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Linguistic Turn
The linguistic turn was a major development in Western philosophy during the early 20th century, the most important characteristic of which is the focusing of philosophy and the other humanities primarily on the relations between language, language users, and the world. Very different intellectual movements were associated with the "linguistic turn", although the term itself is commonly thought to have been popularised by Richard Rorty's 1967 anthology ''The Linguistic Turn'', in which he discusses the turn towards linguistic philosophy. According to Rorty, who later dissociated himself from linguistic philosophy and analytic philosophy generally, the phrase "the linguistic turn" originated with philosopher Gustav Bergmann. Analytic philosophy Traditionally, the linguistic turn is taken to also mean the birth of analytic philosophy. One of the results of the linguistic turn was an increasing focus on logic and philosophy of language, and the cleavage between ideal language philos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western Philosophy
Western philosophy encompasses the philosophical thought and work of the Western world. Historically, the term refers to the philosophical thinking of Western culture, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophy of the pre-Socratics. The word ''philosophy'' itself originated from the Ancient Greek (φιλοσοφία), literally, "the love of wisdom" grc, φιλεῖν , "to love" and σοφία '' sophía'', "wisdom"). History Ancient The scope of ancient Western philosophy included the problems of philosophy as they are understood today; but it also included many other disciplines, such as pure mathematics and natural sciences such as physics, astronomy, and biology (Aristotle, for example, wrote on all of these topics). Pre-Socratics The pre-Socratic philosophers were interested in cosmology; the nature and origin of the universe, while rejecting mythical answers to such questions. They were specifically interested in the (the cause or first principle) of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Context Principle
In the philosophy of language, the context principle is a form of semantic holism holding that a philosopher should "never ... ask for the meaning of a word in isolation, but only in the context of a proposition" (Frege 884/1980x). Analysis The context principle is one of Gottlob Frege's "three fundamental principles" for philosophical analysis, first discussed in his Introduction to ''The Foundations of Arithmetic'' (''Grundlagen der Arithmetik'', 1884). Frege argued that many philosophical errors, especially those related to psychologism in the philosophy of logic and philosophy of mathematics, could be avoided by adhering carefully to the context principle. The view of meaning expressed by the context principle is sometimes called semantic contextualism. This view need not be contrasted with the view that the meanings of words or expressions can (or must) be determined prior to, and independently of, the meanings of the propositions in which they occur, which is often referred ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intension
In any of several fields of study that treat the use of signs — for example, in linguistics, logic, mathematics, semantics, semiotics, and philosophy of language — an intension is any property or quality connoted by a word, phrase, or another symbol. In the case of a word, the word's definition often implies an intension. For instance, the intensions of the word ''plant'' include properties such as "being composed of cellulose", "alive", and "organism", among others. A '' comprehension'' is the collection of all such intensions. Overview The meaning of a word can be thought of as the bond between the ''idea the word means'' and the ''physical form of the word''. Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913) contrasts three concepts: # the ''signifier'' – the "sound image" or the string of letters on a page that one recognizes as the form of a sign # the ''signified'' – the meaning, the concept or idea that a sign expresses or evokes # the ''referent'' – the actu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Two Dogmas Of Empiricism
"Two Dogmas of Empiricism" is a paper by analytic philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine published in 1951. According to University of Sydney professor of philosophy Peter Godfrey-Smith, this "paper ssometimes regarded as the most important in all of twentieth-century philosophy". The paper is an attack on two central aspects of the logical positivists' philosophy: the first being the analytic–synthetic distinction between analytic truths and synthetic truths, explained by Quine as truths grounded only in meanings and independent of facts, and truths grounded in facts; the other being reductionism, the theory that each meaningful statement gets its meaning from some logical construction of terms that refer exclusively to immediate experience. "Two Dogmas" has six sections. The first four focus on analyticity, the last two on reductionism. There, Quine turns the focus to the logical positivists' theory of meaning. He also presents his own holistic theory of meaning. Analytici ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophical Investigations
''Philosophical Investigations'' (german: Philosophische Untersuchungen) is a work by the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, published posthumously in 1953. ''Philosophical Investigations'' is divided into two parts, consisting of what Wittgenstein calls, in the preface, ''Bemerkungen'', translated by Anscombe as "remarks". A survey among American university and college teachers ranked the ''Investigations'' as the most important book of 20th-century philosophy. Relation to Wittgenstein's body of work In its preface, Wittgenstein says that ''Philosophical Investigations'' can be understood "only by contrast with and against the background of my old way of thinking". That "old way of thinking" is to be found in the only book Wittgenstein published in his lifetime, the ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus''. Many of the ideas developed in the ''Tractatus'' are criticised in the ''Investigations'', while other ideas are further developed. The ''Blue and Brown Books'', a set of note ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language Game (philosophy)
A language-game (german: Sprachspiel) is a philosophical concept developed by Ludwig Wittgenstein, referring to simple examples of language use and the actions into which the language is woven. Wittgenstein argued that a word or even a sentence has meaning only as a result of the "rule" of the "game" being played. Depending on the context, for example, the utterance "Water!" could be an order, the answer to a question, or some other form of communication. Philosophical Investigations In his work ''Philosophical Investigations'' (1953), Ludwig Wittgenstein regularly referred to the concept of language-games. Wittgenstein rejected the idea that language is somehow separate and corresponding to reality, and he argued that concepts do not need clarity for meaning. Wittgenstein used the term "language-game" to designate forms of language simpler than the entirety of a language itself, "consisting of language and the actions into which it is woven" ( PI 7) and connected by family res ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
The ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'' (widely abbreviated and cited as TLP) is a book-length philosophical work by the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein which deals with the relationship between language and reality and aims to define the limits of science. Wittgenstein wrote the notes for the ''Tractatus'' while he was a soldier during World War I and completed it during a military leave in the summer of 1918. It was originally published in German in 1921 as ''Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung'' (Logical-Philosophical Treatise). In 1922 it was published together with an English translation and a Latin title, which was suggested by G. E. Moore as homage to Baruch Spinoza's ''Tractatus Theologico-Politicus'' (1670). The ''Tractatus'' is written in an austere and succinct literary style, containing almost no arguments as such, but consists of altogether 525 declarative statements, which are hierarchically numbered. The ''Tractatus'' is recognized by philosophers as a signi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is considered by some to be the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. From 1929 to 1947, Wittgenstein taught at the University of Cambridge. In spite of his position, during his entire life only one book of his philosophy was published, the 75-page ''Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung'' (''Logical-Philosophical Treatise'', 1921), which appeared, together with an English translation, in 1922 under the Latin title ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus''. His only other published works were an article, "Some Remarks on Logical Form" (1929); a book review; and a children's dictionary. His voluminous manuscripts were edited and published posthumously. The first and best-known of this posthumous series is the 1953 book ''Philosophical Investigations''. A su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Logical Atomism
Logical atomism is a philosophical view that originated in the early 20th century with the development of analytic philosophy. Its principal exponent was the British philosopher Bertrand Russell. It is also widely held that the early works of his Austrian-born pupil and colleague, Ludwig Wittgenstein, defend a version of logical atomism. Some philosophers in the Vienna Circle were also influenced by logical atomism (particularly Rudolf Carnap, who was deeply sympathetic to some of its philosophical aims, especially in his earlier works). Gustav Bergmann also developed a form of logical atomism that focused on an ideal phenomenalistic language, particularly in his discussions of J.O. Urmson's work on analysis. The name for this kind of theory was coined in March 1911 by Russell, in a work published in French titled "Le Réalisme analytique" (published in translation as "Analytic Realism" in Volume 6 of ''The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell''). Russell was developing and respo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
On Denoting
"On Denoting" is an essay by Bertrand Russell. It was published in the philosophy journal ''Mind'' in 1905. In it, Russell introduces and advocates his theory of denoting phrases, according to which definite descriptions and other "denoting phrases ... never have any meaning in themselves, but every proposition in whose verbal expression they occur has a meaning." This theory later became the basis for Russell's descriptivism with regard to proper names, and his view that proper names are "disguised" or "abbreviated" definite descriptions. In the 1920s, Frank P. Ramsey referred to the essay as "that paradigm of philosophy". In the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' entry ''Descriptions'', Peter Ludlow singled the essay out as "''the'' paradigm of philosophy", and called it a work of "tremendous insight"; provoking discussion and debate among philosophers of language and linguists for over a century. The "denoting phrase" Russell's concept of a denoting phrase For Russell, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computer science and various areas of analytic philosophy, especially philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics.Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy"Bertrand Russell" 1 May 2003. He was one of the early 20th century's most prominent logicians, and a founder of analytic philosophy, along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege, his friend and colleague G. E. Moore and his student and protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein. Russell with Moore led the British "revolt against idealism". Together with his former teacher A. N. Whitehead, Russell wrote ''Principia Mathematica'', a milestone in the development of classical logic, and a major attempt to reduce the whole ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguistics is concerned with both the cognitive and social aspects of language. It is considered a scientific field as well as an academic discipline; it has been classified as a social science, natural science, cognitive science,Thagard, PaulCognitive Science, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). or part of the humanities. Traditional areas of linguistic analysis correspond to phenomena found in human linguistic systems, such as syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences); semantics (meaning); morphology (structure of words); phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures in sign languages); phonology (the abstract sound system of a particular language); and pragmatics (how social con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
