Word and World: Practice and the Foundations of Language - Softcover

Hanna, Patricia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521537444 ISBN 13: 9780521537445

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2004

Synopsis

This important book proposes a new account of the nature of language, founded upon an original interpretation of Wittgenstein. The authors deny the existence of a direct referential relationship between words and things. Rather, the link between language and world is a two-stage one, in which meaning is used and in which a natural language should be understood as fundamentally a collection of socially devised and maintained practices. Arguing against the philosophical mainstream descending from Frege and Russell to Quine, Davidson, Dummett, McDowell, Evans, Putnam, Kripke and others, the authors demonstrate that discarding the notion of reference does not entail relativism or semantic nihilism. A provocative re-examination of the interrelations of language and social practice, this book will interest not only philosophers of language but also linguists, psycholinguists, students of communication and all those concerned with the nature and acquisition of human linguistic capacities.

About this title

Book Description

This important book proposes a new account of the nature of language, founded upon an original interpretation of Wittgenstein. This book will interest not only philosophers of language but also linguists, psycholinguists, students of communication and all those concerned with the nature and acquisition of human linguistic capacities.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521537444
• ISBN 13: 9780521537445
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432