Philosophy of language Books

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisThis book serves as a key resource for students and scholars seeking an introduction to Italian Renaissance intellectual life. Focusing on philosophy and literature, and Latin and Italian sources, it brings together recent scholarship, makes an original contribution to the field, and works beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries.Trade Review'In The Intellectual World of the Italian Renaissance, Christopher Celenza provides a priceless vademecum for the study of Italian humanism. It rolls up in a delectable ball all that has come before: Garin and Kristeller; Burckhardt, Baron, and Martines; Fubini and Vasoli; Hankins, Allen, and the others. It presents in depth and with exquisite clarity the major works of nine leading humanists from Petrarch to Poliziano (plus many others introduced in discursive 'parentheses'), culminating with the writer and critic Pietro Bembo, who translates the humanist heritage into a new language of art, a Latinized Tuscan. The lucidity of the explication de textes is matched by the precision with which Celenza profiles his cast of characters, who are presented with full dimensionality in their psychological, social, and cultural contexts: the careerist Poggio, the brawler Valla, the self-made man and Medici servitor Poliziano.' Margaret L. King, The Catholic Historical Review'This is an immensely learned book, written in a clear, accessible style and rich in insight and understanding. Celenza has followed the currents of language and philosophy - which he defines, as do his sources, as the love of wisdom rather than a defined discipline - as elements in the search for meaning and hence self-knowledge and shared values. It is the ideal place to begin a journey into the ideas and debates that informed the intellectual world of the Italian Renaissance.' Kenneth Bartlett, American Historical Review'… Celenza presents a rich analysis and narrative of what it meant to participate in Renaissance Italian intellectual life. I recommend his book - either as a whole, or individual chapters as essays - to undergraduates studying intellectual life during the Florentine Renaissance, or to graduate students and early researchers, as a robust and very clear introduction to Renaissance intellectual life and Renaissance humanism.' Barry Torch, Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme'The Intellectual World of the Italian Renaissance offers an accessible synthesis of intellectual history in Italy from Petrarch to Pietro Bembo … This book will become the standard introductory text to the subject for students, while specialists will also find here a well-written and thoughtful account of a topic that so often defies synthetic treatment … Historians and students of thought, culture and society, as well as literary scholars and students will all find much to ponder here.' Brian J. Maxson, H-Net reviews'This is an immensely learned book, written in a clear, accessible style and rich in insight and understanding.' Kenneth Bartlett, The American Historical Review'This is a rich and engaging study. Not a history of Renaissance philosophy as such, it is, rather, an examination of the intellectual worlds of the fifteenth century and in particular of the dominant role of Latin.' Michael J. B. Allen, Renaissance QuarterlyTable of Contents1. Beginnings; 2. Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio; 3. The Italian Renaissance takes root in Florence; 4. Florentine humanism, translation, and a new (old) philosophy; 5. Dialogues, institutions, and social exchange; 6. Who owns culture? Classicism, institutions, and the vernacular; 7. Poggio Bracciolini; 8. Lorenzo Valla; 9. The nature of the Latin language: Poggio versus Valla; 10. Valla, Latin, Christianity, culture; 11. A changing environment; 12. Florence: Marsilio Ficino, I; 13. Ficino, II; 14. The voices of culture in late fifteenth-century Florence; 15. 'We barely have time to breathe'. Poliziano, Pico, Ficino, and the beginning of the end of the Florentine Renaissance; 16. Angelo Poliziano's Lamia in context; 17. Endings and new beginnings: the language debate.

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Book SynopsisLinguistic typology identifies both how languages vary and what they all have in common. This Handbook provides a state-of-the art survey of the aims and methods of linguistic typology, and the conclusions we can draw from them. Part I covers phonological typology, morphological typology, sociolinguistic typology and the relationships between typology, historical linguistics and grammaticalization. It also addresses typological features of mixed languages, creole languages, sign languages and secret languages. Part II features contributions on the typology of morphological processes, noun categorization devices, negation, frustrative modality, logophoricity, switch reference and motion events. Finally, Part III focuses on typological profiles of the mainland South Asia area, Australia, Quechuan and Aymaran, Eskimo-Aleut, Iroquoian, the Kampa subgroup of Arawak, Omotic, Semitic, Dravidian, the Oceanic subgroup of Austronesian and the Awuyu-Ndumut family (in West Papua). Uniting the expeTrade Review'This Handbook provides a state-of-the-art survey of achievements and developments in the field of linguistic typology, covering the history of typology, phonological, morphological and syntactic typology, the relation of typology to historical linguistics, areal typology, sociolinguistic typology, and typological studies of sign languages. It takes account of all substantial typological studies published so far and adds a wealth of new data and analyses, based on the rich experience of the editors themselves and the expertise of a number of scholars of high competence in their respective fields.' Lars Johanson, Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, Germany'Edited by two of the world's leading typologists, this Handbook enables the reader to access a wealth of information on language structures far beyond those that have been covered in previous typological work.' Bernd Heine, Universität zu KölnTable of ContentsAcknowledgements; Contributors; Abbreviations; List of figures; List of tables; Introduction. Linguistic typology: setting the scene Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald and R. M. W. Dixon; Part I. Domains of Linguistic Typology: 1. Phonological typology Harry van der Hulst; 2. Morphological typology Thomas E. Payne; 3. Typology and historical linguistics Silvia Luraghi; 4. Sociolinguistic typology Peter Trudgill; 5. Typology and grammaticalization Heiko Narrog; 6. Sign language typology Ulrike Zeshan and Nick Palfreyman; 7. Typology of mixed languages Peter Bakker; 8. Typology of Creole languages Aymeric Daval-Markussen and Peter Bakker; 9. Typology of secret languages and linguistic taboos Anne Storch; Part II. Typology of Grammatical Categories: 10. A typology of morphological processes: form and function David Beck; 11. A typology of noun categorization devices Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald; 12. Negation Matti Miestamo; 13. Number Edith Moravcsik; 14. A typology of frustrative marking in Amazonian languages Simon E. Overall; 15. Logophoricity Felix Ameka; 16. Switch reference John Roberts; 17. Approaches to motion event typology Eric Pederson; Part III. Typological Profiles of Linguistic Areas and Language Families: 18. Language in the mainland Southeast Asia area N. J. Enfield; 19. The Australian linguistic area R. M. W. Dixon; 20. An overview of Aymaran and Quechuan language structures Willem Adelaar; 21. The Eskimo-Aleut language family Michael Fortescue; 22. The Athabaskan (Dene) language family Keren Rice and Willem de Reuse; 23. The Iroquoian language family Marianne Mithun; 24. The Kampa subgroup of the Arawak language family Elena Mihas; 25. The Omotic language family Azeb Amha; 26. The Semitic language family Aaron D. Rubin; 27. The Dravidian language family Sanford Steever; 28. The Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian language family Valérie Guérin; 29. The Greater Awyu-Ndumut language family of West Papua Lourens de Vries; Index of authors; Index of languages, language families and linguistic areas; Index of subjects.

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Book SynopsisThe problem of universals is one of the most fascinating and enduring topics in the history of metaphysics, with roots in ancient and medieval philosophy. The contributors to this book provide a critical, up-to-date and original overview of the contemporary debate on the problem of universals.Table of ContentsIntroduction Gabriele Galluzzo and Michael J. Loux; 1. An exercise in constituent ontology Michael J. Loux; 2. Against ontological structure Peter Van Inwagen; 3. In defense of substantial universals E. J. Lowe; 4. A kind farewell to Platonism: for an Aristotelian understanding of kinds and properties Gabriele Galluzzo; 5. Universals in a world of particulars John Heil; 6. Is trope theory a divided house? Robert K. Garcia; 7. Tropes and the generality of laws Sophie Gibb; 8. On the origins of order: non-symmetric or only symmetric relation? Fraser MacBride; 9. States of affairs and the relation regress Anna-Sofia Maurin.

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Book SynopsisCommon sense tells me I can control my life to some extent; should I then, faced with a logical argument for fatalism, reject common sense? There seems to be no place in a physical theory of the universe for the sensory experiences of colours, taste and smells, yet I know I have these experiences. In this book, Gilbert Ryle explores the conflicts that arise in everyday life and shows that the either/or which such dilemmas seem to suggest is a false dilemma: one side of the dilemma does not deny what we know to be true on the other side. This classic book has been revived in a new series livery for twenty-first-century readers, featuring a specially commissioned preface written by Barry Stroud.Trade Review'The great merit of this book is that it grasps philosophical problems at that critical stage when they are just casting off their connexions with everyday life, just about to launch on their long academic flight, and that it attempts to deal with them then and there, before they can become airborne. Brisk, homely and almost practical, it really challenges everyone to try to be his own philosopher … the peculiar, penetrating simplicity of this kind of philosophy is exceedingly hard to achieve.' The Times Literary SupplementTable of ContentsPreface to this edition Barry Stroud; 1. Dilemmas; 2. 'It was to be'; 3. Achilles and the tortoise; 4. Pleasure; 5. The world of science and the everyday world; 6. Technical and untechnical concepts; 7. Perception; 8. Formal and informal logic.

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Book SynopsisForms of thought are involved whenever we name, describe, or identify things, and whenever we distinguish between what is, might be, or must be the case. It appears to be a distinctive feature of human thought that we can have modal thoughts, about what might be possible or necessary, and conditional thoughts, about what would or might be the case if something else were the case. Even the simplest thoughts are structured like sentences, containing referential and predicative elements, and studying these structures is the main task of philosophical logic. This clear and accessible book investigates the forms of thought, drawing out and focusing on the central logical notions of reference, predication, identity, modality and conditionality. It will be useful to students and other interested readers in epistemology and metaphysics, philosophy of mind and language, and philosophical logic.Trade Review'Lowe aims to explicate the logical structure of thoughts via an examination of the sentences in which they are expressed … the argumentation and explanations are clear, straightforward … Recommended. Graduate students and researchers/faculty.' S. P. Schwartz, ChoiceTable of ContentsPreface; 1. Introduction; Part I. Reference and Predication: 2. Individuation, reference, and sortal terms; 3. Dispositional versus occurrent predication; 4. Predication and categories; Part II. Identity: 5. What is a criterion of identity?; 6. Identity conditions and their grounds; Part III. Modality: 7. Identity, vagueness, and modality; 8. Necessity, essence, and possible worlds; Part IV. Conditionality: 9. The truth about counterfactuals; 10. Conditionals and conditional probability; Bibliography; Index.

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Book SynopsisAn accessible and thorough introduction to implicatures, a key topic in all frameworks of pragmatics. Starting with a definition of the various types of implicatures in Gricean, neo-Gricean and post-Gricean pragmatics, the book covers many important questions for current pragmatic theories, namely: the distinction between explicit and implicit forms of pragmatic enrichment, the criteria for drawing a line between semantic and pragmatic meaning, the relations between the structure of language (syntax) and its use (pragmatics), the social and cognitive factors underlying the use of implicatures by native speakers, and the factors influencing their acquisition for children and second language learners. Written in non-technical language, Implicatures will appeal to students and teachers in linguistics, applied linguistics, psychology and sociology, who are interested in how language is used for communication, and how children and learners develop pragmatic skills.Trade Review'… will be indispensable for those focussing on implicatures in teaching or research. Most helpful is its consideration of implicatures from within the three different frameworks. I commend the authors for this useful contribution to the field of pragmatics.' Todd A. Scacewater, Journal of Language, Culture, and Religion'Given the extent to which Implicatures manages not only to provide a concise overview of the topic, but also to introduce novel perspectives in relation to it, it is bound to become an indispensable resource for both newcomers and established researchers in these fields. I am certain that several of its main arguments … have a real potential to push our understanding of the issues that surround this notoriously elusive, but at the same time all too interesting, category of linguistic meaning even further.' Stavros Assimakopoulos, LanguageTable of ContentsPart I. Theoretical Foundations: 1. Ordinary language philosophy and the birth of pragmatics; 2. Linguistic theory and pragmatics; 3. Relevance theory and the broadening of pragmatics to explicit meaning; Part II. Types of Implicatures: 4. Particularized Conversational Implicatures: why there are conversational implicatures; 5. Conventional implicature and presupposition: formal semantics and pragmatics; 6. Generalized conversational implicatures: Gricean, neo-Gricean and post-Gricean pragmatics; Part III. Empirical Evidence: 7. Implicatures and language processing; 8. The acquisition of implicatures in the course of first language development; 9. Implicatures and second language acquisition; Conclusion.

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Book SynopsisEach time we take a turn in conversation we indicate what we know and what we think others know. However, knowledge is neither static nor absolute. It is shaped by those we interact with and governed by social norms - we monitor one another for whether we are fulfilling our rights and responsibilities with respect to knowledge, and for who has relatively more rights to assert knowledge over some state of affairs. This book brings together an international team of leading linguists, sociologists and anthropologists working across a range of European and Asian languages to document some of the ways in which speakers manage the moral domain of knowledge in conversation. The volume demonstrates that if we are to understand how speakers manage issues of agreement, affiliation and alignment - something clearly at the heart of human sociality - we must understand the social norms surrounding epistemic access, primacy and responsibilities.Table of ContentsIntroduction; 1. Knowledge, morality and affiliation in social interaction Tanya Stivers, Lorenza Mondada and Jakob Steensig; Part I. Affiliational Consequences of Managing Epistemic Asymmetries: 2. The management of knowledge discrepancies and of epistemic changes in institutional interactions Lorenza Mondada; 3. Giving support to the claim of epistemic primacy: yo-marked assessments in Japanese Kaoru Hayano; 4. Morality and question design: 'of course' as contesting a presupposition of askability Tanya Stivers; 5. Addressing epistemic incongruence in question-answer sequences through the use of epistemic adverbs Trine Heinemann, Anna Lindström and Jakob Steensig; 6. The epistemics of make-believe Jack Sidnell; Part II. Epistemic Resources for Managing Affiliation and Alignment: 7. Territories of knowledge, territories of experience: empathic moments in interaction John Heritage; 8. The terms of not knowing and social affiliation Leelo Keevallik; 9. Proposing shared knowledge as a means of pursuing agreement Birte Asmuß; 10. Ways of agreeing with negative stance taking Auli Hakulinen and Marja-Leena Sorjonen; 11. Epistemics and embodiment in the interactions of very young children Mardi Kidwell; Part III. Toward a Theory: 12. Sources of asymmetry in human interaction: enchrony, status, knowledge and agency N. J. Enfield.

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Book SynopsisBringing together a team of scholars from linguistics and philosophy, this book bridges the gap between the two fields, which while closely related, are often approached with very different methodologies and processes. Accessible and engaging, it is essential reading for researchers and students in both disciplines.Trade Review'This collection offers a comprehensive and authoritative survey of where semantics and pragmatics stand after a half century of transformative collaboration between philosophers and linguists. Leading researchers make a powerful case for continued partnership, highlighting questions where progress requires integrating the two perspectives. The volume is an indispensable resource for linguists and philosophers who aspire to deepen our understanding of meaning and communication.' Zoltán Gendler Szabó, John S. Saden Professor of Philosophy, Yale University'An excellent addition to the thriving new genre of handbooks and survey articles - distinguishing itself by its emphasis on combining insights from philosophy and linguistics on issues of interest to all scholars of natural language meaning. Ambitious in conception, Altshuler has shepherded the enterprise to an impressive final product. Contributors include researchers from both fields, topics include some classic and some emerging areas of investigation. The combination makes for a compelling volume.' Veneeta Dayal, Professor of Linguistics, Yale University'Solicited with editorial insight and expertise, the chapters revisit foundational commitments, set classical questions in a new light, and raise new big questions, sometimes sparked by cross-linguistic work. Written in a careful and accessible way, this book is bound to inspire a new dialog between linguists and philosophers.' Anna Szabolcsi, New York University'Since the interdisciplinary project of formal semantics gave rise to a discipline within linguistics, the interactions between philosophers and linguists have significantly decreased. Yet, as this wonderful collection shows, new kinds of conversation have emerged, around specific topics of interest to both philosophy and linguistics.' François Recanati, Collège de France'A splendid collection, shining a light on some of the most pressing issues in contemporary semantic theory. Taken as a whole, these studies make a compelling case for the importance of interaction between linguists and philosophers to the historical development of semantics as a field - and for why we should keep talking to each other in the future.' Hazel Pearson, Senior Lecturer in LinguisticsTable of ContentsLinguistics meets philosophy: a historial preface Barbara H. Partee; Introduction Daniel Altshuler; Part I. Reporting and Ascribing: 1. Attitude ascriptions and speech reports Angelika Kratzer; 2. Acquaintance relations Yael Sharvit and Matt Moss; Part II. Describing and Referring: 3. Referential and attributive descriptions Hans Kamp; 4. On definite descriptions can familiarity and uniqueness be distinguished? Elizabeth Coppock; Part III. Narrating and Structuring: 5. On the role of relations and structure in discourse interpretation Julie Hunter and Kate Thompson; 6. Narrative and point of view Pranav Anand and Maziar Toosarvandani; Part IV. Locating and Inferring: 7. Present tense Corien Bary; 8. Evidentiality: Unifying nominal and propositional domains Diti Bhadra; Part V. Typologizing and ontologizing: 9. A typology of semantic entities Jessica Rett; 10. Non-finite verbal forms and natural language ontology Gillian Ramchand; Part VI. Determining and questioning: 11. Vagueness & Discourse dynamics Sam Carter; 12. Alternatives Matthijs Westera; Part VII. Arguing and rejecting: 13. The Semantics and Pragmatics of argumentation Carlotta Pavese; 14. Assertion and rejection Julian J. Schlöder; Part VIII. Implying and (pre)supposing: 15. Implicatures Emma Borg; 16. Presuppositions Márta Abrusán; 17. Modals and conditionals Matthew Mandelkern.

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Book SynopsisSemantics and pragmatics the study of meaning, and meaning in context, respectively are two fundamental areas of linguistics, and as such are crucial to our understanding of how meaning is created. However, their theoretical ideas are often introduced without making clear connections between views, theories, and problems. This pioneering volume is both a textbook and a research guide, taking the reader on a journey through language and ultimately enabling them to think about meaning as linguists and philosophers would. Assuming no prior knowledge of linguistics, it introduces semantics, pragmatics, and the philosophy of language, showing how all three fields can address the ''big questions'' that run through the study of meaning. It covers key theories and approaches, while also enabling increasingly more sophisticated questions about the interconnected aspects of meaning, with the end goal of preparing the reader to make their own, original contributions to ideas about meaning.Table of ContentsPreface and tips on how to read this book; Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations and symbols; Stage 1. Introduction: meaning – what it is and where to find it: 1.1 How (not) to study meaning; 1.2 Semantics, pragmatics, and philosophy (and why they are best done together); 1.3 Proposition: a flexible unit for studying meaning?; 1.4 Meaning and its correlates; Stage 2. word meaning and concepts: 2.1 Harnessing word meaning; 2.2 The 'concept' commotion; 2.3 Language and thought; 2.4 Lexicon and pragmatics; 2.5 The role of reference; Stage 3. Composing sentence meaning: tools and their purpose: 3.1 Truth in service of meaning: truth conditions and truth-value judgements; 3.2 The metalanguage for the logical form; 3.3 Possible worlds and models; 3.4 Semantic composition and semantic types; 3.5 Type-theoretic metalanguage and lambda abstraction; 3.6 Formal tools and cognitive reality; Stage 4. Operations on sentences: 4.1 Sentential connectives and propositional logic; 4.2 Conjunction; 4.3 Disjunction; 4.4 Conditional and biconditional; 4.5 Negation; 4.6 Linguistic diversity: snakes and ladders, cluedo, and monopoly; Stage 5. Inside the sentence: 5.1 Limitations of the metalanguage; 5.2 Quantification; 5.3 Representing time; 5.4 Modality; 5.5 Propositional attitude reports; 5.6 Interim conclusions: semantic tools for formal cognitive representations?; Stage 6. Conveying information: 6.1 From sentences to discourses: dynamic semantics for dynamic meaning; 6.2 Referring and its tools; 6.3 Organizing information in discourse; Stage 7. Utterance meaning, or what lurks under the surface: 7.1 Saying, implicating and inferring; 7.2. Truth-conditional vs. non-truth-conditional, semantic vs. pragmatic: what to include and what to leave out; 7.3 Keeping semantics and pragmatics apart; Stage 8. Meaning in service of its makers: 8.1 Who needs literal meanings?; 8.2 What makes a metaphor; 8.3. Speech and action; 8.4 At a crossroads with ethical and social debates; Stage 9. Conclusion: the future of meaning?; Index.

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Book SynopsisThis Element concerns Wittgenstein's evolving attitude toward the opposition between realism and idealism in philosophy. Wittgenstein can be understood as rejecting both positions, while nonetheless seeing insights in each position worth retaining. Wittgenstein was insistent on seeing language and thought as worldly phenomena.Table of Contents1. Introduction; 2. The early Wittgenstein; 3. The middle Wittgenstein; 4. The later Wittgenstein; 5. Coda: On certainty; References.

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Book SynopsisThis Element provides clear and concise explanations of Wittgenstein's early criticisms of Russell's theory of judgment, which led to central features of Wittgenstein's Tractatus. It provides unfamiliar students with these issues an accurate and straightforward introduction. For specialists, it outlines some significant recent research.

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This Element provides a comprehensive explanation of Wittgenstein's philosophy. It introduces distinctions that are essential for approaching the multilayered complex of Wittgenstein's oeuvre. One is the distinction between writing philosophical clarifications for himself and forming philosophical books for his reader.

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Book SynopsisErnst Tugendhat''s major work, Vorlesungen zur Einführung in die sprachanalytische Philosophie (1976), was translated into English in 1982. Although trained in Heideggerian phenomenological and hermeneutical thinking, Tugendhat increasingly came to believe that the most appropriate approach to philosophy was an analytical one. This influential work grew from that conviction and brought new perspectives to some of the central and abiding questions of metaphysics and the philosophy of language. Presented in a fresh twenty-first-century series livery, and including a specially commissioned preface written by Hans-Johann Glock, illuminating its enduring importance and relevance to philosophical enquiry, this impressive work has been revived for a new generation of readers.Table of ContentsPreface to this edition Hans-Johann Glock; Translator's preface; Part I. Introduction: Confrontation of Analytical Philosophy with Traditional Conceptions of Philosophy: 1. A question of method; 2. A philosopher in search of a conception of philosophy; 3. Ontology and semantics; 4. Has formal semantics a fundamental question?; 5. Consciousness and speech; 6. The argument with the philosophy of consciousness continued; 7. A practical conception of philosophy; Part II. A First Step: Analysis of the Predicative Sentence: 8. Preliminary reflections on method and preview of the course of the investigation; 9. Husserl's theory of meaning; 10. Collapse of the traditional theory of meaning; 11. Predicates: the first step in the development of an analytical conception of the meaning of sentences. The dispute between nominalists and conceptualists; 12. The basic principle of analytical philosophy. The dispute continued. Predicates and quasi-predicates; 13. The meaning of an expression and the circumstances of its use. Dispute with a behaviouristic conception; 14. The employment-rule of an assertoric sentence. Argument with Grice and Searle; 15. Positive account of the employment-rule of assertoric sentences in terms of the truth-relation; 16. Supplements; 17. 'And' and 'or'; 18. General sentences. Resumption of the problem of predicates; 19. The mode of employment of predicates. Transition to singular terms; 20. What is it for a sign to stand for an object? The traditional account; 21. The function of singular terms; 22. Russell and Strawson; 23. What is 'identification'?; 24. Specification and identification. Specification and truth; 25. Spatio-temporal identification and the constitution of the object-relation; 26. Supplements; 27. Results; 28. The next steps; Notes; Bibliography; Indexes.

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Book Synopsis''Stuffed with entertaining detail ... Horrible Words is lively, provocative, witty and enlightening'' The TimesNothing inflames the language purists like an illogical irregardless or a hideous otherization. But is it enough simply to dismiss these words as vile and barbarous howlers? Taking a genial tour far and wide through our linguistic badlands, Rebecca Gowers finds answers that are helpful, surprising and often extremely funny.''Exuberant, erudite, informative and fun ... a call on all English-speakers to trust their own feel for their language, to relish their verbal inventiveness and to do battle against the pedants who tell them they are wrong'' Michael Skapinker, Financial Times ''A very useful book, packed with good historical sense'' Lynne Truss, The TimesTrade ReviewA great delight -- David CrystalGowers is fierce, funny and staggeringly well informed -- Alan Connor * Mail on Sunday *Stuffed with entertaining detail ... Horrible Words is lively, provocative, witty and enlightening * The Times *Exuberant and stimulating ... erudite, informative and fun * Financial Times *Witty ... wry ... As a heretic, Gowers cuts a formidable figure * The Times Literary Supplement *A very useful book, packed with good historical sense -- Lynne Truss * The Times *A joy - informative and irreverent -- Caroline TaggartWitty and erudite ... A splendid antidote to small-minded pedantry -- Robbie Millen * The Times *Will have you enraptured by etymology ... Hugely enjoyable * Reader's Digest *

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Book SynopsisIs it sexist to say that “men are trash”? Can white people be victims of racism? Do we bear any individual responsibility for climate change?We’ve all wrestled with questions like these, whether we’re shouting at a relative across the dinner table, quarreling with old classmates on social media, or chatting late into the night with friends. Many people give kneejerk answers that roughly align with their broader belief system, but flounder when asked for their reasoning, leading to a conversational stalemate—especially when faced with a political, generational, or cultural divide.The truth is that our answers to these questions almost always rely on unexamined assumptions. In Arguing for a Better World, philosopher Arianne Shahvisi shows us how to work through thorny moral questions by examining their parts in broad daylight, equipping us to not only identify our own positions but to defend them as well. This book demonstrates

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Book SynopsisThis book is the first comprehensive exposition of the work of one of the most important intellectual historians and political theorists writing today. Quentin Skinner''s treatment of political theory as a dimension of political life marks a revolutionary move in the historical as well as the philosophical study of political thought. Skinner brings the study of political theory closer to the language of agents and treats theorists as politicians of a special kind. This is as true of his accounts of his contemporaries, such as Rawls, Rorty, Geertz and Habermas, as it is of his interpretations of classical thinkers such as Machiavelli and Hobbes. Skinner has become internationally renowned for this approach, which ties together historical and contemporary analysis in order to integrate the study of the past and the present, and which tries fully to uncover the historical context and development of key concepts in political theory such as freedom and the state. ThisTrade Review‘Skinner and Palonen between them have explained, more deeply than anyone, the relation between writing the history of political thoughts and thinking about politics in history.’ John Pocock, Professor Emeritus, John Hopkins University ‘Kari Palonen’s impressive knowledge of twentieth-century European historiography creates an appropriately broad canvas for this fine study of the Cambridge contextual historian Quentin Skinner as a political theorist in the grand tradition. Palonen shows to what degree Skinner’s projects belong to the world post Nietzsche and post Wittgenstein, which give priority to “life” and the “lived experience” over theory and scholastic history (or historicism). For the modern homo politicus no longer speaks “ for eternity”, but as a person of his/her own time. It is in this very special sense that context and text belong together: as the ground, and perhaps the only ground, against which human actions now have meaning’. Patricia Springborg, University of SydneyTable of ContentsChapter 1. Introduction. 1.1. A Revolution in the Study of Political Thought. 1.2. A Political Reading. Chapter 2. History as an Argument. 2.1. Death of Political Philosophy?. 2.2. The Defence of the Historian: Laslett and Pocock. 2.3. The ‘historical’ as a criterion. 2.4. The Politics of History. Chapter 3. Theories as Moves. 3.1. Intelligibility of Politics as Activity. 3.2. The Action Perspective on Political Thought. 3.3. Ideas and Concepts as Moves in Argument. 3.4. Conventions and intentions. 3.5. Legitimation of Action. 3.6. The Innovating Ideologist. 3.7. Linguistic Action and its Legitimation. Chapter 4. The Foundations: a History of Theory Politics. 4.1. Genres of Studying Political Thought. 4.2. Why "Foundations"?. 4.3. The Matrix of Questions. 4.4. Ideologies and Legitimation. 4.5. The Formation of the Concept of the State. 4.6. From the History of Ideas Towards a History of Concepts. 4.7. The Skinnerian Revolution. Chapter 5. Rethinking Political Liberty. 5.1. Liberty as a Contested Concept Par Excellence. 5.2. Revising the Conceptual History of Liberty. 5.3. Liberty of the City-Republics. 5.4. Machiavelli as a Philosopher of Liberty. 5.5. Hobbes on Natural Liberty and the Liberty of Subjects. 5.6. The Neo-roman Theorists: Liberty vs. Dependence. 5.7. Intervention in the Contemporary Debate. 5.8. A Profile on the History and Theory of Liberty. Chapter 6. From Philosophy to Rhetoric. 6.1. The Rise of Rhetoric. 6.2. Rhetorical Philosophy: Wittgenstein and Austin. 6.3. Skinner’s Critique of Philosophy. 6.4. Rhetoric and Philosophy in Hobbes. 6.5. The rhetorical Culture of the Renaissance. 6.6. Rhetoric and the Critique of Philosophy. 6.7. Conceptual Change: from Speech Acts to Rhetoric. 6.8. Skinner and Rhetoric Studies Today. Chapter 7. Quentin Skinner as a Contemporary Thinker. 7.1 The Intellectual Profile. 7.2. A vision of Time. References.

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Book SynopsisThis book presents a radically different view of language from that found in most modern Western philosophy. Human language is seen as having an innate capacity to reflect the light of consciousness, the primary element of the universe, and evidence is provided to show the extraordinary reflective capacity of the Sanskrit language.Trade Review"The glimpses of the Pani nian system which the book affords are fascinating; and the author's emphasis on the ontological importance of the Indian tradition is apposite and welcome." John Carey. Lead Reviewer of the Sunday Times 20111015 "This book explores the nature of human language, its relation to truth and to the natural laws of the universe. It focuses on truth according to Advaita (non-dualism), and concentrates mostly on the Sanskrit language. Language and truth are intimately connected in Advaita. One reason for this is the Sanskrit language, because the sound and structure of the language itself appear to reflect and convey that truth." Watkins Review. 20111115Table of ContentsPronunciation Guide Introduction 1. Different premises on which language may be founded 2. How many different languages relate to truth? 3. Basic elements of language as evident in Sanskrit 4. Words: their formation and classes 5. Sentences and relationships within them 6. Sound, word and meaning. What is meaning? 7. Paninian grammar: some special features 8. Laws of Sanskrit reflecting Natural Laws? Appendix 1. The credentials of Sanskrit Appendix 2. The extent of Sandhi Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisChallenges the pervasive view that the description theory of proper names is dead in the water. This title discusses several topics, including representation and information, two-dimensionalism, possible worlds, and broad versus narrow content.Table of ContentsPrologue. Lecture One: The Debate over the Theory of Reference for Proper Names. Lecture Two: Understanding, Representation, Information. Lecture Three: Ir-content and the Set of Worlds Where a Sentence is True. Lecture Four: Two Spaceism. Lecture Five: The Informational Value of Names. References. Index.

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Book SynopsisIn On Doubt, Vilém Flusser refines Martin Heidegger’s famous declaration that “language is the dwelling of Being.” For Flusser, “the word is the dwelling of being,” because in fact, in the beginning, there was the word. On Doubt is a treatise on the human intellect, its relation to language, and the reality-forming discourses that subsequently emerge. For Flusser, the faith that the modern age places in Cartesian doubt plays a role similar to the one that faith in God played in previous eras—a faith that needs to be challenged. Descartes doubts the world through his proposition cogito ergo sum, but leaves doubt itself untouched as indubitable and imperious. His cogito ergo sum may have proved to the Western intellect that thoughts exist, but it did not prove the existence of that which thinks: one can eliminate thinking and yet continue being. Therefore, should we not doubt doubt itself? Should we not try to go beyond this last step of Cartesian doubt and look for a new faith? The twentieth century has seen many attempts to defeat Cartesian doubt, however, this doubt of doubt has instead generated a complete loss of faith, which the West experiences as existential nihilism. Hence, the emergent emptying of values that results from such extreme doubt. Everything loses its meaning. Can this climate be overcome? Will the West survive the modern age?

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisAt the time of its publication, How Language Began received high acclaim for capturing the fascinating history of mankind’s most incredible creation. Deemed a “bombshell” linguist and “instant folk hero” by Tom Wolfe (Harper’s), Daniel L. Everett posits that the near- 7,000 languages that exist today are not only the product of one million years of evolution but also have allowed us to become Earth’s apex predator. Tracing 60,000 generations, Everett debunks long- held theories across a spectrum of disciplines to affi rm the idea that we are not born with an instinct for language. Woven with anecdotes of his nearly forty years of fi eldwork amongst Amazonian hunter- gatherers, this is a “completely enthralling” (Spectator) exploration of our humanity and a landmark study of what makes us human. “[An] ambitious text. . . . Everett’s amiable tone, and especially his captivating anecdotes . . . , will help the neophyte along.”— New York Times Book Review

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Book SynopsisIn this incisive blend of personal narrative and philosophical inquiry, a journalist and activist, seeking a new way to talk about racism in America, discusses the historical origins of ethnocide in the US, while examining the personal, lived consequences of existing within an ongoing erasure.

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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