Recent studies of Wittgenstein's later writing have made clear that they stand as a defence of two main ideas: that scepticism about the possibility of interpersonal discussions about our subjective feelings is misplaced and, as a seemingly startling corollary; that a mind state account of most 'mental activities' is incoherent. This leads to a great emphasis on skills and practices which, a fortiori, are definable only relationally, by reference to targets. In this paper I try to show that the 'computer' (...) analogue for the mind f ails on both of Wittgenstein's dimensions. There are no physiognomic language games in the computer centre, while the 'target' aspect of skill and practice concepts ties them in to a wholly human world. (shrink)

For this second edition, the editors have returned to Austin's original lecture notes, amending the printed text where it seemed necessary.

First published in 1962, contains the William James Lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955. It sets out Austin's conclusions in the field to which he directed his main efforts for at least the last ten years of his life. Starting from an exhaustive examination of his already well- known distinction of performative utterances from statements, Austin here finally abandons that distinction, replacing it by a more general theory of 'illocutionary forces' of utterances which has important bearings on a wide (...) variety of philosophical problems. (shrink)

Body care has never before been so much a focus of public interest, nor have the ways we classify people by reference to their kind of body excited such political passions. This study is an attempt to build a comprehensive account of the roles our bodies play in our lives. Through a series of discussions Rome harre concludes that the roles the body plays in our lives are determined less by organic functioning than by cultural conventions and social meanings.

This collection of Habermas's recent essays on philosophical topics continues the analysis begun in The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. In a short introductory essay, he outlines the sources of twentieth-century philosophizing, its major themes, and the range of current debates. The remainder of the essays can be seen as his contribution to these debates.Habermas's essay on George Herbert Mead is a focal point of the book. In it he sketches a postmetaphysical, intersubjective approach to questions of individuation and subjectivity. In (...) other essays, he develops his distinctive, communications-theoretic approach to questions of meaning and validity. The book as a whole expands on his earlier efforts to define a middle ground between nostalgic revivals of metaphysical conceptions of reason and radical deconstructions of reason. Jürgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt.The Essays: The Horizon of Modernity is Shifting. Metaphysics after Kant. Themes in Postmetaphysical Thinking. Toward a Critique of the Theory of Meaning. Peirce and Communication. The Unity of Reason in the Diversity of Its Voices. Individuation through Socialization: On George Herbert Mead's Theory of Subjectivity. Philosophy and Science as Literature? (shrink)