Description
Book SynopsisHolism maintains that a phenomenon is more than the sum of its parts. Yet analysis--a mental process crucial to comprehension--involves dismantling the whole to grasp it piecemeal and relationally. Wading through such quandaries, Vincent Descombes guides readers to a deepened appreciation of the entity that enables understanding: the human mind.
Trade ReviewVincent Descombes is one of the most exciting philosophers writing in France today. Readers of
The Institutions of Meaning in the Anglo-American world will discover some familiar ideas (holism, social practice theory of meaning), but developed in an original way and associated with modes of thought (anthropology, sociology) not usually encountered in this context. This book is sure to interest both philosophers working in the area of language and mind and people working in the area of social theory. -- Charles Larmore, Brown University
This insightful and carefully argued book should put an end forever to the widespread tendency to understand social life in atomist terms. Descombes shows convincingly how the social meanings we live by are carried in the institutions and practices that we share. They are not just in our heads, but in the social spaces we inhabit. -- Charles Taylor, McGill University
