This series will include monographs and collections of studies devoted to the investigation and exploration of knowledge, information and data-processing systems of all kinds, no matter whether human, (other) animal or machine. Its scope is intended to span the full range of interests from classical problems in the philosophy of mind and phi losophical psychology through issues in cognitive psychology and socio biology (concerning the mental capabilities of other species) to ideas related to artificial intelligence and computer science. While (...) primary emphasis will be placed upon theoretical, conceptual and epistemologi cal aspects of these problems and domains, empirical, experimental and methodological studies will also appear from time to time. Among the most challenging and difficult projects within the scope of artificial intelligence is the development and implementation of com puter programs suitable for processing natural language. Our purpose in compiling the present volume has been to contribute to the foundations of this enterprise by bringing together classic papers devoted to crucial problems involved in understanding natural language, which range from issues of formal syntax and logical form to those of possible-worlds and situation semantics. The book begins with a comprehensive introduc tion composed by Jack Kulas, the senior editor of this work, which pro vides a systematic orientation to this complex field, and ends with a selected bibliography intended to promote further research. If our efforts assist others in dealing with these problems, they will have been worthwhile. J. H. F. (shrink)

Author Max Black argues that language should conform to the discovered regularities of experience it is radically mistaken to assume that the conception of language is a mirror of reality.

The book is based on the proceedings of the conference on 'Philosophy, Language and the Political - Reevaluating Poststructuralism' held at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, on the 10th, 11th and 12th December 2014. Several scholars from India and abroad participated in it. The book comprises 17 papers that were presented at the event, besides three additional papers, plus a Preface by Marc Crepon, as well as a description of the conference and a thematic introduction, both by Franson (...) Manjali. -/- The contributiors discuss diverse aspects of the poststructuralist and related philosophical ideas and practices, in the works of Jacques Derrida, Michael Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Helene Cixous, Jurgen Habermas, Jean-Luc Nancy, Georgio Agambed, Maurice Blanchot, Emmanuel Levinas, Martin Heideggar, Jean-Paul Sartre, Friedrich Nietzche, Baruch Spinoza, and several other philosophers. The questions of language, literature, culture, art, the political, feminism, self and the other death, theology, violence, shame, the animal, psychoanalysis, Marxism, etc, receive scholarly attention of the contributors. (shrink)

The basic conflict: an initial characterization -- The main arguments against ordinary language philosophy -- Must philosophers rely on intuitions? -- Contextualism and the burden of knowledge -- Contextualism, anti-contextualism, and knowing as being in a position to give assurance -- Conclusion: skepticism and the dialectic of (semantically pure) "knowledge" -- Epilogue: ordinary language philosophy, Kant, and the roots of antinomial thinking.

In a recent article, Fabian Freyenhagen argues that we should understand first-generation Frankfurt School critical theory (in particular, the work of Adorno and Horkheimer) as being defined by a kind of ‘linguistic turn’ analogous to one present in the later Wittgenstein. Here, I elaborate on this hypothesis – initially by calling it into question, by detailing Herbert Marcuse’s extensive criticisms of Wittgenstein (and other analytic philosophers of language) in One-Dimensional Man. While Marcuse is harshly critical of analytic ordinary (...) class='Hi'>language philosophy, he is much more sympathetic to a different sort of ordinary language philosophy, which he unpacks with reference to Karl Kraus. I show how, by getting Marcuse’s criticisms of Wittgenstein and other analytic philosophers, and lauding of Kraus, into view, we can better understand the first generation of the Frankfurt School as having practised a sort of ‘non-quietistic’ philosophical therapy (that may or may not have been the sort of thing that Wittgenstein himself had in mind). (shrink)

When I studied the Scriptures then I did not feel as I am writing about them now. They seemed to me unworthy of comparison with the grand style of Cicero (Augustine, III, 5).As for the absurdities which used to offend me in Scripture, … I now looked for their meanings in the depth of mystery (sacramentorum) (Augustine, VI, 5).

In this article, the importance of the namelessness of language will be firstly explained through an analysis of authenticity in Heideggerian philosophy, and will be further clarified by way of the phenomenon of “profound boredom” from his Freiburg lecture. As the exploration of namelessness in Heideggerian philosophy plays a crucial role in bridging the gap between East and West, a brief comparison concerning the idea of namelessness and its underlying philosophy of language between the Heideggerian (...) and the madhyamaka Buddhist tradition will also be discussed. (shrink)

Traditionally, psychologists have utilized rather large-grain, macro units to clarify and measure cognition. Favored units include psychometric factors (e.g., IQ,verbal ability, quantitative ability) and categories of cognition (e.g., inductive reasoning, inference, mental rotation). In this paper, we tested the hypothesis that specific language concepts can complement psychometric factors and cognitive categories as distinguishable units of human intelligence. We found that productive use of specific language in persuasive essays predicted cognitive ability scores on the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT). A (...) simple sum of specific words used (ranging from 0 to 7) correlated with cognitive factors almost as highly as the ability tests intercorrelated. The proposed model speculates that, as semiotic signs, discrete language concepts compose in part the cultural heritage passed on with modification from generation to the next. Moreover, in contrast to other units of analysis, cognitive tools in the form of specific language are teachable in a direct and deliberate manner as one function of education. (shrink)

Language employs various coordinators to connect propositions, a subset of which are “logical” in nature and thus analogous to the truth operators of formal logic. We here focus on two linguistic connectives and their negations: conjunction _and_ and (inclusive) disjunction _or_. Linguistic connectives exhibit a truth-conditional component as part of their meaning (their semantics), but their use in context can give rise to various implicatures and presuppositions (the domain of pragmatics) as well as to inferences that go beyond semantic/pragmatic (...) properties (the result of reasoning processes). We provide a comprehensive review of the role of the logical connectives in language and argue that three sets of factors—semantic, pragmatic, and those related to reasoning—are separate and separable, though some details may differ cross-linguistically. As a way to showcase the argument, we present two experiments in language comprehension in Spanish wherein pragmatic content was minimised and reasoning processes neutered, thus potentially highlighting what might be the default meanings of the connectives under study. In Experiment 1 we show that the conjunctive reading of inclusive disjunction is available in positive contexts other than in syntactically intricate cases such as downward entailing and free choice contexts, contrary to what has been claimed in the literature. In Experiment 2 we show that negated conjunctions and disjunctions in Spanish can easily receive the same interpretation when contrasted against the same context and, moreover, that these interpretations match those available in English, despite claims from the literature that linguistic connectives and local negation interact differently in English and Romance languages. (shrink)

Analytic philosophy is based on the assumption that our world is a world grasped in terms of (this or another) language and that the question of the character of any entity is closely connected with the question of the linguistic grasp of that entity. The father of this philosophical trend was Gottlob Frege: he showed the way to capture the semantic aspect of language in a systematic way without resorting into psychologism; he also showed that logical analysis (...) can be an extremely powerful tool for capturing meaning. Frege's teaching was further developed by Bertrand Russell, Rudolf Carnap, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Willard Van Quine and other philosophers. This philosophy, in connection with which the term linguistic turn is also often mentioned, is characterized by viewing language as a means of picturing the world and truth as the correspondence between statement and reality. Whereas some of the analytic philosophers (Carnap, Alfred Tarski) understood the relation between language and the world as a matter of a better or worse adaptation of the structure of language to the autonomous structure of the world, others (Wittgenstein, Quine, Nelson Goodman) realized that the structure of the world is always a matter of the language we use approaching the world. (shrink)

The remarks which follow are intended to address a certain apparent asymmetry as between German and Anglo-Saxon philosophy. Put most simply, it is clear to every philosopher moving backwards and forwards between the two languages that the translation of an Anglo-Saxophone philosophical text into German is in general a much easier task than is the translation of a German philosophical text into English. The hypothesis suggests itself immediately that this is so because English philosophical writings are in the main (...) clear and intelligible, and therefore easy to translate. The texts of German philosophy, on the other hand, both classical and contemporary, seem in many cases to be marked by stylistic obscurities or idiosyncracies of a sort which make them not translatable in the strict sense at all. (shrink)

Recent scholarship on the philosophy of time in pre-Qin Daoist thought has not yet produced a thorough examination of dao’s relationship to time. This essay resolves this omission through a systematic study of the concept heng 恒 in pre-Qin Daoist literature. While principally expressing the ‘constancy’ of dao, heng also significantly presupposes dao’s ability to change. This change is characterized in the texts as a cyclical movement of ‘return’ and identified with the universe’s circular metanarrative of generation and reintegration. (...) The essay turns to examine pre-Qin Daoist literature’s use of primal wu 無 metaphors to describe dao. It concludes that they present dao as undifferentiated infinitude, liberating dao as heng from the tense structure of past-present-future that divides life in time. These metaphors further associate the movement of dao with the flow of time, reformulating time’s relentless ever-greater advancement into an endless cycle of creative transformation. (shrink)

In this book Michael Heim provides the first consistent philosophical basis for critically evaluating the impact of word processing on our use of and ideas about language. This edition includes a new foreword by David Gelernter, a new preface by the author, and an updated bibliography. "Not only important but seminal, on the cutting-edge, furrowing new conceptual territory."-Walter J. Ong, S.J. "A philosopher ponders how the word processor has affected language use and our ideas about it. Heim shrewdly (...) updates a school of thought, associated with such thinkers as Walter Ong, that maintains all changes in writing technology tend to change the way we perceive the world. His argument that word processing leads to fragmented thinking should be addressed and debated."-Carlin Romano, Philadelphia Inquirer "The arguments range over all of Western philosophy, from the ancient Greeks to contemporary phenomenology.... Everyone who has used a word processor will find much to think about in Heim's ideas."-David Weinberger, Byte "Fascinating, clear, and well-done... stimulating and challenging."-Don Ihde, Philosophy and Rhetoric. (shrink)

The author discusses the role of language within law, and the role of philosophy of language in understanding the nature of law. He argues that the major re-thinking of the common and `common sense' views about law that have been proposed by various recent legal theorists are unnecessary.

The article considers the theoretical and practical consequences of the so-called "soft" version of epistemological realism in Bimal K. Matilal's philosophical project. The author offers an analytical view on Matilal's philosophy, which helps to understand it in a broader prospective, comparing his arguments on perception and objectivity with contemporary arguments in Western analytical philosophy; in fact, it is possible to view Matilal not only as the proponent of revised Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika approach, but also as the follower of realistic view (...) on language, following L. Wittgenstein, W. Quine, H. Putnam and M. Dummett. Despite the fact that such interpretation may sound diverse or multivocal, it nevertheless helps to better understand both lineages of argumentation: the critical review of the impossibility of private language can be compared in both Western and Indian philosophical discourses, which leads into the domain of social epistemology. The second part of the article discusses the ethical arguments on the vulnerability of moral virtues, and the place of Dharma as a term in moral philosophy. Poetical and metaphorical language appears to be a fruitful strategy to discover the ineffable - and also via negativa and catuṣkoṭi - which is shown by Matilal on the example of the unacceptability of lying. The ethical ineffability and its interconnection with Matilal's commentaries on practical wisdom play the crucial part in the interpretations of Dharmaśāstra texts. (shrink)

Recently, a number of Anglo-American philosophers of very different sorts--pragmatists, metaphysicians, philosophers of language, philosophers of law, moral philosophers--have taken a reflective rather than merely recreational interest in literature. Does this literary turn mean that philosophy is coming to an end or merely down to earth? In this collection of essays, one of the most insightful of contemporary literary theorists investigates the intersection of literature and philosophy, analyzing the emerging preferences for practice over theory, particulars over universals, (...) events over structures, inhabitants over spectators, an ethics of responsibility over a morality of rules, and a desire for intimacy with the world instead of simply a disengaged knowledge of it. (shrink)

A critical examination of the philosophical theories of Fritz Mauthner. Mauthner was a prolific writer with diverse intellectual interests, but he was preoccupied with developing a comprehensive philosophy or 'critique' of language which would help resolve a whole range of persistent and controversial philosophical problems. In pursuit of this aim Mauthner pioneered a view of language which has had a very wide circulation in the twentieth century - namely that the analysis and understanding of language, particularly (...) ordinary language, is the philosophers most important task. Mauthner was very much an outsider from the German academic establishment and has little sympathy with the increasingly influential phenomenology of the time. In this thorough and authoritative study, Gershon Weiler locates his ideas in their proper historical tradition and urges that their originality now be recognised and their interest reconsidered. (shrink)

The article critically engages with the posthumanist discourse on anthropocentrism and human exceptionalism. It adopts an “integrational” approach to signs, language, and communication, as outlined in the works of Oxford linguist Roy Harris. Integrational linguistics is committed to a demythologized view of “language,” which it considers to exist only as part of the experience of human individuals and human collectivities. From an integrational point of view, language is not an “object” of scientific inquiry, but a complex of (...) human activities that make such an inquiry possible in the first place. This paper argues that posthumanists falsely ascribe language to animals and to hypothetical extraterrestrials. Based on Harris’ concept of the supercategory, it is shown that the worldviews encapsulated in science, history, and religion only make sense because they are human worldviews. No other intelligent life could grasp the various supercategorical discourses, and how they relate to each other, the main reason being that language is a uniquely integrated mode of human communication. The article thus supports a radical anthropocentrism as the only intellectually viable philosophy on which to draw in our reflections on, and inquiries into both intraspecies and interspecies communication. (shrink)

This paper attempts to dissolve an apparent difficulty arising in the philosophy of language as discussed by the Indian Buddhist Madhyamaka school. On the one hand Madhyamaka seems to be claiming that every entity is fundamentally linguistic in nature, on the other hand it also asserts that language does not exist. I argue that the difficulty is to be dissolved by distinguishing two different senses of language appealed to by the Mādhyamikas. They argue that one specific (...) understanding of language is deficient (and that therefore language thus understood does not exist), but this is not the same sense of language according to which everything is linguistic in nature. The apparent contradiction is thereby resolved. (shrink)

The study of human reasoning and the study of human language have been closely connected in European philosophical thought. Except for the Buddhist thinker Dignāga, these two areas of study have not been connected in classical India. The connection which Dignāga made between inference and meaning in his theory of exclusion is a distinguishing feature of Buddhist philosophical thought in classical India and, for that reason, it is useful to treat the Indian Buddhist views of reasoning and meaning together. (...) Logic, seeks to distinguish good reasoning from bad. Since reasoning is often communicated and, to that extent, expressed in a language, it is natural to use the forms of language to identify the forms of reasoning. (shrink)

The irreducibility of language : the history of rhetoric in the age of typewriters -- The failures of empiricism : language, science, and the philosophical tradition -- What is a trope? : the discourse of metaphor and the language of the body -- The nervous systems of modern consciousness : metaphor, physiology, and mind -- Interpretation and life : outlines of an anthropology of knowledge.

Language is one of the most challenging issues that remain to be explained from the physiological and psychological point of view. This book attempts to connect and integrate several academic disciplines and technologies in the pursuit of a common task: the study of language. It is suitable for people dealing with linguistics.

The past decade has seen notable development of conceptual engineering – a field of analytical philosophy that focuses on the critical evaluation of concepts. Most authors engaged with this area identify Rudolf Carnap’s ideas as its methodological framework and theoretical origin, placing particular emphasis on the philosopher’s method of explication. This article highlights the unquestionable influence Carnap’s thought had on conceptual engineering whilst by no means reducing it to the utilisation and advancement of explication within this field of analytical (...) philosophy: indeed, conceptual engineering has incorporated – and brought to the forefront – much broader tenets of Carnap’s concept. This study draws on a series of the philosopher’s works, as well as his ‘Intellectual Autobiography’, to trace the evolution of his ideas about language and describe the fundamental elements revealing the ‘engineering perspective’ in his reflection. Most clearly, this perspective is evident in his interpretation of logic as a conceptual tool for acquiring and processing knowledge, ‘assembling’ it into a structure and refining the procedures of logic itself. It is shown that the origins of the engineering perspective trace back, on the one hand, to Carnap’s interest in the methodological framework of physics, particularly the measurement problem and its epistemological analysis, and, on the other, his fascination with interpretations of the nature of mathematical theory and the idea of unifying logicism and formalism by introducing the principle of tolerance, which adds a pragmatic dimension to methodology. The article examines in detail the idea of explication and its theoretical origins, which lie, in particular, in Carnap’s intention to exactify the notions expressing the degree of validity and probability. His idea of a link between the results of explication and its goal became the central principle of conceptual engineering, distinguishing it from mere conceptual analysis. It is concluded that, when considered together, Carnap’s two major ideas – explication and the principle of tolerance – can be placed in a broader context of a project seeking a rational reconstruction of the life of society and providing it with knowledge-based underpinnings. (shrink)

This dissertation seeks to explicate the fundamental contributions of phenomenology to the philosophy of language as it is presently conceived in the Anglo-American tradition for which John Searle serves as the representative. They are the essence of language in the later essays of Martin Heidegger and the perspicacious description of the experience of speaking in Maurice Merleau-Ponty. ;After roughly describing the subjectivistic assumptions, the questions, and the goals of the philosophy of language in the works (...) of Searle, the study proceeds to explore how phenomenology's characteristic search for essences and concern for lived-experience can set it on a more circumspect path. ;The study elicits the following conclusions. Despite significant contrasts, there is a solid complementarity between Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty as phenomenologists concerned with the language phenomenon. Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty make substantial contributions to the philosophy of language. Specifically, its traditional subjectivistic assumptions are phenomenologically re-thought; answers to its customary questions are formulated from a pre-subjective and pre-objective perspective; and the traditional problem of how language and speaking can be creative is resolved. Finally, some of the concerns of a complete philosophy of language left unaddressed by Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty are itemized. (shrink)

There is hardly any feature of Hegel’s philosophy whose current significance is greater, or more neglected, than the unique place given the analysis of thought. Unlike any other thinker before or after, Hegel begins his philosophical system with a logic conceiving categories without regard for their reference to reality or how a given knower might think them. He allows thinking itself to figure as an object of investigation only within the subsequent theory of reality comprising the philosophies of nature (...) and spirit. There Hegel treats thinking as a real activity of living individuals, inhabiting a common world of which they are conscious and able to speak. Consequently, thought becomes something properly analyzable only after not just categories, but nature and such worldly features of mind as consciousness, representation, and language have been determined. As unsurprising as this ordering may appear, it represents a fundamental break from ordinary philosophical practice, a break bearing crucial importance for the nonmetaphysical, antifoundational character of Hegel’s philosophy, as well as signaling the genuine alternative he provides to the dilemmas plaguing so much contemporary thought. (shrink)

La filosofía analítica parte del presupuesto de que muchos de nuestros errores se deben al uso incorrecto del lenguaje. El lenguaje dificulta entender los problemas que planteamos y genera, muchas veces, laberintos de los que resulta difícil escapar. Los problemas no son, en ocasiones, más que problemas lingüísticos devenidos del uso impropio de las palabras. La filosofía analítica propone examinar rigurosamente los términos empleados y las expresiones utilizadas. Por esta razón, es necesario estudiar las estructuras lingüísticas con el fin de (...) inquirir las posibles paradojas. El uso del lenguaje tiene repercusión sobre nuestra forma de entender el mundo. Emprender el estudio la evolución seguida por Ludwing Wittgenstein del análisis del lenguaje en su labor laboriosa pero fascinante. Por una parte, ha obtenido importantes resultados en el plano terapéutico y práctico y, por otra, su mismo esfuerzo de reagrupar estos resultados surgidos de las investigaciones sobre el lenguaje es cada vez más valioso. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the relationship between philosophy and rhetoric. It argues that philosophical claims are bound to language, and yet philosophy’sclaim to objective clarity is meaningless if language is radically perspectival. The paper attempts to show the limitations and possibilities that Platonic dialectics and Derridean deconstruction share in their respective approaches to the analysis of language and the relationship between speech and writing. The paper concludes that language is ambiguous, neither reducible to (...) the relativism of sophistry nor to the essentialism of metaphysics. Against Derrida, the paper argues that without structure, voice is not language; it renders only inarticulate sounds. Yet in speaking, this structural aspect gets taken for granted and passed over. Only when language is established in writing is the possibility of voice first recognized. (shrink)

Nathaniel J.P. Barron offers the first book length account in English of Ernst Bloch's contribution to a Marxist philosophy of language. It is ambitious both in situating Bloch's ideas in the broader Marxist engagement with language as it currently exists, and in using Bloch's utopian categories to challenge that engagement. In particular, Barron reads Voloshinov's insights into language through Bloch's categories, and argues that Bloch advances on Voloshinov by offering an understanding of the social materiality of (...) language which is more useful for challenging fascist forms of utterance. (shrink)

Language is the primary fact which concerns contemporary philosophy. Men have been speaking and writing for a long time, but it is only recently that the task of philosophy has been said to be the analysis of language. Ethical perplexities, social anxieties, the nature of scientific knowledge, religious speculations, are held not to be directly the problems of the philosopher. They enter his study by way of a domain of languages and sub-languages. This preoccupation with (...) class='Hi'>language is itself an unusual phenomenon in our intellectual history. It challenges the sociologist of philosophic ideas for an explanation, and it leads one to wonder upon what evidence philosophers have accepted the doctrine of linguistic primacy. (shrink)

Philosophers disagree, with some rare exceptions. One of those exceptions is the broadest-brush account of what language is. Language is a system of signs used for the communication of --well, and here the agreement begins to break down--thoughts, ideas, messages, propositions or propositional contents, intentions, and a host of technical terms offer themselves to chink the cracks. A list of philosophers subscribing would be impossible to complete. Locke, Carnap, Augustine, Hobbes, Fodor, Katz, Chomsky, Derrida, --well, and on and (...) on. Easier would be to list those who dissent. Heraclitus, Wittgenstein, maybe J.L. Austin, Frank Ebersole, and NOT on and on. The first chapter lays out the view that language is a system of signs in sympathetic terms. The second provides a selection of what are usually called “ordinary language” arguments against the view--reminders about how the view requires us to think in terms which are not consistent with how we think about language and signs when we are not doing philosophy. Those arguments have been unpersuasive among philosophers, and Chapter Three begins the work of investigating separate pieces of the view in detail. Chapter Three takes up an argument for the view which is familiar among philosophers, using Jerry Fodor’s formulation: we cannot be thinking in a public, natural language, because animals and preverbal infants think with no such language. I show this argument is not an argument at all but is rather an expression of the view in question. Chapter Four takes up the argument that the relations between particular words and their meanings is arbitrary or conventional rather than natural or necessary, otherwise there would be only one language among mankind. I argue that the alternatives (conventional vs. natural or necessary) are both generated by taking the division between words and their meanings to be the division between signs and signified--in other words, the question is a result of adopting the view of language as signs. Attempts to argue for the legitimacy of the question without taking the view for granted only serve to call it into question more. In Chapter Five I investigate whether we talk in order to communicate something which is otherwise hidden and invisible. We are tempted to think that you and I talk because I cannot read your mind or you mine. Though Wittgenstein has a famous set of comments on the notion of a private language, it remains a strong temptation to think that language gives public form to something (thoughts, ideas, intentions, feelings, content, meaning) which without language would be unknowable to all but the person whose something it is. Examples help point to the incoherence of this view and show that even if it were not incoherent, remedying the invisibility of those internal whatnots would still leave us with a need for language. Chapter Six takes up a hoary question about boundaries of effability--the possibility that there are limits to what can be said which are more restrictive than what can be thought or felt. The account of language as signs provides one easy way to make sense of this idea, but investigation into examples shows the problem is not one that makes sense unless we just grant that account. Chapter Seven investigates how to make sense of the notion that there are things which are in language and other things which are not. I spell out how the view of language as signs gives us a way to think this, and then show how one reaction to finding problems with the notion resonates with Wittgenstein’s early work and with some work of Jacques Derrida, who bite similar bullets and agree that everything is language, that the limits of language are the limits of our world. I then subject that reaction to critical investigation using examples, which reveals their reaction as a rear-guard attempt to save the view of language as signs. Chapter Eight uses examples as guides toward alternative views of language, feeling our way toward what language might be if it is not a system of signs. Finally, the appendix takes up what I take to be the serious arguments against the methods I use in this work, the first two articulated by John Searle (“the assertion fallacy”) and H. P. Grice (“conversational implicature”), and another the generally unspoken belief that philosophical work is like scientific work. (shrink)

A familiar theme in Greek philosophy, largely due to the influence of Plato's Cratylus, linguistic naturalism constitutes a major but under-studied area of Roman linguistic thought. Indeed, it holds significance not only for the history of linguistics but also for philosophy, stylistics, rhetoric and more. The chapters in this volume deal with a range of naturalist theories in a variety of authors including Cicero, Varro, Nigidius Figulus, Posidonius, and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. The result is a complex and multi-faceted (...) picture of how language and nature were believed to interrelate in the classical Roman world. (shrink)

“Language in Zen Enlightenment” considers the role language might play in the experience of enlightenment. Building on the Zen claims that enlightenment is “not dependent on language and culture” and that enlightenment is a “pure experience” of “things as they are” prior to the shaping effect of language, this chapter takes the perspective of contemporary philosophy and linguistic psychology in order to assess the two primary Western interpretations of the relation between language and Zen (...) enlightenment. To articulate an alternative understanding of language and spiritual experience that goes beyond these earlier attempts, the chapter explores the kinds of language use found in the daily life of Zen communities, the role of the Zen master’s cryptic rhetoric of instruction, and the predominance of silent meditation in Zen training. It concludes with reflection on the possibility that Zen enlightenment might entail awakening to the power and subtlety of language rather than from it. (shrink)

Published annually, this book brings together original and first-rate articles written by leading scholars in the field of philosophy.

This is an anthology of landmark essays in the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and cognitive science since 1950. It includes essays that aim to reflect the fact that philosophy and the science of mind and language have close historical and conceptual ties. Each section begins with a brief and simple overview highlighting the issues and recommending other readings. The combination of this editorial material with a selection of classic essays makes this anthology a (...) very flexible tool for introductory courses in cognitive science, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and philosophy of psychology as well as courses devoted to contemporary analytic philosophy. However, the book also contains significant advanced and recent material, making it suitable for more advanced stud, including beginning graduate courses. (shrink)

When Thomas Luckmann, a pioneer of the “linguistic turn” in sociology, regarded Émile Durkheim as a source for the sociology of language, he had lifeworldly community–building in mind. However, the French sociologist himself understood language in the context ofcivil society–building. To Durkheim, language was a “social thing in the highest degree” that enabled general ideas and intermediated them to people. Abstract human ideals like the civil religion since the French Revolution could be shared through (a common) (...) class='Hi'>language. Thus, Durkheim took the exclusive use of French in the Third Republic’s laic public education for granted, ignoring the patois in the country: This “child of the Enlightenment” considered French to be a universal language ofGesellschaftand, beyond ethno-communal elements, to work as a basis for the organic solidarity of French national civil society where the social division of labor was progressing. Durkheim’s theory was predicated on civil-linguistic, not ethnolinguistic, nationalism. (shrink)

Wittgenstein plays with language throughout his later philosophy. Imaginary scenes and invented languages turn metaphysical concerns into conceptual play. He sometimes describes his activities as five finger exercises in thinking—exercises that enable us to think differently.

Frege's linguistic views are exemplified by an analysis of the following topics: proper and common names, the definite and the indefinite article, the singular and plural distinction, words and sentences, together with the role of the copula, and the relationship of syntactical and semantical categories. His endeavour to overcome the ambiguities of natural language inherently connected with his logical investigations failed. In fact, his conceptions are relying on accidental features of a particular natural language, namely German. Therefore, they (...) are neither valid in general nor relevant from the logical point of view. They are influenced rather by his philosophical prejudices than by empirical results obtained in comparative philology and linguistics at all. (shrink)

In recent studies it has been possible to apply new approaches in philosophy, especially of linguistic philosophy, to exegesis of the writings of the New Testament. Utilizing Wittgenstein’s model of language games, the following study of the meaning of the (apparently hidden) speech in the most difficult book of the NT, the “Book of Revelation,” reveals that the seer John does not speak of hidden events in the future but intends to point the addressee of his writing (...) to a new Christian existence already in the present world. For baptized believers the symbols of his visions become signposts, on the basis of which they would understand and act in their present world. The final motif of Revelation, God’s gift of the “New Jerusalem,” is therefore not only a symbol of the fulfillment of the history of theworld, but in the first place a real description concerned with the present, perhaps even a prescription of conduct for the Christian communal life in a non-Christian world. This result is reached in consideration of (a) the pragmatic dimension of the language act that is emphasized in the language game, and (b) the rule-laden character of a game, in which is winning is intended. In this way, the author and content of Revelation is seen in a new, not previously considered way. In the end John does not only say what will happen, but also what has to happen, i.e., what Christians are to do—or not to do—in the world, in order to overcome it and to contribute to its transformation. (shrink)

Language is a spontaneously evolved emergent adaptation, not a formal computational system. Its structure does not derive from either innate or social instruction but rather self-organization and selection. Its quasi-universal features emerge from the interactions among semiotic constraints, neural processing limitations, and social transmission dynamics. The neurological processing of sentence structure is more analogous to embryonic differentiation than to algorithmic computation. The biological basis of this unprecedented adaptation is not located in some unique neurologieal structure nor the result of (...) any single mutation, but is vested in the synergistic interaction of numerous coevolved neurological biases and social dynamics. (shrink)

Transcripts of papers presented at a national seminar sponsored by Indian Council of Philosophical Research.

Using the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Jessica Benjamin, I here describe the role of language in achieving intersubjective relationships among persons.

: It is an assertion routinely made that the rise of Chan represents a new stage in the development of Chinese Buddhism. But there can be no philosophical breakthrough without the discovery of new conceptual tools or perspectives. The histories and philosophical meanings of three language-related Chan methods are explored here; it is shown that not only are the methods vital to our understanding of Chan Buddhism but also they explain why Chan is so different from anything Chinese (...) class='Hi'>philosophy had seen up until the rise of Chan. (shrink)