the Age of Digitization – Illegalized Aliens in the land of the copyrighted – The book of the dead and the death of the books – Epilogue: Hybrid genealogies in digital Genealogies in Digital Culture.

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Book SynopsisFrom Digital to Analog delves into the origins of digitization and its effects on contemporary culture. The book challenges the common sense assertion that digitization is just another step in the evolution of the culture of the editorial, film and recorded music industries and their enforcement of copyright laws. Digital technologies in contemporary culture have paradoxically undermined and, at the same time, strengthened such practices, provoking an unprecedented quarrel over the possession of, and access to, cultural products. Agustín Berti uses the release of Agrippa (A Book of the Dead) in 1992 to study this paradox. The importance of Agrippa for digital culture studies is proven through the discussion of the frequently understated importance of the materiality of digital culture. The book develops a critique of digital technology and its alleged neutrality and transparency. Ultimately, it illustrates how Agrippa anticipated a number of contemporary phenomena such asTrade Review«From Digital to Analog engagingly reveals the hidden significance of anomalous, unusual digital objects such as the early electronic literary project, Agrippa (A Book of the Dead), and of diverse practices of piracy, hacking, bootlegging, remixing, e-poetry, digital memes, leaks, clones, and zombies to understanding the strange life of digital objects and the current cultural formations they unsettle, redouble, and preserve. Its roundabout, thick description of the backalleys of digital culture and critical pursuit of what may appear to be momentary aberrations to acceptable, standardized digital reproduction effectively mobilizes recent philosophy of technology to unpack a series of persistent, unavoidable questions digital objects pose today. The book sheds crucial light on seemingly contradictory traits, such as digital objects' notoriously immaterial materiality, and underscores the pressing at once technical, aesthetic, political, and economic – importance of confronting this unacknowledged, underexplored complexity. Recontextualizing and rejecting predominant ideologies of the digital as «pure content» by reading them through and against the oblique shadows, contours, and diffractions provided by stray digital literary experiments and other unexpected digital forays, From Digital to Analog reasserts and significantly expands the value of reading electronic literature, print and digital hybrids, and other variously experimental digital practices with full awareness of their critical contributions to digital cultures face to face with their technicity.» (Laura Shackelford, Associate Professor of English, Rochester Institute of Technology / Author of Tactics of the Human: Experimental Technics in American Fiction) «From Digital to Analog surpasses expectations as a critical reading device. It comes with a spectrum of well-chosen case studies running from the pre-digital to the digital culture, and authoritative discussions on such topics as the materiality -and its degradation from the originals- of literary, artistic, game works, the analog/digital divide, hybrid (re)production and circulation, opacity and transparency of technology in a genealogical perspective, crafting and cracking codes (the "evasive ontology [and ethics] of copies"), copy rights and piracy, and the everchanging modalities of their conflicting preservation. It is a book that will become indispensable for the study of what the author states as the grounding of codes, and will certainly entice its readers to rethink their assumptions when exposed to our mutating activity of encoding/inscribing/recording and transmitting culture in all its institutionalized/professionalized areas, including the tech industry. Highly recommended for students, scholars, and anyone who wants to know more about certain compelling issues within our digital humanities multiverse.» (Luis Correa-Diaz, University of Georgia/Academia Chilena de la Lengua)«From Digital to Analog surpasses expectations as a critical reading device. Highly recommended for students, scholars, and anyone who wants to know more about certain compelling issues within our digital humanities multiverse.» Luis Correa-Diaz, University of Georgia, Academia Chilena de la Lengua «From Digital to Analog engagingly reveals the hidden significance of anomalous, unusual digital objects (...). The book sheds crucial light on seemingly contradictory traits (...) and underscores the pressing (...) importance of confronting this unacknowledged, underexplored complexity.» Laura Shackelford, Associate Professor of English, Rochester Institute of TechnologyTable of ContentsContents: Pirate Havens and Digital Coyotes – Milestones between matter and digits – Bit Rot – Crossing Borders. Pre-digital works in the Age of Digitization – Illegalized Aliens in the land of the copyrighted – The book of the dead and the death of the books – Epilogue: Hybrid genealogies in digital Genealogies in Digital Culture.

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Book SynopsisApplicative Arguments: A Syntactic and Semantic Investigation of German and English presents formal semantic and syntactic analyses of German and English applicative arguments. These arguments are nominal elements that are not obligatory parts of a sentence. Both German and English have several types of applicative arguments, including so-called benefactive and malefactive constructions. More specifically, the research relies on tests to differentiate the different types of applicative arguments based on this contribution to meaning: Some applicatives contribute only not-at-issue meaning, whereas others contribute only at-issue meaning, and still others contribute both types of meaning. These tests are applied to both German and English to uniquely identify the applicative arguments in each language. Formal analyses of the identified type of applicative arguments are presented that provide an account for each type of applicative identified for each language, explaining the appliTable of ContentsContent: Preliminaries – Affected Experiencers – Not-At-Issue Applicative Arguments – Benefactives – Part-Whole Applicatives.

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Book SynopsisTruth Be Told explains how truth and falsity result from relations that sentences have to the contexts in which they occur and the circumstances at which they are evaluated. It offers a precise conception of truth and a clear diagnosis of the Liar and Grelling paradoxes. Currently, semantic theory employs generalized quantifiers as the extensions of noun phrases in explanations of the composition of truth-values. Generalized quantifiers are direct descendants of the second-level functions to truth-values that Gottlob Frege considered to be the referents of his unrestricted quantifiers. During the past fifty years, Frege's original quantifier referents have been revised and generalized with the result that now every noun phrase, of any type, has a generalized quantifier as its extension. This evolution of noun-phrase extensions from Frege's referents has retained two of the original theory's flaws. First, generalized quantifiers inherit a troublesome intrusion of predicate extensTable of ContentsContents: Reflexive Senses – Sense and Quantity – Fixing Extensions – Formal Semantics – Liar Paradoxes: The Irreflexivity of Extension Reports.

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Book SynopsisIn this work, Xavier Lakshmanan argues for a textual linguistic approach to Christian theology. The book takes its shape in conversation with Paul Ricœur's philosophical thought, demonstrating how Ricœur's hermeneutic philosophy can inform the way Christians interpret and appropriate biblical narratives without delimiting the potential of the text or eroding the distinctiveness of its language. The text can be appropriated in ways that address the fundamental questions of life. New meanings are constantly generated from the same text in order to describe and redescribe existence, and form human identity. The self is linked inseparably with narrative; every interpretation of narrative is at the same time a reinterpretation of the self and of its possibilities. In such interpretative processes, the reader interprets the text and the text interprets the reader at the same time through an interactive reading. Accordingly, the aim of interpreting the narratives is to open up the world of thTrade Review«This book clearly and lucidly presents the central features of Paul Ricœur’s hermeneutic theory. It shows that Ricœur’s hermeneutic philosophy is important for constructing an interpretive framework adequate to explain how reality and the human self are structured in a way that is conducive and open to receive God’s revelation and be shaped by it.» (Jens Zimmermann, Trinity Western University, Canada) «The task of theology is to respond creatively to new situations through a continual return to the same texts. How is this to be done? This book argues that Paul Ricœur’s philosophy sets out the conditions for such a creative textual theology. It is a thoroughly researched and carefully argued proposal for a philosophical narrative theology: a theology grounded in texts but always oriented towards real life.» (Benjamin Myers, Charles Sturt University, Sydney)Table of ContentsContents: The Nature of Life: Narrative – The Narrative of Text: Life – The Language of Life: Metaphor – The Life of Metaphor: Reality – The Reality of Life: Temporality – The Life of Temporality: Identity.

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Book SynopsisColonização linguística e outros escritos representa um longo caminho de pesquisas que realizei e publiquei nos últimos 15 anos sobre os destinos da língua portuguesa em alguns territórios colonizados por Portugal. O livro como um todo traz resultados desse percurso marcado, sobretudo, por uma questão central: quais os sentidos de língua portuguesa como língua de colonização e, posteriormente, de descolonização? Ao longo do livro, ao estabelecer os sentidos para língua portuguesa em nações colonizadas, percebe-se o apagamento da diversidade linguística bem como o silenciamento da heterogeneidade constitutiva das próprias línguas de colonização. Tanto durante a colonização linguística, como durante os processos políticos de descolonização, nos países assumidamente multilíngues, a gramatização com base em gramáticas e dicionários não resultou simplesmente em uma descrição das línguas para dotá-las de instrumentos linguísticos necessários ao seu ensino e aprendizado. Ao contrá

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Book SynopsisThe lectures in this book are immensely Chomskyan in spirit, recursive-syntactic in nature, and tethered to a framework which takes as the null hypothesis the notion that language is an innate, pre-determined biological systema system which by definition is multi-complex, human-specific, and analogous to a philosophy highly commensurate of Descartes' great proverbial adage which announces the calling for a ghost-in-the-machine'. The book begins with a gradual assessment of the kinds of complex constructs students of syntax need to work-up. Leading to the classic Four-Sentences'each of which bears as a kind of post-mark its own decade of Chomskyan analysiswe trace the origins of generative grammar from the fields of child language acquisition (of the 1960s), to psycholinguistics (of the 1970s), to where we stand today within the Minimalist Program. Various spin-off proposals have been spawned by envisioned analyses which treat syntactic movement as the quintessential human processingTrade Review“This book provides a fascinating and highly individual perspective on language. It deals with a wide range of topics including the philosophy of language, its biological basis and evolution, as well as language acquisition, language disorders, language processing and language universals.” —Andrew Radford, Emeritus Professor of Linguistics, University of Essex, United Kingdom“Joseph Galasso builds a beautiful explanatory edifice that, engagingly, weaves together empirical evidence and current abstract theory of grammar in the best tradition of science: it combines ‘a passion for abstraction with a devotion to detail’. Implications for language acquisition, philosophy and every dimension of ‘biolinguistics’ are skillfully incorporated with a core representation of the concept of recursion. It should be very useful for scholars and students alike.” —Tom Roeper, Professor of Linguistics, UMass, South CollegeTable of ContentsList of Figures and Tables – Preface – Overview – Introduction – Opening Philosophical Questions: Language and Brain Analogies – Preliminary Overview – The ‘Four Sentences’ – Reflections on Syntax – Reasons for Syntactic Movement/‘Four Sentences’ Revisited – The Myth of ‘Function Defines Form’ as the Null-Biological Adaptive Process and the Counter Linguistics-Based Response. (The ‘Accumulative Lecture’) – Poverty of Stimulus – Concluding Remarks. The Dual Mechanism: Studies on Language – A Note on ‘Proto-language’: A Merge-Based Theory of Language Acquisition—Case, Agreement and Word Order Revisited – Concluding Remarks: Lack of Recursion Found in Protolanguage – A Note on the Dual Mechanism Model: Language Acquisition vs. Learning and the Bell-Shape Curve – Overview of Chomsky – Works Cited – List of Terms (informal definitions) – Full References and Web Links – Index.

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Book SynopsisPosits the origin of a specifically Chinese concept of "word-meaning," and sheds new light on the linguistic ideas in early Chinese philosophical texts.The Emergence of Word-Meaning in Early China makes an innovative contribution to studies of language by historicizing the Chinese notion that words have "meaning" (content independent of instances of use). Rather than presuming that the concept of word-meaning had always existed, Jane Geaney explains how and why it arose in China. To account for why a normative term (yi, "duty, morality, appropriateness") came to be used for "meanings" found in dictionaries, Geaney examines interrelated patterns of word usage threading through and across a wide range of genres. These patterns show that by the first millennium, as textual production exploded-and as radically different writing forms (in Buddhist sutras) were encountered-yi already functioned as an externally accessible "model" for semantic interpretation of texts and sayings.The book has far-reaching implications. Because the idea of word-meaning is fundamental to theorizing, the book illuminates not only semantic ideas and the normativity of language in Early China, but also aspects of early Chinese philosophy and intellectual history. As the internet supplants one form of media (print), thereby reducing knowledge to vast digital databases, so too, this book explains, two thousand years ago a culture that prized oral and visual balance became an "empire of the text."

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Book SynopsisPosits the origin of a specifically Chinese concept of "word-meaning," and sheds new light on the linguistic ideas in early Chinese philosophical texts.The Emergence of Word-Meaning in Early China makes an innovative contribution to studies of language by historicizing the Chinese notion that words have "meaning" (content independent of instances of use). Rather than presuming that the concept of word-meaning had always existed, Jane Geaney explains how and why it arose in China. To account for why a normative term (yi, "duty, morality, appropriateness") came to be used for "meanings" found in dictionaries, Geaney examines interrelated patterns of word usage threading through and across a wide range of genres. These patterns show that by the first millennium, as textual production exploded-and as radically different writing forms (in Buddhist sutras) were encountered-yi already functioned as an externally accessible "model" for semantic interpretation of texts and sayings.The book has far-reaching implications. Because the idea of word-meaning is fundamental to theorizing, the book illuminates not only semantic ideas and the normativity of language in Early China, but also aspects of early Chinese philosophy and intellectual history. As the internet supplants one form of media (print), thereby reducing knowledge to vast digital databases, so too, this book explains, two thousand years ago a culture that prized oral and visual balance became an "empire of the text."

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Book SynopsisExplores the potential for a novel philosophy of history to be uncovered by tracing the connections between Giorgio Agamben''s work (theoretical practice) and contemporary art (artistic practice).Offering, for the first time, a full historicized accounting of philosophical archaeology, Ido Govrin delineates how this overarching method of historical inquiry has today become associated, to a large extent, with the work of Giorgio Agamben-and how it constitutes Agamben''s philosophy of history in particular. As befits a book situated at an intellectual crossroads that brings together a range of discourses-philosophy, history, aesthetics, theology, and philology-Govrin conceives of philosophical archaeology as a multifaceted concept, on a broad scale. The discussion slides along the length of the multilateral fault line and into the related fields of contemporary art and art history/theory. In doing so, it illuminates the potential for philosophical archaeology, as an artistic modus operandi in the broader context of contemporary art, to expand our conception of history and historiographic research, and for this sense of history to expand our conception of art, in turn. At stake in this consideration is the possibility of a new, materially based philosophy of history.

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Book SynopsisExplores the potential for a novel philosophy of history to be uncovered by tracing the connections between Giorgio Agamben''s work (theoretical practice) and contemporary art (artistic practice).Offering, for the first time, a full historicized accounting of philosophical archaeology, Ido Govrin delineates how this overarching method of historical inquiry has today become associated, to a large extent, with the work of Giorgio Agamben-and how it constitutes Agamben''s philosophy of history in particular. As befits a book situated at an intellectual crossroads that brings together a range of discourses-philosophy, history, aesthetics, theology, and philology-Govrin conceives of philosophical archaeology as a multifaceted concept, on a broad scale. The discussion slides along the length of the multilateral fault line and into the related fields of contemporary art and art history/theory. In doing so, it illuminates the potential for philosophical archaeology, as an artistic modus operandi in the broader context of contemporary art, to expand our conception of history and historiographic research, and for this sense of history to expand our conception of art, in turn. At stake in this consideration is the possibility of a new, materially based philosophy of history.

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Book SynopsisBrings the figure of the voice and the problem of mimesis in Heidegger and post-Heideggerian continental thought to bear on the dismissal of language by the affective and aesthetic turns of contemporary critical theory.The recent turns to affect and aesthetics in the humanities and the interpretive social sciences have been productive for reflecting on the crucial role sensibility plays in the constitution of the social. However, these scholarly developments construct their interventions by dismissing the attention to language that was central to the linguistic and cultural turns of previous eras and by claiming that language is an obstacle to experiencing the reality of difference to which they maintain only sensibility can grant access. By analyzing the figure of the voice in the work of Martin Heidegger and the continental thinkers who follow him, The Scene of the Voice shows that the dismissal of language in favor of sensibility requires overlooking their common connection in the problem of mimesis. As this book ultimately argues, artificially separating language and sensibility results in a failure to encounter affect, the relation to difference affect is said to name, and the experience of thinking affect is taken to provoke.

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Book SynopsisA fascinating and philosophical exploration of animal intelligence and the way animals communicate with each other, and us.Trade ReviewA fascinating and accessible new book about how animals communicate * Guardian *Fascinating stories and there is much to learn from them . . . Meijer proves that many animals are sophisticated, more intelligent than we may have assumed and often surprising * Spectator *Eva Meijer is on a mission to redefine the relationship between humans and animals . . . a bold and progressive vision of a future just beyond the horizon in which humankind gets better at sharing the Earth by simply learning how to listen * Herald *Fascinating . . . offers insight into the methods different species use to communicate with each other * Daily Mail *Overflowing with fabulously entertaining anecdotes * Strong Words *

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Book SynopsisInspired by Shoshana Felman s 1977 volume, Literature and Psychoanalysis: The Question of Reading (Otherwise)

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Book SynopsisThis book explores the influential currents in the philosophy of language and linguistics of the first half of the twentieth century, from the perspective of the English scholar C. K. Ogden (1889 1957). It reveals links between early analytic philosophy, semiotics and linguistics in a crucial period of their respective histories.

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Book SynopsisThis book explores the influential currents in the philosophy of language and linguistics of the first half of the twentieth century, from the perspective of the English scholar C. K. Ogden (18891957). It reveals links between early analytic philosophy, semiotics and linguistics in a crucial period of their respective histories.

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Book Synopsis11 essays by leading Whitehead scholars re-examinae Whitehead s Barbour-Page lectures, published as the book Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect in 1927, to give you exciting insights into the contemporary implications of Whitehead's symbolism in an era of new scientific, cultural and technological developments.

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Book Synopsis11 essays by leading Whitehead scholars re-examinae Whitehead's Barbour-Page lectures, published as the book 'Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect' in 1927, to give you exciting insights into the contemporary implications of Whitehead's symbolism in an era of new scientific, cultural and technological developments.

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Book SynopsisBenveniste's lectures had a shaping influence on a generation of scholars that includes Barthes, Deleuze, Foucault, Derrida, Kristeva and Todorov and here, for the first time, these are made available in English for a new generation of linguists and philosophers of language.

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Book SynopsisMichael Halewood uses ideas from analytic philosophy, continental philosophyand social theory to look at how language relates to the world, and the world to language. He primarily draws on the work of Alfred North Whitehead, and incorporating the ideas of Gilles Deleuze, John Dewey and Luce Irigaray, to view the world as 'in process'.

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Book SynopsisMichael Halewood uses ideas from analytic philosophy, continental philosophy and social theory to look at how language relates to the world, and the world to language. He primarily draws on the work of Alfred North Whitehead, and incorporating the ideas of Gilles Deleuze, John Dewey and Luce Irigaray, to view the world as 'in process'.

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Book Synopsis''Brilliant. Searching and profound'' E.H. Carr, Times Literary Supplement''When reading Isaiah Berlin we breathe an altogether different air'' New York Review of Books''Beautifully written'' W. H. Auden, New Yorker''Ingenious. Exactly what good critical writing should be'' Max Beloff, GuardianThe fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.For Isaiah Berlin, there is a fundamental distinction in mankind: those who are fascinated by the infinite variety of things - foxes - and those who relate everything to a central all-embracing system - hedgehogs. It can be applied to the greatest creative minds: Dante, Ibsen and Proust are hedgehogs, while Shakespeare, Aristotle and Joyce are foxes.Yet when Berlin reaches the case of Tolstoy, he finds a fox by nature, but a hedgehog by conviction; a duality which holds the key to understanding Tolstoy''s Trade ReviewBrilliant ... searching and profound * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT *This little book is so entertaining, as well as acute, that the reader hardly notices that it is learned too * OBSERVER *Very readable, with a lively honed down style * SUNDAY MERCURY *The most important study of Tolstoy's thought written in English for a long time * THE LISTENER *Delightful to read * SUNDAY TIMES *[Berlin] has a deep and subtle feeling for the puzzle of Tolstoy's personality, and he writes throughout ... with a wonderful eloquence * NEW YORK TIMES *Beautifully written and suggestive -- W H Auden * NEW YORKER *Berlin's stunning command of the resources of scholarship, his sensitivity to literature and to character, and his eloquence as a writer give this essay the lustre of a virtuoso performance * ATLANTIC *The argument is ingenious and subtle, full of overtones - exactly what good critical writing should be * GUARDIAN *very readable, with a lively honed down style * SUNDAY MERCURY *

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Book SynopsisIn Topoi/Graphein Christian Abrahamsson maps the paradoxical limit of the in-between to revealthat to be human is to know how tolive with the difference between the known and the unknown. Using filmic case studies, including CodeInconnu, Lord of the Flies, and Apocalypse Now,and focusing on key concerns developed in the works of the philosophers Deleuze, Olsson, and Wittgenstein, Abrahamsson starts within the notion of fixed spatiality, in whichhuman thought and action are anchored in the given of identity. He then movesthrough a social world in which spatiotemporal transformations are neitherfixed nor taken for granted. Finally he edges into the pure temporality that liesbeyond the maps of fixed points and social relations. Each chapter is organized into two subjects: topoi, orexcerpts from the films, and graphein, the author's interpretation ofpresented theoriesto mirror the displacements,transpositions, juxtapositions, fluctuations, and transformations between delimited categorieTrade Review"Readers with an interest in spatial theory or cinematic geography should obviously appreciate this work, but so should anyone who wants to understand how a world falls apart and continues to fall apart."—Marcus A. Doel, Social and Cultural Geography“Topoi/Graphein poses the most profound philosophical and conceptual questions concerning the human condition from a compelling geographical perspective. A sustained meditation on our engagement with the world, it journeys over remarkably wide-ranging territory, delivering valuable insights with an uncommon intensity of thought. This is a heavyweight work that wears its profundity lightly.”—David B. Clarke, professor of human geography and head of the Department of Geography at Swansea University“Generations of scholars have identified their respective positions with reference to landmark propositions emanating from singular publications. Topoi/Graphein holds the promise of becoming such a book for a coming generation. It tackles its subject matter with considerable verve and elegant style.”—Ulf Strohmayer, professor of geography at the National University of Ireland, GalwayTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Foreword: Born Again, by Gunnar Olsson Introduction: Angle of Power Part 1. Code inconnu/Crossroads Chapter 1. Encounter/Point Chapter 2. Wall/Stone Chapter 3. Code inconnu/When Above Chapter 4. Limits/Oedipus Chapter 5. Stranger/Terra Firma Part 2. Lord of the Flies/Passages Chapter 6. Desert/Line Chapter 7. Thing/Swerve Chapter 8. Lord of the Flies/Through Chapter 9. Division/Hermes Chapter 10. Fire/Terra Nullius Part 3. Apocalypse Now/The Event Chapter 11. Dream/Plane Chapter 12. River/Cloud Chapter 13. Apocalypse Now/In-Between Chapter 14. Darkness/Janus Chapter 15. Abyss/Horror Vacui Part 4. Geographein Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisWerner Hamacher's witty and elliptical 95 Theses on Philology challenges the humanitiesand particularly academic philologythat assume language to be a given entity rather than an event. In Give the Word eleven scholars take up the challenge presented by Hamacher's theses.Trade Review“This is a stunningly original collection of essays—utterly engrossing and compelling. Probing, erudite, elegant, witty, these essays explore the concept of philology at once literally (literally “literally,” that is, to the letter, down to its smallest granules of articulation) and expansively, inviting us to rethink the fundamental categories of existence—language, translation, tradition, genealogy, history, sociability, love, kinship, in short, just about everything. Hamacher’s magnificent Theses could not find a more vibrant afterlife.”—Rebecca Comay, professor of philosophy and comparative literature at the University of Toronto “Werner Hamacher’s 95 Theses on Philology proposes a new radical understanding of philology distinct from its dusty nineteenth-century conception. The eleven responses to his 95 Theses have provided him with an opportunity to comment extensively and in generous detail on the responses they provoked. Hamacher’s lengthy contribution is not only an extraordinary document of scholarly debate but also a superb piece in which he elaborates on the context of his Theses and on their rich theoretical and philosophical ramifications, thus also providing insight into the workings of his own thought.”—Rodolphe Gasché, Distinguished Professor and Eugenio Donato Chair of Comparative Literature, University at Buffalo, the State University of New YorkTable of Contents95 Theses on Philology / 95 Thesen zur Philologie Werner Hamacher, translated by Catharine Diehl Introduction Gerhard Richter and Ann Smock Part 1. Balances1. Was heißt Lesen?—What Is Called Reading? Gerhard Richter 2. Language-Such-That-It’s-Spoken Michèle Cohen-Halimi, translated by Ann Smock 3. 48: [this space intentionally left blank] Jan Plug 4. Catch a Wave: Sound, Poetry, Philology Sean Gurd Part 2. Times 5. Einmal ist Keinmal: On the 76th of Werner Hamacher’s 95 Theses for Philology Ann Smock 6. Rereading tempus fugit Thomas Schestag 7. Language on Pause: Hamacher’s Seconds of Celan and Daive Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei Part 3. Categories 8. The Right Not to Complain: A Philology of Kinship Avital “Irony” Ronell 9. The Category of Philology Peter Fenves 10. The Philía of Philology Susan Bernstein 11. Defining the Indefinite Daniel Heller-Roazen Part 4. Responding to Responses 12. What Remains to Be Said: On Twelve and More Ways of Looking at Philology Werner Hamacher, translated by Kristina Mendicino Contributors Index

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