by Paul Horwich (2005)
"The broad aim of this work is to explain how mere noises, marks, gestures, and mental/neural symbols are able to capture the world - that is, how words and sentences (in whatever medium) come to mean what they do, to stand for certain things, to be true or false of reality."--Jacket.
Gerhard Sauter
In this penetrating study of the concept of meaning, Gerhard Sauter shows that--contrary to popular belief--the human quest for meaning is a relatively recent development, arising only after the deconstruction of metaphysics at the end of the nineteenth century.
Phil Francis Carspecken
"What is the nature of meaningful action and its relationship to power, truth, desire, and the self? How are meaning and truth related to the phenomenological body? Where do postmodern insights coherently intersect with the perspective of critical theory, and where are postmodernists and criticalists in fundamental disagreement? Carspecken explores these and other questions within the four essays of this book. His investigations are timely and relevant to all who have an interest in the philosophy of critical theory, social theory, cultural studies, and methodologies for social research."--BOOK JACKET.
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.
Catherine Lim
The author portrays herself as dead and lying in her coffin. During the three days before the final consignment to dust and oblivion, as friends, relatives, ex-colleagues, fans, lovers and total strangers come to pay their respects, she indulges, for the last time, her love of story-telling. Around each visitor she weaves a dazzling tale with her usual exuberant wit, comic brio and warm empathy. But the tales are more than just that. They are the triggering points for what is the central concern of this book - the exploration of those achingly urgent human questions that everyone asks at some time or other in his or her life: Who are we? Where did we come from? What is the purpose of life? What happens after death? Why are we here at all? What is our conception of god in an age of undisputed scientific power? How should we view good and evil, pain and suffering? Is there such a thing as Ultimate Truth? What does it mean to be human?