Twentieth-century philosophy has often been pictured as divided into two camps, analytic and continental. This study challenges this depiction by examining encounters between some of the leading representatives of either side. Starting with Husserl and Frege's fin-de-siecle turn against psychologism, it turns to Carnap's 1931 attack on Heidegger's metaphysics (together with its background in the Cassirer-Heidegger dispute of 1929), moving on to Ayer's 1951 meeting with Bataille and Merleau-Ponty at a Parisian bar, followed by the 'dialogue of the deaf' between Oxford linguistic philosophers and phenomenologists at the 1951 Royaumont colloquium, leading up to the Derrida-Searle controversy. Careful study shows that it is implausible to assume the existence of a century-old 'gulf' between two sides of philosophy. Vrahimis argues that miscommunication and ignorance over the exact content of the above encounters must to a large extent be held accountable for any perceived gap.

First published in 2005. This study seeks to identify the specific mistakes that critics were alluding to in their passing asides on Wittgenstein's failure to grasp the mechanics of Godel's second incompleteness theorem. It also includes an understanding of his attack on meta-mathematics and Hilbert's Programme.

This historically-informed critical assessment of Dummett's account of abstract objects, examines in detail some of the Fregean presuppositions of Dummett's account whilst also engaging with phenomenological approaches and recent work on the problem of abstract entities.

Donald Davidson's work has been of seminal importance in the development of analytic philosophy and his views on the nature of language, mind and action remain the starting point for many of the central debates in the analytic tradition. His ideas, however, are complex, often technical, and interconnected in ways that can make them difficult to understand. This introduction to Davidson's philosophy examines the full range of his writings to provide a clear succinct overview of his ideas. This book begins with an account of the assumptions and structure of Davidson's philosophy of language, introducing his compositionalism, extensionalism and commitment to a Tarski-style theory of truth as the model for theories of meaning. It goes on to show how that philosophical framework is to be applied and how it challenges the traditional picture. Marc Joseph examines Davidson's influential work on action theory and events and discusses the commonly made charge that his theory of action and mind leaves the mental as a mere 'epiphenomenon' of the physical. The final section explores Davidson's philosophy of mind, some of its consequences for traditional views of subjectivity and objectivity and, more generally, the relation between minded beings and the physical and mental world they occupy.

Is the world of appearances the real world?

Are there facts that exist independently of our minds?

Are there vague objects?

Russell on Metaphysics brings together for the first time a comprehensive selection of Russell's writing on metaphysics in one volume. Russell's major and lasting contribution to metaphysics has been hugely influential and his insights have led to the establishment of analytic philosophy as a dominant stream in philosophy. Stephen Mumford chronicles the metaphysical nature of these insights through accessible introductions to the texts, setting them in context and understanding their continued importance. Russell on Metaphysics is both a valuable introduction to Bertrand Russell as a metaphysician, and an introduction to analytic philosophy and its history.

First published in 1973, Rules and Meanings is an anthology of works that form part of Mary Douglas' struggle to devise an anthropological modernism conducive to her opposition to reputedly modernizing trends in contemporary society. The collection contains works by Wittgenstein, Schutz, Husserl, Hertz and other continentals. The underlying themes of the anthology are the construction of meaning, the force of hidden background assumptions, tacit conventions and the power of spatial organization to reinforce words. The work serves to complement the philosophers' work on everyday language with the anthropologists' theory of everyday knowledge.

Series Information:
Studies in Philosophy

This book brings together papers from a conference that took place in the city of L'Aquila, 4-6 April 2019, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the earthquake that struck on 6 April 2009. Philosophers and scientists from diverse fields of research debated the problem that, on 6 April 1922, divided Einstein and Bergson: the nature of time. For Einstein, scientific time is the only time that matters and the only time we can rely on. Bergson, however, believes that scientific time is derived by abstraction, even in the sense of extraction, from a more fundamental time. The plurality of times envisaged by the theory of Relativity does not, for him, contradict the philosophical intuition of the existence of a single time. But how do things stand today? What can we say about the relationship between the quantitative and qualitative dimensions of time in the light of contemporary science? What do quantum mechanics, biology and neuroscience teach us about the nature of time? The essays collected here take up the question that pitted Einstein against Bergson, science against philosophy, in an attempt to reverse the outcome of their monologue in two voices, with a multilogue in several voices.

First published in 2000. This is Volume II of six in the Library of Philosophy series on the Philosophy of Science. Written in 1938, philosophical systems which employ logical methods almost exclusively would undoubtedly be expected to produce non-empirical results. If, however, logic is taken simply as a method of connecting meanings it is not difficult to reconcile logical methods with empirical results. If logical formular, in other words, assert nothing about the meanings of propositions, but simply show how such meanings are connected, then an empiricism based on a logical analysis of meanings is not inconsistent. This is what the Logical Positivists have attempted to do. This book looks at two areas: the foundations of a scientific method free from metaphysics, and the elimination of pseudo-concepts introduced by metaphysics into science and philosophy.

Available for the first time in 20 years, here is the Rudolf Carnap's famous principle of tolerance by which everyone is free to mix and match the rules of language and logic. In The Logical Syntax of Language, Carnap explains how his entire theory of language structure came to him like a vision when he was ill. He postulates that concepts of the theory of logic are purely syntactical and therefore can be formulated in logical syntax.

This analysis of Wittgenstein's concept of a Spielraum, in which the author approaches the Tractatus Logico-philosophicus both systematically and from the perspective of the history of philosophy and knowledge, opens up a new and important perspective in Wittgenstein research. In establishing unexpected cross-connections between physics, the theory of perception, and logic, Hyder also makes a valuable contribution to the history of 19th century science. In particular, the links he establishes between early sensory physiology and the logicism of Russell and Frege yield a sharper and more plausible account of the notion of a "space" of possible meanings than has hitherto been available in the secondary literature. In showing this notion to be a formal precursor to that of a language game, the study also provides important pointers for the interpretation of Wittgenstein's late work.

This volume discusses some crucial ideas of the founders of the analytic philosophy: Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein, or the 'golden trio'. The book shows how these 'old' ideas are still present and influential in the current philosophical debates and to what extent these debates echo the original ideas. The collection aim is twofold: to better understand these fruitful ideas by placing them in the original setting, and to systematically examine these ideas in the context of the current debates animating philosophical discussions today. Divided into five sections, the book first sets the stage and offers a general introduction to the background influences, as well as delimitations of the initial foundational positions. This first section contains two papers dedicated to the discussion of realism and the status of science at that time, followed by two papers that tackle the epistemic status of logical laws. The next three sections constitute the core of the volume, each being dedicated to the most important figures in the early analytic tradition: Frege, Russell, and Wittgenstein. The last section gathers several essays that discuss either the relation between two or more analytic thinkers, or various important concepts such as 'predicativism' and 'arbitrary function', or the principles of abstraction and non-contradiction.

Herbert Hochberg is one of the most influential analytical philosophers and one of the most influential critics of analytical philosophy. He disputed with almost all leading analytical philosophers, from Quine, Goodman and Wilfrid Sellars to David Lewis and David Armstrong. His point of view is ontological and he harks back to the origins of analytical philosophy where he finds unknown precursors of current views. And he finds parallels to contemporary non-analytic philosophies. In his own ontology he tries to dispense with simple particulars.

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

This book investigates the significance of Wittgenstein's philosophy for aesthetic understanding. Focusing on the aesthetic elements of Wittgenstein's philosophical work, the authors explore connections to contemporary currents in aesthetic thinking and the illuminating power of Wittgenstein's philosophy when considered in connection with the interpretation of specific works of literature, music, and the arts. Taken together, the chapters presented here show what aesthetic understanding consists of and the ways we achieve it, how it might be articulated, and why it is important. At a time of strong renewal of interest in Wittgenstein's contributions to the philosophy of mind and language, this book offers insight into the connections between philosophical-psychological and linguistic issues and the understanding of the arts.

This book provides a detailed and comprehensive account of the problem of a priori knowledge from a historical as well as a systematic perspective. The author explores Kant's views in connection with the possibility of revision, something hardly, if at all, done in philosophical literature. Furthermore, the views of well-renowned philosophers such as Quine, Putnam, Kitcher, and Hale are discussed in detail and are put into a historical and systematic perspective. Finally, this book contains a glossary of important notions offering illuminating accounts of a priori knowledge and related notions and explains the relationship between a priori knowledge, fallibility and revision. The detailing of concepts such as 'defeasibility', 'infallibility', 'falsifiability' helps anyone reading philosophical literature to pin down the meaning of the terms and its implications in this context. The enriched and dual approach the author takes makes the book a very useful and lucid guide to the problem of a priori knowledge.

The volume combines a historical and philosophical study of Russell's theory of descriptions. It defends, develops and extends the theory as a contribution to natural language semantics while also arguing for a reassessment of the important of linguistic inquiry to Russell's philosophical project.

In this book, the author shows that it is necessary to enrich the conceptual frame of the theory of rational choice beyond consequentialism. He argues that consequentialism as a general theory of rational action fails and that this does not force us into the dichotomy teleology vs deontology. The unity of practical reason can be saved without consequentialism. In the process, he presents insightful criticism of standard models of action and rational choice. This will help readers discover a new perspective on the theory of rationality. The approach is radical: It transcends the reductive narrowness of instrumental rationality without denying its practical impact. Actions do exist that are outlined in accordance to utility maximizing or even self-interest maximizing. Yet, not all actions are to be understood in these terms. Actions oriented around social roles, for example, cannot count as irrational only because there is no known underlying maximizing heuristic. The concept of bounded rationality tries to embed instrumental rationality into a form of life to highlight limits of our cognitive capabilities and selective perceptions. However, the agent is still left within the realm of cost-benefit-reasoning. The idea of social preferences or meta-preferences cannot encompass the plurality of human actions. According to the author they ignore the plurality of reasons that drive agency. Hence, they coerce agency in fitting into a theory that undermines humanity. His theory of structural rationality acknowledges lifeworld patterns of interaction and meaning.

In this illuminating guide to the criteria of rational theorizing, Michael Shepanski identifies, defends and applies W. V. Quine's epistemic norms - the norms that best explain Quine's decisions to accept some theories and not others. Parts I and II set out the doctrines of this epistemology, demonstrating their potential for philosophical application. The third part is a case study in which Shepanski develops a theory of the propositional attitudes by the method of formulating inferences to behaviour. Finally, he presents critiques of popular alternative views, including foundationalism, the centrality of knowledge and Quine's own epistemological naturalism. By reassessing Quine's normative epistemology, Shepanski advances our understanding of Quine's philosophy whilst providing a guide for our own theorizing.

In this small book, Ulrich Steinvorth describes the reasons why analytic philosophy, which started as an anti-metaphysical project, has become a strong advocate of metaphysics, and why it must become synthetic, normative, and naturalistic. Steinvorth argues that self-regulation is the common property of all being, that we can talk of an increase or escalation of self-regulation in the evolution of being, and that self-regulation becomes self-determination in man. Considering objections to this view related to questions of free will, consciousness, the naturalistic fallacy, and teleology, he draws on cybernetics, dual process theory, physical cosmology, and Leibniz's ("demiurgic") idea of measuring the goodness of a world by the number of possibilities opened up by the world. To test his approach and show its political relevance, he applies it to political liberalism.

Finally available in English, Prihonsky's New Anti-Kant is an inescapable book for anyone interested in Kant's Critical philosophy. It provides a concise and systematic recapitulation of Bolzano's insightful, trenchant criticisms of Kant, and provides a fresh window into historical developments in 19th century post-Kantian philosophy

This book offers new perspectives on the history of analytical philosophy, surveying recent scholarship on the philosophical study of mind, language, logic and reality over the course of the last 200 years. Each chapter contributes to a broader engagement with a wider range of figures, topics and disciplines outside of philosophy than has been traditionally associated with the history of analytical philosophy. The book acquaints readers with new aspects of analytical philosophy's revolutionary past while engaging in a much needed methodological reflection. It questions the meaning associated with talk of 'analytic' philosophy and offers new perspective on its development. It offers original studies on a range of topics - including in the philosophy of language and mind, logic, metaphysics and the philosophy of mathematics - and figures whose relevance, when they is not already established as in the case of Russell, Moore and Wittgenstein, are just now beginning to become the topic of mainstream literature: Franz Brentano, William James, Susan Langer as well as the German and British logicians of the nineteenth century.

Spanning the period between Wittgenstein's return to Cambridge in 1929 and the first version of Philosophical Investigations in 1936, Piotr Dehnel explores the middle stage in Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophical development and identifies the major issues which engrossed him, including phenomenology, philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of language. Contrary to the dominant perspective, Dehnel argues that this period was intrinsically different from the early and late stages and should not be viewed as a mere transitional phase. The distinctiveness of Wittgenstein's middle work can be seen in his philosophical thinking as it unfolds in a non-linear trajectory: thoughts do not follow upon each other, ideas do not appear sequentially one by one, and insights do not form a straight chain. Dehnel portrays the diffused and multifarious quality of Wittgenstein's middle thinking, enabling readers to form a more comprehensive view of his entire philosophy and acquire a better grasp of his conceptual trajectory, complete with the intricacies and challenges that it poses.

The notion of system in Kant s conception of a priori forms of knowledge is an organological one. Central to a philosophical system of this kind is the unity of purpose. Epistemological activity of transcendental subjectivity is therefore focussed self-organized activity with the judgement of experience as its telos.The present study mobilizes this basic insight to interpret the essential elements of the transcendental constitution of knowledge, i.e. of pure forms of intuition and categories. In this forced understanding, experience is living self-execution of the subject responsible in its theoretical empirical verdicts.Ultimately, this activity must even be interpreted as praxis in the moral-practical sense. These results extrapolate theses which at times are concealed in Kant s work and sometimes are even counter-cast, so that occasionally one has to use Kant to argue against Kant.They also reveal aspects which have not been thematized in the conventional reception of Kant or have hitherto been missed in his work."

Contemporary analytic philosophy can generally be characterized by the following tendencies: commitment to first-order predicate logic as the only viable formal logic; rejection of correspondence theories of truth; a view of existence as something expressed by the existential quantifier; a metaphysics that doesn t give the world as a whole its due. This book seeks to offer an alternative analytic theory, one that provides a unified account of what there is, how we speak about it, the underlying logic of our language, how the truth of what we say is determined, and the central role of the real world in all of this. The result is a robust account of reality. The inspiration for many of the ideas that constitute this overall theory comes from such sources as Aristotle, Leibniz, Ryle, and Sommers."