Concise Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language, Peter V. Lamarque, 1997

Concise Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language, Peter V. Lamarque, 1997
By:Elsevier Science, Ltd
Published on 1997-09-19 by Bukupedia

At the core of this volume are 80 or so articles I commissioned in the late 1980s and early 1990s for the 10-volume Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (ELL), edited by Ron E. Asher (Pergamon, 1994), for which I was the philosophy Subject Editor. These articles were almost exclusively written by professional philosophers and a high proportion by philosophers who are preeminent in the subject about which they write. It would be hard to think of better qualified authors than, for example, Tom Baldwin on theories of meaning, Andrew Brennan on identity, Jonathan Cohen on linguistic philosophy, John Cottingham on rationalism, Mark Crimmins on propositions, Martin Davies on modal logic, Alec Fisher on reasoning, Graeme Forbes on necessity, Elizabeth Flicker on Davidson's philosophy, Sam Guttenplan on the history of logic, Susan Haack on deviant logics, Christopher Hookway on Peirce and Quine, Paul Horwich on truth, Jonathan Lowe on universals, Stephen Read on relevant logic, Mark Sainsbury on Russell, Kim Sterelny on reference, Charles Travis on Wittgenstein, Alan Weir on realism, Tim Williamson on vagueness, Andrew Woodfield on intentionality, and many more besides. This broad spread of expertise gave the philosophy entries in ELL a well-grounded authority in this area, no doubt contributing to the high respect accorded to the work as a whole. When I was invited to edit this Concise Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language, drawing on articles from the original encyclopedia, I had a substantial and impressive core to build on. From there it was a matter of scouring the immense resources of ELL to supplement the core subject; I was confronted with an embarras des richesses. In ELL, I had worked closely with the two semantics Subject Editors, Pieter Seuren and Osten Dahl (whose advice and help I take this opportunity to acknowledge with gratitude) and I have helped myself to many of the articles they commissioned, including their own contributions. However, one serious issue of principle inevitably arose in my process of selection for the Concise Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language: it concerned how narrowly I was to conceive the range of the subject. Even turning to the semantics topics, commissioned by Seuren and Dahl, I found I was for the most part looking at work, not by philosophers as such, but by theoretical linguists. Of course philosophy of language is not the unique preserve of professional philosophers, so that in itself produced no difficulties in principle. In fact, it became increasingly clear to me that there is no sharp line between work done by theoretical linguists and philosophers of language. All share a common interest in foundational questions about meaning, reference, the semantics of natural language, the nature of signs, the distinction between sense and nonsense, the characterization of logical forms, and so on. However, as I expanded my search there was no doubt that I was being tempted beyond even the loose boundary between philosophy of language and other approaches. I make no apology for succumbing to this temptation. Certainly I have included articles mostly, but not exclusively, of an empirical nature, which would not normally count as contributions to the philosophy of language: for example, the articles on Apes and Language, Pragmatics, Language Acquisition in the Child, Negation, and some of the articles on logical topics. My belief is that these strengthen the volume, not only because they are likely to be of interest to philosophers who are not familiar with such work, but because they open up the wider context within which issues of a more strictly philosophical character are debated. Thus it is that I have included work by psychologists, literary critics, formal logicians, empirical linguists, as well as theoretical linguists and philosophers. Within the constraints of the project I have also attempted to spread the net wider than the confines of so-called analytical philosophy; the inclusion of the fascinating article on Indian Theories of Meaning introduces a different cultural perspective and the articles on Deconstruction and Literary Structuralism reveal different intellectual currents within the Western tradition. xvn Editor's Foreword One slight—I think harmless—anomaly in the collection, which directly reflects its origins in a work devoted to language and linguistics, is what might be seen as an imbalance, at times, in favor of linguistics over philosophy. An example of this is in Section IX: Key Figures, where philosophers might be surprised to find entries on Noam Chomsky and Ferdinand de Saussure considerably more substantial than those on, for example, Donald Davidson or Saul Kripke. Of course, comparisons of influence are notoriously hard to make and there is no doubt that Chomsky and Saussure are important figures in philosophy of language; but arguably the influence of Davidson and Kripke is as great, if not more so. However, I was not inclined to tinker with the original contributions, certainly not just for the sake of appearance of parity and not if it meant trimming down valuable articles. The articles on Chomsky and Saussure give an immense amount of illuminating detail which directly engages central issues in philosophy of language and the work of Davidson and Kripke (taking only those two examples) is covered elsewhere in the volume. The fundamental aim of any encyclopedia is to give the readers ready access to basic information on key topics likely to be of interest to them. But there are different kinds of information and different forms of presentation. In this work, articles take different forms and are presented at different levels of technicality, therefore a word about the underlying rationale might be helpful. First of all, the articles are not merely listed in alphabetical order, but are grouped into sections covering major divisions of the subject: Language, Metaphysics, and Ontology; Language and Mind; Truth and Meaning; Reference; Language and Logic; Formal Semantics; Pragmatics and Speech Act Theory; and Key Figures. Within each section the articles are arranged alphabetically and there are often cross-references to other items in the section (or elsewhere), perhaps showing where ideas are further expanded. It is hoped that this division will make this encyclopedia easier to use by highlighting clusters of topics and giving some structure to the whole. Needless to say the divisions are not hard and fast and items could often appear under different headings. Some articles are concerned with particular ideas or specialist terms: for example, A Priori, Category-mistake, Sortal Terms, Analyticity, Holism, Language Game, Entailment, mtentionality, Inflationism, Ontological Commitment, Verificationism, Radical Interpretation, Type/Token Distinction, De Dicto/De Re, Denotation, and so on. The purpose of these entries is, in a relatively concise way, to explain the meanings of the terms and their place in philosophical debates. The information conveyed is of a straightforward explanatory kind, of especial help to those unfamiliar with this basic philosophical terminology. Other articles take the form of surveys of an intellectual territory: for example, Meaning: Philosophical Theories, Indian Theories of Meaning, Semiotics, Literary Structuralism and Semiotics, Logic: Historical Survey, Pragmatics, Speech Act Theory, and the introductory article itself on Philosophy of Language. The point of these is to sketch out an area of enquiry, drawing a map on which specific debates are located and contextualized. The articles often involve accounting for the historical development of ideas. Another kind of survey article tracks, not historically but intellectually, a particular area of contention, perhaps around a problematic concept or hypothesis, perhaps connected to a particular school of thought: for example Deconstruction, Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, Hermeneutics, Semantic Paradoxes, Metaphor, Metaphor in Literature, Rules, Truth, Deviant Logics, Presupposition, and Semantics vs Syntax. These articles are much more likely to contain polemical discussion, assessing rival positions and staking out a point of view of their own. It is worth drawing attention here to the cluster of articles on Speech Act Theory, written by Keith Allan. Together these provide a comprehensive account of the ideas, debates, and controversies in this important branch of the philosophy of language. The divisions into separate articles are largely for ease of access, although anyone who is unfamiliar with the topic could profitably begin with Speech Act Theory: Overview. XVlll Editor's Foreword There can be no denying that some articles are technically demanding and will not be readily accessible to those without an adequate background in philosophy and/or symbolic logic. Although for the most part the articles in Section IV: Language and Logic do not give particular prominence to technical symbolism, many from Section VII: Formal Semanticsdo. The simple fact is that formal semantics is |formal| in the sense that it uses the vocabulary and methodology of logic to attempt a rigorous characterization of selected features of natural language. The survey article on Formal Semantics gives a general overview of the central aims of this approach, although here too, some technical language is used. Much philosophy of language draws on work in logic. Indeed this is a feature of analytical philosophy in general, of which philosophy of language has been a core component. Given the presence of these relatively technical articles, it is clear that the intended readership of the volume is diverse, including those already knowledgeable about the subject, seeking to consolidate or build on their knowledge, as well as those looking for basic information or just starting out. Such is the way with most encyclopedias. It is my hope that this work will be useful to a wide range of readers at all levels of expertise. It aims to be as comprehensive as possible in covering the main issues and concepts in the philosophy of language of the 1990s, to be a resource as a reference work, and also a volume to dip into for the intrinsic interest of the subject matter. The extensive bibliographies on each topic point to sources for further research. As stated previously, earlier versions of all the articles (with the exception of the short article on H.P. Grice) first appeared in the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. The contributors were invited to modify, update, and edit their articles and many have produced significant changes, not least to their bibliographies. I would like to thank all the contributors for the speed and efficiency with which they cooperated in this process. I would also like to thank the editorial team at Elsevier, in particular Chris Pringle and Janine Smith, for the considerable time and effort they have put into the project, and the constant support and advice they have given me. Peter Lamarque University of Hull September 1997

This Book was ranked at 7 by Google Books for keyword collins cobuild english guides determiners and quantifiers bk 10.

Book ID of Concise Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language, Peter V. Lamarque, 1997's Books is 0Y1eDwAAQBAJ, Book which was written byElsevier Science, Ltdhave ETAG "pXtTe8H9rtc"

Book which was published by Bukupedia since 1997-09-19 have ISBNs, ISBN 13 Code is 9780080429915 and ISBN 10 Code is 0080429912

Reading Mode in Text Status is false and Reading Mode in Image Status is true

Book which have "620 Pages" is Printed at BOOK under CategoryJuvenile Nonfiction

This Book was rated by Raters and have average rate at ""

This eBook Maturity (Adult Book) status is NOT_MATURE

Book was written in en

eBook Version Availability Status at PDF is true and in ePub is false

Book Preview