Terence Irwin's edition of the Nicomachean Ethics offers more aids to the reader than are found in any modern English translation. It includes an Introduction, headings to help the reader follow the argument, explanatory notes on difficult or important passages, and a full glossary explaining Aristotle's technical terms. The Third Edition offers additional revisions of the translation as well as revised and expanded versions of the notes, glossary, and Introduction. Also new is an appendix featuring translated selections from related texts (...) of Aristotle. (shrink)

The concept of a proposition is important in several areas of philosophy and central to the philosophy of language. This collection of readings investigates many different philosophical issues concerning the nature of propositions and the ways they have been regarded through the years. Reflecting both the history of the topic and the range of contemporary views, the book includes articles from Bertrand Russell, Gottlob Frege, the Russell-Frege Correspondence, Alonzo Church, David Kaplan, John Perry, Saul Kripke, Hilary Putnam, Mark Richard, Scott (...) Soames, and Nathan Salmon. (shrink)

am going to discuss some issues inspired by a well-known paper ofKeith Donnellan, "Reference and Definite Descriptions,”2 but the interest—to me—of the contrast mentioned in my title goes beyond Donnellan's paper: I think it is of considerable constructive as well as critical importance to the philosophy oflanguage. These applications, however, and even everything I might want to say relative to Donnellan’s paper, cannot be discussed in full here because of problems of length. Moreover, although I have a considerable interest in (...) the substantive issues raised by Donnellan’s paper, and by related literature, my own conclusions will be methodological, not substantive. I can put the matter this way: Donnellan’s paper claims to give decisive objections both to Russell’s theory of definite descriptions (taken as a theory about English) and to Strawson’s. My concem is not primarily with the question; is Donnellan right, or is Russell (or Strawson)? Rather, it is with the question: do the considerations in Donneilarfs paper refute Russell’s theory (or Strawson’s)? For definiteness, I will concentrate on Donnellan versus Russell, leaving Strawson aside. And about this issue I will draw a definite conclusion, one which I think will illuminate a few methodological maxims about language. Namely, I will conclude that the considerations in Donnellan’s paper, by themselves, do not refute Russell’s theory. Any conclusions about Russell’s views per se, or Donnellan’s, must be tentative, IfI were to be asked for a tentative stab about Russell, I would say that although his theory does a far better job of handling ordinary discourse than many have thought, and although many popular arguments against it are inconclusive, probably it ultimately fails. The considerations I have in mind have to do with the existence of “improper” definite descriptions, such as “the table," where uniquely specifying conditions are not contained in the description itself.. (shrink)

Eliminative materialism is the thesis that our common-sense conception of psychological phenomena constitutes a radically false theory, a theory so fundamentally defective that both the principles and the ontology of that theory will eventually be displaced, rather than smoothly reduced, by completed neuroscience. Our mutual understanding and even our introspection may then be reconstituted within the conceptual framework of completed neuroscience, a theory we may expect to be more powerful by far than the common-sense psychology it displaces, and more substantially (...) integrated within physical science generally. My purpose in this paper is to explore these projections, especially as they bear on (1) the principal elements of common-sense psychology: the propositional attitudes (beliefs, desires, etc.), and (2) the conception of rationality in which these elements figure. (shrink)

This essay argues that in linguistic communication, nothing corresponds to a linguistic competence as summarized by the three principles of first meaning in language: that first meaning is systematic, first meanings are shared, and first meanings are governed by learned conventions or regularities. There is no such a thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed. We must give up the idea of a clearly defined shared structure which language users (...) acquire and then apply to cases, as well as the attempt to illuminate how we communicate by appeal to conventions. (shrink)

Theory of "conceptual pragmatism" takes into account both modern philosophical thought and modern mathematics. Stimulating discussions of metaphysics, a priori, philosophic method, much more.

The influence of J. L. Austin on contemporary philosophy was substantial during his lifetime, and has grown greatly since his death, at the height of his powers, in 1960. Philosophical Papers, first published in 1961, was the first of three volumes of Austin's work to be edited by J. O. Urmson and G. J. Warnock. Together with Sense and Sensibilia and How to do things with Words, it has extended Austin's influence far beyond the circle who knew him or read (...) the handful of papers he published in journals. (shrink)

A collection of some of Sellars' lectures and articles from 1951 to 1962.

This is the second edition of an award-winning 1981 book (Princeton University Press and Basil Blackwell, based on the author’s doctoral dissertation) considered to be a classic in the philosophy of language movement known variously as the New Theory of Reference or the Direct-Reference Theory, as well as in the metaphysics of modal essentialism that is related to this philosophy of language.

First published in 1976, this book presents a view of language as a matter of systematic communicative behaviour.

1. It seems plausible to say that a language is a system of expressions the use of which is subject to certain rules. It would seem, thus, that learning to use a language is learning to obey the rules for the use of its expressions. However, taken as it stands, this thesis is subject to an obvious and devastating refutation. After formulating this refutation, I shall turn to the constructive task of attempting to restate the thesis in a way which (...) avoids it. In doing so, I shall draw certain distinctions the theoretical elaboration of which will, I believe, yield new insight into the psychology of language and of what might be called “norm conforming behavior” generally. The present paper contains an initial attempt along these lines. (shrink)

John Searle's Speech Acts made a highly original contribution to work in the philosophy of language. Expression and Meaning is a direct successor, concerned to develop and refine the account presented in Searle's earlier work, and to extend its application to other modes of discourse such as metaphor, fiction, reference, and indirect speech arts. Searle also presents a rational taxonomy of types of speech acts and explores the relation between the meanings of sentences and the contexts of their utterance. The (...) book points forward to a larger theme implicit in these problems - the basis certain features of speech have in the intentionality of mind, and even more generally, the relation of the philosophy of language to the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

By a `denoting phrase' I mean a phrase such as any one of the following: a man, some man, any man, every man, all men, the present King of England, the present King of France, the center of mass of the solar system at the first instant of the twentieth century, the revolution of the earth round the sun, the revolution of the sun round the earth. Thus a phrase is denoting solely in virtue of its form. We may distinguish (...) three cases: (1) A phrase may be denoting, and yet not denote anything; e.g., `the present King of France'. (2) A phrase may denote one definite object; e.g., `the present King of England' denotes a certain man. (3) A phrase may denote ambiguously; e.g. `a man' denotes not many men, but an ambiguous man. The interpretation of such phrases is a matter of considerably difficulty; indeed, it is very hard to frame any theory not susceptible of formal refutation. All the difficulties with which I am acquainted are met, so far as I can discover, by the theory which I am about to explain. (shrink)