Description
How do meaningless marks and sounds become the meaningful words of a natural language? To what do words having referential significance refer? What is the meaning of the words that do not have referential significance? Can ordinary language really do what it appears to do, or is this an illusion? Dr. Adler maintains that these fundamental questions are not satisfactorily treated in the two main philosophies of language that have dominated twentieth-century thinking on the subject - the syntactical and 'ordinary language' approaches.
Drawing upon the tradition of Aristotle, Aquinas, Poinsot, and Husserl, Dr. Adler's own discussion exemplifies the third approach, which he describes as "semantic and lexical." In this now -classic work, the fruit of more than 50 years' concern with the philosophy of language, Dr. Adler advances a powerful theory of meaning and applies it to some outstanding philosophical problems. In unpretentious and uncluttered prose, he provides a limpid introduction to a number of knotty philosophical issues and at the same time issues a challenge to some of the most tenacious doctrines of the modern world.
Author: Mortimer Jerome Adler
Publisher: Open Court
Published: 03/09/1999
Pages: 204
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.69lbs
Size: 8.94h x 4.94w x 0.57d
ISBN13: 9780812691788
ISBN10: 0812691784
BISAC Categories:
- Language Arts & Disciplines | Linguistics | General
- Philosophy | General
This title is not returnable