Linguistic Philosophy: The Central Story

· State University of New York Press
Ebook
243
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

How much authority should language, the medium of communication, be accorded as a determinant of truth and therefore of what we say? Garth L. Hallett argues that, although never explicitly debated, this is the most significant issue of linguistic philosophy. Here, for the first time, he traces the issue's story. Starting with representative thinkers—Plato, Aquinas, Kant, Frege, and the early Wittgenstein—who contested language's authority, the narrative then focuses on thinkers such as Carnap, Tarski, the later Wittgenstein, Flew, Russell, Malcolm, Austin, Kripke, Putnam, Strawson, Quine, and Habermas who, in different ways and to varying degrees, accorded language more authority. Implicit in this account is a challenge to philosophy as still widely practiced.

About the author

Garth L. Hallett is Dean of the College of Philosophy and Letters at St. Louis University and the author of many books, including Essentialism: A Wittgensteinian Critique, also published by SUNY Press.

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