Download or read book The Metaphysics and the Epistemology of Meaning written by Jonas Pfister and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book develops the metaphysics of meaning along the lines set up by Paul Grice, defining the three central notions of what is meant, said and implicated. The Gricean notion of what is said is threatened by semantic underdetermination: If the sentence underdetermines the thought it is used to express, what is said cannot be the proposition expressed by the sentence and meant by the speaker. This leads to a number of questions: How far does semantic underdetermination reach? Do we have to extend or restrict the Gricean notion? Is what is said semantic or pragmatic? Keeping these metaphysical questions separate from the epistemological question of how the hearer understands what is meant, which is best explained by generalizing the Gricean theory of implicature derivation and combining it with a game-theoretic model, the book provides an original defense of a Gricean view in the ongoing debate about semantics and pragmatics.
Download or read book Ways of Meaning written by Mark de Bretton Platts and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The philosophy of language is not an isolated philosophical discipline of merely technical interest to other philosophers. Rather, as Mark Platts shows, the philosophy of language 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.
Download or read book The Problem of Metaphysics and the Meaning of Metaphysical Explanation written by Hartley Burr Alexander and published by . This book was released on 1902 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Meaning written by David E. Cooper and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-18 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meaning is one of our most central and most ubiquitous concepts. Anything at all may, in suitable contexts, have meaning ascribed to it. In this wide-ranging book, David Cooper departs from the usual focus on linguistic meaning to discuss how works of art, ceremony, social action, bodily gesture, and the purpose of life can all be meaningful. He argues that the notion of meaning is best approached by considering what we accept as explanations of meaning in everyday practice and shows that in these situations we are explaining the appropriate fit of an item - whether a word or an artwork - with something larger than or outside of itself. This fuller account of meaning explores questions of the meaning of meaning and tackles issues such as whether meaning is just a misleading 'folk' term for something more basic, whether there really is meaning at all, and whether we should strive for meaning or let our lives 'just be' rather than mean. By taking the problem of meaning out of the technical philosophy of language and providing a more general account, Cooper is able to offer new insights into the import, function, and status of meaning that will be of interest not only to philosophers of language but to students and philosophers working in areas such as epistemology and metaphysics.
Download or read book Metaphysics written by Aristotle and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Laura Castelli presents a new translation of the tenth book (Iota) of Aristotle's Metaphysics, together with a comprehensive commentary. Castelli's commentary helps readers to understand Aristotle's most systematic account of what it is for something to be one, what it is for something to be a unit of measurement, and what contraries are.
Download or read book Hume s Epistemology and Metaphysics written by Georges Dicker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-01-04 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature and Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding are amongst the most widely-studies texts on philosophy. Hume's Epistemology and Metaphysics: An Introduction presents in a clear, concise and accessible manner the key themes of these texts. Georges Dicker clarifies Hume's views on meaning, knowledge, causality, and sense perception step by step and provides us with a sharp picture of how philosophical thinking has been influenced by Hume. Accessible to anyone coming to Hume for the first time, Hume's Epistemology and Metaphysics is an indispensible guide to Hume's philosophical thinking.
Download or read book Metaphysics written by Stephan Körner and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1984-09-06 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is an ambitious and substantial study of metaphysics: its nature and inescapability. Professor Körner's method may be described as 'philosophical anthropology', and aims to arrive at a characterisation of the metaphysical beliefs with which we (have to) operate. Professor Körner begins by describing how the categorical framework of a person's metaphysical beliefs may be embedded in more ordinary beliefs and practical attitudes to the world. He illustrates the variety of such frameworks and describes their role, going on to explain how they may be modified by argument and reflection. This is an independent inquiry, but also the culmination of a series of Professor Körner's earlier works. The writing is extremely clear and the material sensitively controlled, revealing great learning and many suggestive insights and comparisons. It presents overall a comprehensive and carefully thought-out account of metaphysics.
Download or read book The Metaphysics of Meaning written by Jerrold J. Katz and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In "The Metaphysics of Meaning, Jerrold J. Katz offers a radical reappraisal of the "linguistic turn" in twentieth century philosophy. He shows that the naturalism which emerged to become the dominant philosophical position was never adequately proven. Katz critiques the major arguments for contemporary naturalism and develops a new conception of the naturalistic fallacy. This conception, inspired by Moore, explains why attempts to naturalize disciplines like linguistics and logic, and perhaps ethics, will fail. He offers a Platonist view of such disciplines, justifying it as the best explanation of their autonomy, objectivity, and normativity. Katz examines in detail both Wittgenstein's arguments for a deflationary naturalism on which metaphysics transcends the limits of language, and Quine's arguments for a scientific naturalism on which epistemology is "an enterprise within natural science." He also analyzes related arguments, including Kripke's on rule following, Chomsky's for the psychological reality of language, Dummett's on the nature of theories Of meaning, and Davidson's and Putnam's against intensionalism. Katz shows that, although largely successful against the Fregean psychologized versions of intensionalism, all these arguments fail against an intensionalism that avoids both Fregeanism and psychologism. "The Metaphysics of Meaning concludes with a reassessment of the nature of philosophical problems. It explains their recalcitrance, without, like.
Download or read book The Problem of Metaphysics and the Meaning of Metaphysical Explanation written by Hartley Burr Alexander and published by . This book was released on 1902 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Problems of Philosophy written by James Hervey Hyslop and published by . This book was released on 1905 with total page 676 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Philosophy for Graduate Students written by Alex Broadbent and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-02-05 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When graduate students start their studies, they usually have sound knowledge of some areas of philosophy, but the overall map of their knowledge is often patchy and disjointed. There are a number of topics that any contemporary philosopher working in any part of the analytic tradition (and in many parts of other traditions too) needs to grasp, and to grasp as a coherent whole rather than a rag-bag of interesting but isolated discussions. This book answers this need, by providing a overview of core topics in metaphysics and epistemology that is at once accessible and nuanced. Ten core topics are explained, and their relation to each other is clearly set out. The book emphasizes the utility of the concepts and distinctions it covers for philosophy as a whole, not just for specialist discussions in metaphysics or epistemology. The text is highly readable and may be used as the basis of a course on these topics. Recommendations for reading are included at the end of each chapter, divided into essential and further readings. The text is also suitable for people approaching philosophy from other disciplines, as an accessible primer to the central topics, concepts and distinctions that are needed to engage meaningfully in contemporary philosophical debate.
Download or read book The Logical Basis of Metaphysics written by Michael Dummett and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Dummett's new book is the greatly expanded and recently revised version of his distinguished William James Lectures, delivered in 1976. Dummett regards the construction of a satisfactory theory of meaning as the most pressing task of contemporary analytical philosophy. He believes that the successful completion of this difficult assignment will lead to a resolution of problems before which philosophy has been stalled, in some instances for centuries. These problems turn on the correctness or incorrectness of a realistic view of one or another realm--the physical world, the mind, the past, mathematical reality, and so forth. Rejection of realism amounts to adoption of a variant semantics, and often of a variant logic, for the statements in a certain sector of our language. Dummett does not assume the correctness of any one logical system but shows how the choice between different logics arises at the level of the theory of meaning and depends upon the choice of one or another general form of meaning-theory. In order to determine the correct shape for a meaning-theory, we must attain a clear conception of what a meaning-theory can be expected to do. Such a conception, says Dummett, will form "a base camp for an assault on the metaphysical peaks: I have no greater ambition in this book than to set up a base camp."
Download or read book Understanding Reality written by Nicholas Rescher and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-08-15 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book sees to show that the present discussion so unfolds as to show that ultimately Reality’s inherent impetus to lawful order serves also to account for its existence. The ultimate explanation of its order is as something that also provides for its reason for being. Step by step, a train of thought unfolds to indicate that Reality both exists and has the nature it does for good reason, and specifically because this is somehow for the best. Such an approach goes back to the Platonism of classical antiquity. Many difficulties lie in the way of its acceptance. But is it, in the final analysis, the theory that works here takes the form of a Neo-Platonism of sorts. Or if reality has any rational explanation at all, it is one that will have to proceed along these lines, based upon rationality itself. An underlying theme that runs throughout the present elaboration of metaphysics is the dialectic of interaction between descriptive facts on the one hand and normative ideals on the other. On such a view, it is a salient factor in metaphysics that reality as such is descriptively constituted as a potentially perfect system of knowledge even though we imperfect beings cannot get a more than an imperfectly secure cognitive grip on it. Accordingly, we can never hope to surmount the contrast between: •The metaphysical ideal of a perfected system of knowledge. •The imperfect realization of actuality that we can ever hope to achieve in practice.
Download or read book The Problem of Metaphysics and the Meaning of Metaphysical Explanation written by Hartley Burr Alexander and published by Palala Press. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Download or read book The Problem of Metaphysics and the Meaning of Metaphysical Explanation written by Hartley Burr Alexander and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2017-12-14 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from The Problem of Metaphysics and the Meaning of Metaphysical Explanation: An Essay in Definitions In this preface it may not be amiss explicitly to state cer tain convictions implied in the thinking here ont-wrought. 'first there is a conviction that metaphysic is not a science of things ultimate in the cosmos, but of things ultimate in human life and destiny and ultimate only for human in sight; that consequently, metaphysical solutions must change as the human outlook changes, and that the way of our thought must develop as our powers of intuition become enlarged. No final metaphysical solution is possible, because so long as human intelligence broadens metaphysical truth must alter. It is not independent nor static, but exists for knowledge alone. That there is need to-day oi' a new m'etaphysic, a new vision of man's destiny, a new and virile exaltation of his ideals, - this, too, is a conviction underlying these writings. But the time for the great work is not yet. First must be written, as unmistakably as the century past has written the body's genesis, the genesis and evolntion oi the mind. To this task the natural sciences and the science of history, the varied branches of anthropology, psychology, philosophy in its manifold nelds, all must contribute. And when the task is performed, or even in large part performed, forth shall arise the new synthesis, the new world-vision, and it shall be in evitable in its inspiration. But before that day we who hope for the advent must cleanse and order our house of thought, we must come to an understanding with ourselves and achieve some sane understanding of the metaphysic whereo with we were born. It is for the furthering of this humbler, but not unessential end, that this essay was written. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Download or read book The Problem of Metaphysics and the Meaning of Metaphysical Explanation written by Hartley Burr Alexander and published by Nabu Press. This book was released on 2013-09 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
Download or read book Aristotle s Theory of Language and Meaning written by Deborah K. W. Modrak and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about Aristotle's philosophy of language, interpreted in a framework that provides a comprehensive interpretation of Aristotle's metaphysics, philosophy of mind, epistemology and science. The aims of the book are to explicate the description of meaning contained in De Interpretatione and to show the relevance of that theory of meaning to much of the rest of Arisotle's philosophy. In the process Deborah Modrak reveals how that theory of meaning has been much maligned.
