Description
Book SynopsisJulia Tanney’s Meaning, Mind, and Action challenges widely held presuppositions within philosophy in its classical ‘analytic’, ‘naturalist’, and ‘cognitivist’ forms. Beginning with canonical views in the philosophy of language and logic, the arguments are then applied to discussions of knowledge, action, causation, the nature of the mental, consciousness, and thinking.
Responding to a tradition that harks back to Plato and was resurrected by Mill, Frege, Russell, Moore, and the early Wittgenstein, Meaning, Mind, and Action challenges today’s orthodoxy on its own terms, beginning with canonical views in the philosophy of language and philosophical logic. The arguments of these early chapters are then applied to the theory of knowledge, action, and causation, followed by those on the nature of the mental, consciousness, and thinking. The final section, on the logic of the mental, widens the arguments to include the subject of animal minds, the postulation of mental representations in cultural anthropology, the author’s intention in literary theory, and the philosophical problem of irrationality in psychiatry.
Trade Review“Julia Tanney has brought together fourteen of her essays, mostly written in the last decade. They display her usual lucidity and thoughtfulness, as well as her characteristic and admirable determination to swim against the current of the times. Her essays are both provocative and convincing, as well as enjoyable to read.” —Peter Hacker, St John's College Oxford, UK.
“Tanney uses Wittgenstein, Ryle and Austin’s tools to counter strong currents in contemporary analytic philosophy and in a way that should engage those not already in the Wittgenstein camp. Her work takes us where Wittgenstein could have traveled if he were inclined to be more systematic. Penetrating and impressive.” —Professor James C. Klagge, Department of Philosophy, Virginia Tech, USA.
“Julia Tanney brilliantly demonstrates the continued relevance of ordinary language philosophy. Drawing on the fundamental insight that words must be understood in the many contexts of their use, she challenges orthodoxy in, and sheds new light on, such diverse areas as epistemology, the philosophy of action, and the philosophy of mind. This book deserves a wide audience.” —Michael Kremer, Mary R. Morton Distinguished Service Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Chicago, USA.
Table of ContentsIntroduction; Part I Meaning and Philosophical Logic; Chapter One, Explaining What We Mean; Chapter Two Rule Following, Intellectualism, and Logical Reasoning: On the Importance of a Type Distinction between Performances and “Propositional Knowledge” of the Norms that Govern Them; Chapter Three, Wittgenstein on Rule Following and Interpretation; Part II Knowing, Action, and Causation, Chapter Four What Knowledge Is Not: Reflections on Some Uses of the Verb “To Know”; Chapter Five, Remarks on the “Thickness” of Action Description; Chapter Six, Prolegomena to a Cartographical Investigation of Cause and Reason; Part III Mind, Consciousness, and Thinking, Chapter Seven, The Location of the Mind; Chapter Eight, Some Absurdities in the Notion of “Conscious Experience”; Chapter Nine, “Ordinary” Consciousness; Chapter Ten, A Peg for Some Thoughts; Part IV The Logic of the Mental, Chapter Eleven, Rational Animals; Chapter Twelve, Investigating Cultures: A Critique of Cognitive Anthropology; Chapter Thirteen “The Colour Flows Back”: Intention and Interpretation in Literature and Everyday Action; Chapter Fourteen Trauma and Belief; Acknowledgments; Provenance of Essays; Index.
