This book traces the linguistic turns in the history of modern philosophy and the development of the philosophy of language from Locke to Wittgenstein. It examines the contributions of canonical figures such as Leibniz, Mill, Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Austin, Quine, and Davidson, as well as those of Condillac, Humboldt, Chomsky, and Derrida. Michael Losonsky argues that the philosophy of language begins with Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding. He shows how the history of the philosophy of language in the modern (...) period is marked by a dichotomy between formal and pragmatic perspectives on language and that modern philosophy has not been able to integrate these two aspects of human language. Language as a human activity and language as a syntactic and semantic system remain distinct and competing focal points, although the interplay between these points of view has driven the development of the philosophy of language. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:Was there a linguistic turn in Frankfurt School Critical Theory before Habermas's communications-theoretic one? Might later Wittgenstein and the early Frankfurt School have adopted similar pictures of language? I propose that both questions should be answered affirmatively, focusing on Horkheimer's Eclipse of Reason. I argue that, thanks to the picture of language that Horkheimer and Adorno share with (later) Wittgenstein, we can reconstruct their theory in a way that renders it more defensible. Insofar as the human life form (...) and language are inseparable, language can be an inextinguishable reservoir of what Horkheimer called "objective reason." Recognizing this allows us to answer Habermas's critique of Horkheimer and Adorno. Moreover, paying attention to this inseparableness can enable us to engage in disclosing social critique (for example, regarding current debates about sustainability). (shrink)

The Linguistic Turn provides a rich and representative introduction to the entire historical and doctrinal range of the linguistic philosophy movement. In two retrospective essays titled "Ten Years After" and "Twenty-Five Years After," Rorty shows how his book was shaped by the time in which it was written and traces the directions philosophical study has taken since. "All too rarely an anthology is put together that reflects imagination, command, and comprehensiveness. Rorty's collection is just such a book."-- (...) Review of Metaphysics Richard Rorty is University Professor of Humanities at the University of Virginia. (shrink)

All too rarely an anthology is put together that reflects imagination, command, and comprehensiveness. Rorty's collection is just such a book. Although primarily concerned with the metaphilosophical issues of precisely what is new and distinctive about the linguistic turn, excellent selections are included from a great variety of orientations. Both the more formalistic approaches of Carnap and Bergmann as well as the more informal perspectives of Ryle, Hampshire, and Austin are well represented. The whole is constructed so that (...) the reader participates in a continuous dialectic of positions bringing us right up to recent discussions of transformational linguistics. There is a masterful introduction which takes a comprehensive look at the entire range of positions, revealing basic similarities and differences as well as locating the chief unresolved problems. A comprehensive bibliography enables the reader to locate almost any important discussion of the issues explored. This book is an ideal supplement for any course dealing with the varieties of analytic and linguistic philosophy. Unfortunately there is no index.—R. J. B. (shrink)

A study of the many 'linguistic turns' pursued by European writers between 1890 and 1950, focusing on the links between language, politics, and philosophy. Exploring the work of Saussure, Russell, Wittgenstein, Bakhtin, and others, it provides a new account of the intellectual and cultural history of early twentieth-century Europe.

A history of the many different forms that the linguistic turn took would be a history of much of twentieth‐century philosophy. A. J. Ayer was the first holder of the Wykeham Chair to take the linguistic turn. Michael Dummett makes clear that he takes this concern with language to be what distinguishes “analytical philosophy” from other schools, the first‐personal inaccessibility of the language of thought makes such a version of the linguistic turn methodologically very (...) different from the traditional ones. Even within what is usually considered analytic philosophy of mind, much work violates the two tenets of conceptual philosophy. One might try to see in contemporary metaphysics a Quinean breakdown of divisions between philosophy and the natural sciences. Historians of philosophy on the grand scale may be too Whiggish or Hegelian to regard the linguistic or conceptual turn as merely a false turning from which philosophy is withdrawing that it recognizes its mistake. (shrink)

One’s philosophical points of view, which form the bases for assumptions that we bring to management theory and practice matter, and matter deeply, to management thinking and corporate behavior. In this paper I outline three related threads of philosophical conversations and explain how they are important in management theory and practice: the “linguistic turn” in philosophy, deriving from the later writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein, a social constructionist perspective: a set of theories at least implicitly derived from the (...) class='Hi'>linguistic turn in philosophy, and the notion of the impartial spectator. I then use these three theories to analyze the idea of the corporation, corporate cultures and corporate mission statements, stakeholder theories and their differences, and the limitations of the popular notion of “corporate social responsibility.” I conclude that how one frames these management ideas makes a difference, a difference in theory and in practice. (shrink)

Cristina Lafont draws upon Hilary Putnam's work in particular to criticize the linguistic idealism and relativism of the German tradition, which she traces back to the assumption that meaning determines reference.

The linguistic turn is a central aspect of Richard Rorty’s philosophy, informing his early critiques of foundationalism in Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature and subsequent critiques of authoritarianism in Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. It is argued that we should interpret the linguistic turn as a methodological suggestion for how philosophy can take a non-foundational perspective on normativity. It is then argued that although Rorty did not succeed in explicating normativity without foundations (or authority without authoritarianism), (...) we should take seriously the ambition motivating his project. But taking that ambition seriously may require reconsidering the linguistic turn. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore Cassirer’s view of social contract theory. We maintain that Cassirer has established a linguistic turn of social contract theory, by exploring the conditions for the possibility of a promise. For that purpose Cassirer’s theory of the linguistic sign, as inspired by the linguistic theory of Wilhelm von Humboldt, becomes decisive, because of its specific nature and direction into the future. First, in Section 1, we explore previous social contract theorists, from Nicholas (...) von Cusa to Immanuel Kant. In Section 1, as a result, we establish the concept of the promise as the core concept of social contract theory, and as the fundamental philosophical problem conveyed by the natural lawyers. Moreover, in Section 2, we investigate the conditions for the possibility of a promise, and relate it to the symbolic nature of the human being. The promise, hence the capacity to enter into a contract, becomes a characteristically human activity, hence an expression of human dignity. (shrink)

Journal of Chinese Philosophy, EarlyView.

My first goal is to question a received view about the development of Analytical Philosophy. According to this received view Analytical Philosophy is born out of a Linguistic Turn establishing the study of language as the foundation of the discipline; this primacy of language is then overthrown by the return of the study of mind as philosophia prima through a second Cognitive Turn taken in the mid-sixties. My contention is that this picture is a gross oversimplification and (...) that the Cognitive Turn should better be seen as an extension of the Linguistic one. Indeed, if the Cognitive Turn gives explicit logical priority to the study of mind over the study of language, one of its central features is to see the mind as a representational system offering no substantial difference with a linguistic one. However, no justification is offered for the fundamental assimilation of the nature of a mental representation with that of a linguistic symbol supporting this picture of the mind, although the idea that a system of mental representations is identical in structure with a system of linguistic symbols has been argued over and over. I try to demonstrate this point through a close critical examination of Fodor's paradigmatic notion of 'double reduction.' My second claim is that the widespread contemporary assimilation of a mental representation with a symbol of a linguistic kind is no more than a prejudice. Finally I indicate that this prejudice cannot survive a rigorous critical examination. (shrink)

Presenting a critical history of the philosophy of science in the twentieth century, focusing on the transition from logical positivism in its first half to the ...

Michael Dummett famously holds that the “philosophy of thought” must proceed via the philosophy of language, since that is the only way to preserve the objectivity of thoughts while avoiding commitments to “mythological,” Platonic entities. Central to Dummett’s case is his thesis that all thought contents are linguistically expressible. In this paper, I will (a) argue that making the linguistic turn is neither necessary nor sufficient to avoid the problems of psychologism, (b) discuss Wayne Martin’s argument that not (...) all thought-contents are linguistically communicable, and (c) present another, stronger argument, derived from Husserl’s early account of fulfillment, that establishes the same conclusion. (shrink)

The book is an inquiry into the presuppositions of the philosophy of language. To this effect, a distinction has been made between theory and its underlying presuppositions. The main thrust of this work is to critically examine these presuppositions so as to make a correct assessment of the theories/approaches that follow from them. Central to this inquiry is Noam Chomsky's theory of grammar. It has been used as a tool in the light of which the investigation has been carried out (...) and it has also been projected as offering an alternative theoretical foundation to the philosophy of language. (shrink)

The so-called linguistic turn in philosophy intensified (rather than overcame) the rationalism that has haunted Western ideas about knowledge since antiquity. Orthodox accounts continue to present knowledge as a linguistic, logical quality, expressed in statements or theories that are well justified by evidence and actually true. Restating themes from the author's Knowledge and Civilization (2004a), I introduce an alternative conception of knowledge designed to overcome these propositional, discursive, logocentric presumptions. I interpret knowledge as a quality of artifacts. (...) A surgical operation or a bridge may be as good examples of knowledge as any true scientific proposition or theory. I define the quality that marks an artifact as a work of knowledge as superlative artifactual performance. To explain knowledge in these terms is not to offer a metaphysical or epistemological theory of its essence or concept. Instead, I am explaining knowledge in terms of its good, its value, the human point of caring to know. (shrink)

Some common notions about analytic philosophy - that it is uniformly anti-metaphysical or indifferent to the history of philosophy - are clearly misconceived. However the impression that analytic philosophers are essentially linguistic philosophers is not entirely false and hence less easy to refute.

Although the linguistic turn is usually described in historical terms this article aims at combing the significant historical transitions with systematic philosophical considerations. Against the background of earlier rationalistic and empiricist trends particular attention is given to the successive epistemic ideals manifest in the conceptual rationalism of the Enlightenment, followed by the historicism of the 19th century and subsequently by the linguistic turn . An assessment of these transitions will explore systematic issues, in particular the relationship (...) between universality and what is individual , the difference between functional laws and type laws , and regarding the limits of concept formation the distinction between conceptual knowledge and concept-transcending knowledge . This distinction enables the introduction of a new understanding of the difference between rationalism and irrationalism . Apart from Dilthey the linguistic turn penetrated also the thought of thinkers such as Freud, Wittgenstein, Frankl, Heidegger, Habermas, Dooyeweerd and Gadamer, all of them (implicitly or explicitly) elaborated the initial criticism raised by Herder, Jacobi, Hamann, Heidegger and Gadamer against Kant‘s Critique of Pure Reason for neglecting language. After briefly referring to the connection between the linguistic turn and the idea of the meaningful construction of reality, the article ends with a concluding remark emphasizing the fact that no single concept-transcending usage of modal (aspectual) terms should be elevated above others or employed at the cost of other equally legitimate idea-statements. (shrink)

I want to discuss why it makes sense to speak of a linguistic turn in the philosophy of Paul Ricœur. He early on had said that “the word is my kingdom and I am not ashamed of it” without, at that time, spelling out just what this claim meant as regards a broader philosophy of language. Nor would he have had any difficulty in admitting that his attitude toward language and questions about language changed over time. Keywords : (...) Analytic Philosophy, Linguistic Turn. Résumé Je souhaite discuter pourquoi il y a un sens à parler de tournant linguistique dans la philosophie de Paul Ricœur. Il avait dit dès le début de son travail “la parole est mon royaume et je n'en ai point honte,” sans, à ce moment-là, spécifier ce que cette affirmation signifie au regard d'une philosophie du langage. Et il n'aurait pas eu de difficulté à admettre que son attitude envers le langage et les questions sur le langage a changé au fil du temps. Mots-clés: Philosophie analytique, Tournant linguistique. (shrink)

One of the important philosophical advantages stemming from study of the historical development of philosophical movements and traditions is the insight that comes from observing the logical out-working of a set of ideas over a period of time that far exceeds the lifetime of any individual thinker. An Aristotle or a Hegel may develop a philosophical mode of thought in an almost unbelievably comprehensive way, but no individual can grasp all the implications and ramifications of his philosophical vision, no matter (...) how monumental his powers may be. Many individuals, however, working over many years within the same framework of ideas can accomplish what no one of them alone could achieve. It is often said that philosophy is not an experimental science, and, in an obvious sense, this is true. But it is not entirely true. We can view the history of a tradition like Platonism, for example, or Augustinianism, as a vast experiment made by many thinkers with a set of ideas in which each thinker, building on what has gone before, seeks to develop further the basic premises of the position, proposing new logical alternatives, correcting errors, meeting objections, discovering further implications, and consolidating the results. In the case of a profound tradition, nothing less than this extended historical dialectic of ideas suffices to make plain what the basic position implies. Moreover, since climates of opinion change, the proponents of a given view will find that, in the course of time, new opponents appear, raising questions and posing problems that could not easily have been envisaged by the thinker who started the tradition. Sometimes these objections prove fatal and the tradition comes to an end; sometimes the objections are successfully overcome and the position finds new life and a more viable form of expression. The history of a tradition, therefore, is an indispensable resource for philosophical understanding. (shrink)

The author attempts at questioning Habermas’ and Honneth’s claim that the linguistic turn within Critical Theory of society represents a way out of the “dead end” of the first generation of Frankfurt School theorists, who were unable to formulate an action-theoretic understanding of social conflicts. By presenting a view that Adorno, in his “Negative dialectic”, develops an insight into a crucial characteristic of the conflict nature of modern societies, which eludes the lingustic-pragmatist Critical Theory, the author tries to (...) defend and reactualize Adorno’s perspective. The paper analyzes some key aspects of the original idea of Critical Theory, and the “negativistic turn” that Adorno and Horkheimer made with the writing of “Dialectic of Enlightenment”. Having considered the central arguments of the “Negative Dialectic”, the author presents his understanding of Adorno’s concept of social conflict, which is then being contrasted with Habermas’ understanding of social conflict, formulated in terms of a systemic colonization of the lifeworld. Pointing out the weaknesses of Habermas’ concept, the author aims at sharpening the image of the conflict nature of modern societies that Adorno sketches, concluding that his perspective is able to question the framework of intersubjectivity that Habermas and Honneth take for granted. (shrink)

There has been a long tradition of characterizing man as the animal that talks. However, the remarkable ability of using pictures also only belongs to human beings, after all we know empirically so far. Are there conceptual reasons for that coincidence? The paper is dedicated to a philosophical programme of “concept-genetic” considerations dealing in particular with the dependencies between those two abilities: The conceptual relation between the competence to use assertive language and the faculty of employing pictures must be conceived (...) of as being much closer than usually expected. Indeed we conclude, there cannot be creatures with only one of them. (shrink)