Concise Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language

Philosophers have had an interest in language from the earliest times but the twentieth century, with its so-called 'linguistic turn' in philosophy, has seen a huge expansion of work focused specifically on language and its foundations. No branch of philosophy has been unaffected by this shift of emphasis. It is timely at the end of the century to review and assess the vast range of issues that have been developed and debated in this central area.

The distinguished international contributors present a clear, accessible guide to the fundamental questions raised by the philosophers about language. Contributions include Graeme Forbes on necessity, Susan Haack on deviant logics, Paul Horwich on truth, Charles Travis on Wittgenstein, L.J. Cohen on linguistic philosophy, Ruth Kempson on semantics and syntax and Christopher Hookway on ontology, to name but a few. A wide range of topics are covered from the metaphysics and ontology of language, language and mind, truth and meaning, to theories or reference, speech act theory, philosophy of logic and formal semantics. There are also articles on key figures from the twentieth century and earlier.

Based on the foundation provided by the award-winning Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics this single volume provides a collection of articles that will be an invaluable reference tool for all those interested in the area of philosophy of language, and also to those in cognitive science and psychology. All the articles have been thoroughly revised and updated. This volume gives a unique survey of topics that are at the very core of contemporary philosophy.

Dr Ephraim Nissan, University of Greenwich
A handy trove of information on the subject...a reference whose availability on the shelf is the next best thing to access to the full-fledged encyclopedia from which this thematic selection is drawn.
Iyyun: The Jerusalem Philosophical Quarterly
David E. Cooper, Professor of Philosophy, University of Durham, UK
Students and teachers of philosophy will greatly benefit from the spinoff from the massive Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Peter Lamarque has assembled an impressive team of contributors who cover all the main topics...The Concise Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language will serve as a valuable and extremely convenient guide.

Ken Turner, Journal of Literary Semantics
The contents of Concise Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Language will already be familiar to many as being the philosophy of language entries to Pergamon's hugely impressive Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (Asher 1994). It is possible to find just about whatever you want in either, or better, both of these resources.
Frank Brisard
Philosophy of language and analytical philosophy have been joining forces in the search for foundational insights in the structure and properties of language since at least three decades. Lately, the increasing popularity of a logical methodology in linguistics has added a distinctly empirical touch to this search. The present volume acknowledges this convergence of interests from such a variety of disciplines and aims at bringing together the vast array of concerns that spring from this trend into a single source.... considering the substantial overlap between work done by philosophers of language and the theoretical as well as the more empirically oriented research in linguistics in general, the editor has decided to broaden the scope of his philosophical overview even more radically and have articles address a particularly wide range of topics.... All of the articles have been written (and often modified and updated) by well-qualified authors, frequently preeminent authorities in the fields they describe.

Pragmatics - Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association
Ephraim Nissan, University of Greenwich, UK
...handy addition to the shelf of the philosopher of language, especially one who needs such epitomes to support the teaching curriculum in the discipline.... The big merit of Lamarque's encyclopedia is in the wide array of the entries, which are fairly readable, and more often than not, also usefully terse...Lamarque's chunks being fairly convenient to chew and digest. Not that there are no long, complex entries. Over-simplification is avoided, and so is pride-driven complicated exposition, a possible sin and snare that the authors of the entries have likewise avoided.... provides a handy trove of information on the subject in its title, and beyond. Lamarque's volume a reference whose availability on the shelf is the next best thing to access to the full-fledged encyclopedia from which this thematic section is drawn.

The Jerusalem Philosophical Quarterly
Michael A. Covington, University of Georgia
[This] useful volume ... makes it obvious just how much linguistic research has been done during the past three or four decades. Linguists of all ages - those who remember the developments chronicled and those who don't - will enjoy browsing through [this volume] and filling gaps in their knowledge.
Language
Milena Nuti, University College, London
The list of contributors is impressive. ... There are some particularly good entries, as would be expected from such eminent contributors ... the encyclopedia as a whole does act as a helpful guide through sometimes unfamiliar territory ... could well be useful for psychologists, or biologists who are feeling interdisciplinary ... topics, concepts and questions about 'language' or 'meaning' in some or other sense have different approaches and it is worth being aware of the different perspectives and useful to have them collected together.
Lingua