Act-Based Conceptions of Propositional Content

Contemporary and Historical Perspectives
Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-0-19-937357-4
Verlag: OXFORD UNIV PR

Buch, Englisch, 408 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 772 g

The notion of a propositional content plays a central role in contemporary philosophy of language. Propositional content makes up both the meaning of sentences and the content of propositional attitudes such as belief. One particular view about propositional content has been dominant in analytic philosophy, namely the Fregean conception of propositions as abstract mind-independent objects that come with truth conditions. But propositions in this sense raise a range of issues, which have become a center of debate in current philosophy of language. In particular, how should propositions as abstract objects be understood and how can they represent things and be true or false? A number of philosophers in contemporary analytic philosophy as well as in early analytic philosophy and phenomenology have approached the notion of a propositional content in a different way, not by starting out with an abstract truth berarer, but by focusing on cognitive acts of agents, such as acts of judging. It is in terms of such acts that the notion of a propositional content, on their view, should be understood.

The act-based perspective historically goes back to the work of Central European philosophers, in particular that of Husserl, Twardowski, Meinong, and Reinach. However, their work has been unduly neglected and is in fact largely inaccessible to contemporary analytic philosophers. The volume presents a central selection of work of these philosophers that bear on an act-based conception of philosophical content, some of which in new translations (one paper by Reinach), some of which published in English for the very first time (two papers by Twardowski).

In addition, the volume presents new work by leading contemporary philosophers of language pursuing or discussing an act-based conception of propositional content. Moreover, the book contains a crosslinguistic study of nominalizations for actions and products, a distinction that plays a central role in the philosophy of language of Twardowski.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Moltmann, Friederike

Textor, Mark

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaften Sprachphilosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Philosophie der Mathematik, Philosophie der Physik
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sprachphilosophie
• Mathematik | Informatik Mathematik Mathematik Allgemein Philosophie der Mathematik

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- I Historical Perspectives

- Chapter 1- Husserl, Edmund: Excerpts from Logical Investigations

- Chapter 2 - Meinong, Alexius: Excerpts from On Assumptions

- Chapter 3 - Reinach, Adolf: Excerpts from On the Theory of the Negative Judgment (with an introduction by Mark Textor)

- Chapter 4 - Twardowski, Kazmierz: The Psychology of Thinking

- Twardowski, Kazmierz: Theory of Judgment

- Twardowski, Kazmierz: Actions and Products. Some Remarks from the Borderline of Psychology, Grammar, and Logic.

- Chapter 5 - Miskiewicz, Wioletta: The theory of objects in On Actions and Products. A note on the translation

- Miskiewicz, Wioletta: 'On Actions and Products (1911) by Kazimierz Twardowski: its historical genesis and philosophical impact.

- II Contemporary Perspectives

- Chapter 1 - Soames, Scott: For Want of Cognitively Defined Propositions. A History of Insights and Lost Opportunities

- Chapter 2 - Fiengo, Robert: Austin's Cube: The Speech Acts of Asserting

- Chapter 3 - Hanks, Peter: Propositions, Synonymy, and Compositional Semantics

- Chapter 4 - Moltmann, Friederike: Cognitive Products and the Semantics of Attitude Verbs and Deontic Modals

- Chapter 5 - Textor, Mark: Judgement, Perception and Predication

- Chapter 6 - Ripley, David: Bilateralism, Coherentism, and Warrant

- Chapter 7 - Gerner, Matthias: Actions and Products Worldwide

Über Autor(innen)

Friederike Moltmann is senior researcher at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and at New York University. She has published numerous articles in both linguistic and philosophical journals and is author of Parts and Wholes in Semantic (OUP,1997) and Abstract Objects and the Semantics of Natural Language (OUP 2013).

Mark Textor is professor of philosophy in King's College London. He works on history of philosophy, especially analytic philosophy, philosophy of language and mind. His book Brentano's Mind is forthcoming with OUP.