Contingency, irony, and solidarity

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Eli Friedlander

"At the heart of Eli Friedlander's interpretation is the internal relation between the logical and the ethical in the Tractatus, a relation that emerges in the work of drawing the limits of language. To show how the Tractatus, far from separating the ethical and the logical into distinct domains, instead brings out their essential affinity, Friedlander focuses on Wittgenstein's use of the term "form," particularly his characterization of the form of objects. In this reading, the concept of form points to a threefold distinction in the text among the problematics of facts, objects, and the world. Most important, it provides a key to understanding how Wittgenstein's work opens a perspective on the world through the recognition of the form of objects rather than through the grasping of facts - thus revealing the dimensions of subjectivity involved in having a world, or in assuming that form of experience apart from systematic logic.". "Bearing on the question of the divide between analytic and Continental philosophy, this interpretation views Wittgenstein's work as a possible mediation between these two central philosophical traditions of the modern age. It will be of interest not only to Wittgenstein scholars but to anyone concerned with twentieth-century philosophy."--BOOK JACKET.

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Will Wright

"Will Wright argues that scientific knowledge - and specifically physics, as the fundamental science - is primarily an effort at social legitimation, and that its conceptual incoherence as knowledge is now becoming ecological incoherence as social practice. In this argument he attacks the scientific notions of nature, mathematics, the mind and social life, and concludes that the idea of knowledge must be understood ecologically and reflexively as an issue of language, rather than objectively and technically as an issue of nature."--Amazon.com.

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Mark de Bretton Platts

The philosophy of language is not isolated philosophical discipline of merely technical interest to other philosophers. Rather, as Mark Platts shows, it can help to solve traditional problems in other areas of philosophy, such as metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Ways of Meaning provides a clear, comprehensive introduction to such issues at the forefront of philosophy. Assuming only minimum knowledge of elementary formal logic, the book shows how taking truth as the central notion in the theory of meaning can clarify the relations between language, reality, and knowledge, and thus illuminate the nature of each. This second edition of the book contains a new chapter on the notions of natural-kind words and natural kinds. Unlike other discussions of the subject, this one places the semantic issues involved in the context of questions about the relations between knowing subjects and known objects. The author has also added a bibliography of further readings published since the first edition appeared in 1979.

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Chris Daly

'Philosophy of Language' provides students with an accessible yet detailed introduction to the major issues and thinkers in the subject. Ideal for use on undergraduate courses, but also of value for postgraduate students, the structure and content of this textbook closely reflect the way the philosophy of language is taught and studied.