Modern Philosophy of Language

by Maria Baghramian

A collection of seminal writings on the philosophy of language. In our century, philosophers have become increasingly concerned with the relationship between language, the mind, and the world. Language has come to be viewed both as a source of puzzlement and as a repository for untapped knowledge. The philosophy of language is an attempt to understand the nature of language and to explore the link between what we say and what we intend.

Modern Philosophy of Language brings together the most significant writings on language in twentieth-century philosophy–from the work of Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, and the logical positivists to the contemporary contributions of W. V. O. Quine, Noam Chomsky, and Michael Dummett. The articles collected here are benchmarks in the development of various strands in the modern analytic philosophy of language.

Genres: Linguistics, Philosophy

428 pages, Hardcover

Published September 17, 1999

Reviews

[Stephen Perry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought that it was a great trip through late-19th/20th century philosophy of language. The introduction provided the necessary context for many of the discussions, and the introductions to each text provided sufficient information to understand the rudiments of each philosopher’s views. I thought that the first half of texts given were both wonderful representations of the correspondent (ha) philosophers, as well as rather easy to comprehend. The later texts became a little harder to read, although this may simply be due to more contemporary philosophers’ wider base of knowledge and study as well as a lack of my own experience with more contemporary philosophy. Overall, I enjoyed it and thought that it was an informative trip through modern philosophy of language, with utility for the student of philosopher as well as anyone simply interested in the discussion.