Terence Ball
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198279952
- eISBN:
- 9780191598753
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198279957.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
Here, I examine and criticize the claim that Hobbes was a proto‐positivist precursor of the modern scientific study of politics. Against this view, I argue that Hobbes may be better viewed as a ...
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Here, I examine and criticize the claim that Hobbes was a proto‐positivist precursor of the modern scientific study of politics. Against this view, I argue that Hobbes may be better viewed as a thinker acutely aware of the communicative constitution of human society. Because communicative distortion and breakdown are ever‐present possibilities, an all‐powerful `sovereign definer’ is needed to prevent or preclude the communicative breakdown that characterizes the Hobbesian state of nature.Less
Here, I examine and criticize the claim that Hobbes was a proto‐positivist precursor of the modern scientific study of politics. Against this view, I argue that Hobbes may be better viewed as a thinker acutely aware of the communicative constitution of human society. Because communicative distortion and breakdown are ever‐present possibilities, an all‐powerful `sovereign definer’ is needed to prevent or preclude the communicative breakdown that characterizes the Hobbesian state of nature.
Jessica Brown and Mikkel Gerken
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199693702
- eISBN:
- 9780191741265
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199693702.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This book brings together a number of diverse strands of contemporary research that have focused on knowledge ascriptions. One such strand is the ‘linguistic turn’ according to which knowledge ...
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This book brings together a number of diverse strands of contemporary research that have focused on knowledge ascriptions. One such strand is the ‘linguistic turn’ according to which knowledge ascriptions in ordinary language, together with the best linguistic theory of such ascriptions, provide important evidence for epistemological theorizing. Another is the ‘cognitive turn’ in which research in cognitive science is invoked to shed light on the nature of knowledge ascriptions. Finally, recent years have witnessed a ‘social turn’ within which the social functions of knowledge ascriptions are considered in relation to the growing field of social epistemology. This introductory chapter discusses each of these three turns. It then presents an overview of the subsequent chapters.Less
This book brings together a number of diverse strands of contemporary research that have focused on knowledge ascriptions. One such strand is the ‘linguistic turn’ according to which knowledge ascriptions in ordinary language, together with the best linguistic theory of such ascriptions, provide important evidence for epistemological theorizing. Another is the ‘cognitive turn’ in which research in cognitive science is invoked to shed light on the nature of knowledge ascriptions. Finally, recent years have witnessed a ‘social turn’ within which the social functions of knowledge ascriptions are considered in relation to the growing field of social epistemology. This introductory chapter discusses each of these three turns. It then presents an overview of the subsequent chapters.
Joseph Heath
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195370294
- eISBN:
- 9780199871230
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195370294.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics
This chapter attempts to provide further motivation for the model of deontic constraint proposed in the previous chapter, by filling in some of the background that informs the way that philosophers ...
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This chapter attempts to provide further motivation for the model of deontic constraint proposed in the previous chapter, by filling in some of the background that informs the way that philosophers use the terms “belief” and “desire.” The central difference between rational choice theorists and philosophers, in this regard, is that the latter think of beliefs and desires as propositional attitudes, and thus as fundamentally sentence-like in nature. Adopting this linguistically-informed perspective lends much greater plausibility to the introduction of principles as a third category of intentional state. Support for the view that all intentional states should be thought of as deontic statuses is presented.Less
This chapter attempts to provide further motivation for the model of deontic constraint proposed in the previous chapter, by filling in some of the background that informs the way that philosophers use the terms “belief” and “desire.” The central difference between rational choice theorists and philosophers, in this regard, is that the latter think of beliefs and desires as propositional attitudes, and thus as fundamentally sentence-like in nature. Adopting this linguistically-informed perspective lends much greater plausibility to the introduction of principles as a third category of intentional state. Support for the view that all intentional states should be thought of as deontic statuses is presented.
Hans Sluga
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- May 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195169720
- eISBN:
- 9780199786343
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195169727.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
This essay traces the roots of Wittgenstein’s Pyrrhonism to Mauthner, and argues that Wittgenstein’s later views moved even closer to those of Mauthner, although Wittgenstein never became as ...
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This essay traces the roots of Wittgenstein’s Pyrrhonism to Mauthner, and argues that Wittgenstein’s later views moved even closer to those of Mauthner, although Wittgenstein never became as thoroughgoing a Pyrrhonian as Mauthner had been. It is argued that Mauthner’s neo-Pyrrhonian view of language was “responsible for the linguistic turn in Wittgenstein’s thinking and thereby indirectly also for the whole linguistic turn in 20th-century analytic philosophy”.Less
This essay traces the roots of Wittgenstein’s Pyrrhonism to Mauthner, and argues that Wittgenstein’s later views moved even closer to those of Mauthner, although Wittgenstein never became as thoroughgoing a Pyrrhonian as Mauthner had been. It is argued that Mauthner’s neo-Pyrrhonian view of language was “responsible for the linguistic turn in Wittgenstein’s thinking and thereby indirectly also for the whole linguistic turn in 20th-century analytic philosophy”.
Colin McGinn
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199856145
- eISBN:
- 9780199919567
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199856145.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
What kind of subject is philosophy? This book takes up this perennial question, defending the view that philosophy consists of conceptual analysis, construed broadly. Conceptual analysis is ...
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What kind of subject is philosophy? This book takes up this perennial question, defending the view that philosophy consists of conceptual analysis, construed broadly. Conceptual analysis is understood to involve the search for de re essences, but the book takes up various challenges to this meta-philosophy: that some concepts are merely family resemblance concepts with no definition in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions (“game”, “language”); that it is impossible to provide sufficient conditions for some philosophically important concepts without circularity (“knowledge”, “intentional action”); that there exists an unsolved paradox of analysis; that there is no well-defined analytic-synthetic distinction; that names have no definition; and that conceptual analysis is not properly naturalistic. Ultimately, the text finds none of these objections convincing: analysis emerges as both possible and fruitful. At the same time, it rejects the idea of the “linguistic turn”, arguing that analysis is not directed to language as such, but at reality. Going on to distinguish several types of analysis, with an emphasis on classical decompositional analysis, this book shows different philosophical traditions to be engaged in conceptual analysis when properly understood. Philosophical activity has the kind of value possessed by play, the text claims, which differs from the kind of value possessed by scientific activity. The book concludes with an analytic discussion of the prospects for traditional ontology and the nature of instantiation.Less
What kind of subject is philosophy? This book takes up this perennial question, defending the view that philosophy consists of conceptual analysis, construed broadly. Conceptual analysis is understood to involve the search for de re essences, but the book takes up various challenges to this meta-philosophy: that some concepts are merely family resemblance concepts with no definition in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions (“game”, “language”); that it is impossible to provide sufficient conditions for some philosophically important concepts without circularity (“knowledge”, “intentional action”); that there exists an unsolved paradox of analysis; that there is no well-defined analytic-synthetic distinction; that names have no definition; and that conceptual analysis is not properly naturalistic. Ultimately, the text finds none of these objections convincing: analysis emerges as both possible and fruitful. At the same time, it rejects the idea of the “linguistic turn”, arguing that analysis is not directed to language as such, but at reality. Going on to distinguish several types of analysis, with an emphasis on classical decompositional analysis, this book shows different philosophical traditions to be engaged in conceptual analysis when properly understood. Philosophical activity has the kind of value possessed by play, the text claims, which differs from the kind of value possessed by scientific activity. The book concludes with an analytic discussion of the prospects for traditional ontology and the nature of instantiation.
Jason A. Springs
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195395044
- eISBN:
- 9780199866243
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Discontinued
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195395044.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter explicates this trajectory of Frei's thinking over the course of his career. It challenges the prevailing belief that Frei's theology divides neatly into two distinct periods-the earlier ...
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This chapter explicates this trajectory of Frei's thinking over the course of his career. It challenges the prevailing belief that Frei's theology divides neatly into two distinct periods-the earlier characterized by Frei's attention to an essential meaning in the scriptural text, and the later by his turn to a cultural-linguistic framework largely under the influence of his colleague at Yale George Lindbeck. This chapter makes the case that what came to be identified as "cultural-linguistic" insights in light of Lindbeck's work are, in fact, evident in Frei's writings of the 1960s. At the same time, his later writing does not forgo textual constraints exerted by Scripture, thereby collapsing textual meaning into textual use.Less
This chapter explicates this trajectory of Frei's thinking over the course of his career. It challenges the prevailing belief that Frei's theology divides neatly into two distinct periods-the earlier characterized by Frei's attention to an essential meaning in the scriptural text, and the later by his turn to a cultural-linguistic framework largely under the influence of his colleague at Yale George Lindbeck. This chapter makes the case that what came to be identified as "cultural-linguistic" insights in light of Lindbeck's work are, in fact, evident in Frei's writings of the 1960s. At the same time, his later writing does not forgo textual constraints exerted by Scripture, thereby collapsing textual meaning into textual use.
Jason A. Springs
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195395044
- eISBN:
- 9780199866243
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Discontinued
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195395044.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Chapter 7 clarifies and sharpens the cogency of Frei's claims about the plain sense and literal reading of Scripture, the topic on which Frei's thinking was most in progress at the time of his death. ...
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Chapter 7 clarifies and sharpens the cogency of Frei's claims about the plain sense and literal reading of Scripture, the topic on which Frei's thinking was most in progress at the time of his death. This chapter administers sustained attention to the difficulties produced by Frei's increased emphasis upon context, practice, and tradition in his account of Scripture's meaning. This chapter initiates a response to the following questions that occupy the remainder of the book. If Frei articulated a historically and socially situated conception of God's revelation, how did he avoid compromising the objectivity of that revelation? How can attention to the contingencies of cultural context and the formation of divine revelation within social practices avoid rendering God's revelation a function of historical human understanding? Insofar as Frei utilized insights from Wittgenstein's so-called "linguistic turn"-the turn to the irreducibility and inescapability of linguistic social practices-how did he avoid sliding down the slippery slope into linguistic idealism?Less
Chapter 7 clarifies and sharpens the cogency of Frei's claims about the plain sense and literal reading of Scripture, the topic on which Frei's thinking was most in progress at the time of his death. This chapter administers sustained attention to the difficulties produced by Frei's increased emphasis upon context, practice, and tradition in his account of Scripture's meaning. This chapter initiates a response to the following questions that occupy the remainder of the book. If Frei articulated a historically and socially situated conception of God's revelation, how did he avoid compromising the objectivity of that revelation? How can attention to the contingencies of cultural context and the formation of divine revelation within social practices avoid rendering God's revelation a function of historical human understanding? Insofar as Frei utilized insights from Wittgenstein's so-called "linguistic turn"-the turn to the irreducibility and inescapability of linguistic social practices-how did he avoid sliding down the slippery slope into linguistic idealism?
Jay David Atlas
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195133004
- eISBN:
- 9780199850181
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195133004.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics
Richard Rorty wrote The Linguistic Turn, a collection of essays that discusses the philosophical methods employed by both various empiricists during the war and the philosophers of “ordinary ...
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Richard Rorty wrote The Linguistic Turn, a collection of essays that discusses the philosophical methods employed by both various empiricists during the war and the philosophers of “ordinary language” in pre- and post-war Oxford. A third linguistic turn is experienced in philosophy which originated from the thoughts of philosophers such as W. V. O. Quine and Noam Chomsky. This turn had a lighter impact than the first two turns, and it is perceived as having more sophistication and tentativeness, and being more responsive to the requirements of theory construction. P. H. Nowell-Smith's notion of “contextual implication” coincided with Paul Grice's idea of a “conversational implication”, and from this emerged the Gricean aspect of this said linguistic turn. This chapter attempts to discuss how Grice came up with such an idea and how this was incorporated into a philosophical language theory.Less
Richard Rorty wrote The Linguistic Turn, a collection of essays that discusses the philosophical methods employed by both various empiricists during the war and the philosophers of “ordinary language” in pre- and post-war Oxford. A third linguistic turn is experienced in philosophy which originated from the thoughts of philosophers such as W. V. O. Quine and Noam Chomsky. This turn had a lighter impact than the first two turns, and it is perceived as having more sophistication and tentativeness, and being more responsive to the requirements of theory construction. P. H. Nowell-Smith's notion of “contextual implication” coincided with Paul Grice's idea of a “conversational implication”, and from this emerged the Gricean aspect of this said linguistic turn. This chapter attempts to discuss how Grice came up with such an idea and how this was incorporated into a philosophical language theory.
Kerwin Lee IZlein
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520204638
- eISBN:
- 9780520924185
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520204638.003.0006
- Subject:
- Anthropology, American and Canadian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter argues that the quest for scientific certainty had led scholars through a series of linguistic turns which encoded historical narrative and knowledge as an antonym, and opened the doors ...
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This chapter argues that the quest for scientific certainty had led scholars through a series of linguistic turns which encoded historical narrative and knowledge as an antonym, and opened the doors for assaults on historical imagination. While these analytic turns have opened a world in which we can imagine history as a broadening circle of experience, they have also given us a world in which history seems to be something we can cast off at will. The chapter suggests that figuration is not always fiction, and that naming and narration entail obligation as well as reward.Less
This chapter argues that the quest for scientific certainty had led scholars through a series of linguistic turns which encoded historical narrative and knowledge as an antonym, and opened the doors for assaults on historical imagination. While these analytic turns have opened a world in which we can imagine history as a broadening circle of experience, they have also given us a world in which history seems to be something we can cast off at will. The chapter suggests that figuration is not always fiction, and that naming and narration entail obligation as well as reward.
Barbara Czarniawska
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780198296140
- eISBN:
- 9780191716584
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198296140.003.0002
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies
After years of following the lead of natural sciences, social sciences took a ‘linguistic turn’ in the 1970s and 1980s and a ‘literary turn’ in the 1990s. The importance of language as the instrument ...
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After years of following the lead of natural sciences, social sciences took a ‘linguistic turn’ in the 1970s and 1980s and a ‘literary turn’ in the 1990s. The importance of language as the instrument of reality construction was recalled, in consequence opening the door to the awareness of and acceptance of narrative knowledge.Less
After years of following the lead of natural sciences, social sciences took a ‘linguistic turn’ in the 1970s and 1980s and a ‘literary turn’ in the 1990s. The importance of language as the instrument of reality construction was recalled, in consequence opening the door to the awareness of and acceptance of narrative knowledge.
Nicholas Royle
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748636549
- eISBN:
- 9780748652303
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748636549.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter presents a discussion on linguistic turn. The notion of a literary turn might sound implausible in a different way. Uses of Literature poses as an intellectually progressive, ...
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This chapter presents a discussion on linguistic turn. The notion of a literary turn might sound implausible in a different way. Uses of Literature poses as an intellectually progressive, non-reductive book about the contemporary value and importance of literature, in which Jacques Derrida has apparently been airbrushed out of the picture and out of history. The literary turn would be at once about the ‘literary in theory’ and more specifically about new ways of registering the place of literature in the light of Derrida's work. The literary turn can be tracked according to three interrelated modes or registers. Two words for Henry James, two words from Henry James, in place of a conclusion apropos the literary turn. The Turn of the Screw might seem very much a land-text, a novel told in a house, about a house, and about what haunts so-called home-territory.Less
This chapter presents a discussion on linguistic turn. The notion of a literary turn might sound implausible in a different way. Uses of Literature poses as an intellectually progressive, non-reductive book about the contemporary value and importance of literature, in which Jacques Derrida has apparently been airbrushed out of the picture and out of history. The literary turn would be at once about the ‘literary in theory’ and more specifically about new ways of registering the place of literature in the light of Derrida's work. The literary turn can be tracked according to three interrelated modes or registers. Two words for Henry James, two words from Henry James, in place of a conclusion apropos the literary turn. The Turn of the Screw might seem very much a land-text, a novel told in a house, about a house, and about what haunts so-called home-territory.
Francis X. Blouin Jr. and William G. Rosenberg
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199740543
- eISBN:
- 9780199894673
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199740543.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Historiography, History of Ideas
Just as archivists were moving away from the historical authorities that had long structured their practices, historical scholarship was undergoing its own conceptual shifts. This chapter traces the ...
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Just as archivists were moving away from the historical authorities that had long structured their practices, historical scholarship was undergoing its own conceptual shifts. This chapter traces the emergence of new paradigms that expanded the boundaries of historical exploration in recent decades beyond the institutional focus that once bound the work of the archivist and the work of the historian together. These new questions were not so easily researched in traditional archives. While this chapter explores the problems of historical narration, evidence, the linguistic and cultural turns, postmodernism, and other matters that may be well-known to academic historians, it does so in terms of the challenges they raised for archives changing meanings of “authority” in history they reflect and their consequent challenges for archives.Less
Just as archivists were moving away from the historical authorities that had long structured their practices, historical scholarship was undergoing its own conceptual shifts. This chapter traces the emergence of new paradigms that expanded the boundaries of historical exploration in recent decades beyond the institutional focus that once bound the work of the archivist and the work of the historian together. These new questions were not so easily researched in traditional archives. While this chapter explores the problems of historical narration, evidence, the linguistic and cultural turns, postmodernism, and other matters that may be well-known to academic historians, it does so in terms of the challenges they raised for archives changing meanings of “authority” in history they reflect and their consequent challenges for archives.
Maria Antonaccio
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199289905
- eISBN:
- 9780191728471
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199289905.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
Iris Murdoch’s moral philosophy is just beginning to receive the kind of sustained critical attention that it deserves. This chapter provides an overview of Murdoch’s thought and places her ...
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Iris Murdoch’s moral philosophy is just beginning to receive the kind of sustained critical attention that it deserves. This chapter provides an overview of Murdoch’s thought and places her philosophy in the context of contemporary trends in moral inquiry. After assessing the critical reception of Murdoch’s thought, the chapter traces her influence on the work of Charles Taylor, highlight the distinctive features of her moral philosophy, and suggests some future trajectories for an ethics inspired by her thought.Less
Iris Murdoch’s moral philosophy is just beginning to receive the kind of sustained critical attention that it deserves. This chapter provides an overview of Murdoch’s thought and places her philosophy in the context of contemporary trends in moral inquiry. After assessing the critical reception of Murdoch’s thought, the chapter traces her influence on the work of Charles Taylor, highlight the distinctive features of her moral philosophy, and suggests some future trajectories for an ethics inspired by her thought.
P. M. S Hacker
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- April 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780199245697
- eISBN:
- 9780191602245
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019924569X.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
An overview of Wittgenstein’s philosophy, comparing the Tractatus with the Investigations is given. The later criticisms of the Tractatus logic and metaphysics are sketched. The philosophy of ...
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An overview of Wittgenstein’s philosophy, comparing the Tractatus with the Investigations is given. The later criticisms of the Tractatus logic and metaphysics are sketched. The philosophy of language, of mind, and the metaphilosophical reflections of the Investigations are outlined.Less
An overview of Wittgenstein’s philosophy, comparing the Tractatus with the Investigations is given. The later criticisms of the Tractatus logic and metaphysics are sketched. The philosophy of language, of mind, and the metaphilosophical reflections of the Investigations are outlined.
Christopher Hutton
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748633500
- eISBN:
- 9780748671489
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748633500.003.0004
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Applied Linguistics and Pedagogy
This chapter reviews approaches taken by political philosophers concerned with the nature of law, with language seen as one of the key elements in the formation of political collectivities ruled by ...
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This chapter reviews approaches taken by political philosophers concerned with the nature of law, with language seen as one of the key elements in the formation of political collectivities ruled by law. However language as law's medium has also been seen as a potential source of instability and uncertainty, and legal theorists and political philosophers have differed widely in their assessment of the importance and role of language in law. If law is a kind of market of exchange or reflects a social contract between citizens and the sovereign, and language is the medium for the recording of law and for its explication, then the terms of that contract, and language in general, become the primary medium through which social order is created and maintained. Questions about definition, rules, and coherence are central to anxieties about legal language. This chapter reviews the positions of legal theorists and philosophers, notably Bentham, Wittgenstein, Austin, and Grice, showing how that the linguistic turn in philosophy used law as a way of understanding everyday language.Less
This chapter reviews approaches taken by political philosophers concerned with the nature of law, with language seen as one of the key elements in the formation of political collectivities ruled by law. However language as law's medium has also been seen as a potential source of instability and uncertainty, and legal theorists and political philosophers have differed widely in their assessment of the importance and role of language in law. If law is a kind of market of exchange or reflects a social contract between citizens and the sovereign, and language is the medium for the recording of law and for its explication, then the terms of that contract, and language in general, become the primary medium through which social order is created and maintained. Questions about definition, rules, and coherence are central to anxieties about legal language. This chapter reviews the positions of legal theorists and philosophers, notably Bentham, Wittgenstein, Austin, and Grice, showing how that the linguistic turn in philosophy used law as a way of understanding everyday language.
Ken Hirschkop
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198745778
- eISBN:
- 9780191874253
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198745778.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Chapter 1 focuses on the distinctiveness of the ‘linguistic turns’ of early twentieth-century Europe, differentiating them from nineteenth-century work on language and insisting on the need to think ...
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Chapter 1 focuses on the distinctiveness of the ‘linguistic turns’ of early twentieth-century Europe, differentiating them from nineteenth-century work on language and insisting on the need to think of these multiple turns as a whole, as a constellation across Europe. That there is such a constellation, demanding our attention, is the first of the book’s three organizing claims. The second is that language draws such a crowd because crowds have become a problem: in the linguistic turns of the early twentieth century, language is a metonym for problems of social order and social division, democracy and consent, nationality and difference. Hence the third claim: that the distinguishing feature of these linguistic turns is a commitment to some version of ‘language as such’, a force or structure within language that can provide the vitality, the order, the lucidity, or some combination of these, necessary to cure language of its present ills.Less
Chapter 1 focuses on the distinctiveness of the ‘linguistic turns’ of early twentieth-century Europe, differentiating them from nineteenth-century work on language and insisting on the need to think of these multiple turns as a whole, as a constellation across Europe. That there is such a constellation, demanding our attention, is the first of the book’s three organizing claims. The second is that language draws such a crowd because crowds have become a problem: in the linguistic turns of the early twentieth century, language is a metonym for problems of social order and social division, democracy and consent, nationality and difference. Hence the third claim: that the distinguishing feature of these linguistic turns is a commitment to some version of ‘language as such’, a force or structure within language that can provide the vitality, the order, the lucidity, or some combination of these, necessary to cure language of its present ills.
Ken Hirschkop
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198745778
- eISBN:
- 9780191874253
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198745778.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Linguistic Turns rewrites the intellectual and cultural history of early twentieth-century Europe. In chapters that range over the work of Saussure, Russell, Wittgenstein, Bakhtin, Benjamin, ...
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Linguistic Turns rewrites the intellectual and cultural history of early twentieth-century Europe. In chapters that range over the work of Saussure, Russell, Wittgenstein, Bakhtin, Benjamin, Cassirer, Shklovskii, the Russian Futurists, Ogden and Richards, Sorel, Gramsci, and others, it shows how European intellectuals came to invest ‘language’ with extraordinary force, at a time when the social and political order of the continent was in question. By examining linguistic turns in concert rather than in isolation, Hirschkop changes the way we see them—no longer simply as moves in individual disciplines, but as elements of a larger constellation, held together by common concerns and anxieties. In a series of detailed readings, he reveals how each linguistic turn invested ‘language as such’ with powers that could redeem not just individual disciplines but Europe itself. We see how, in the hands of different writers, language becomes a model of social and political order, a tool guaranteeing analytical precision, a vehicle of dynamic change, a storehouse of mythical collective energy, a template for civil society, and an image of justice itself. By detailing the force linguistic turns attribute to language, and the way in which they contrast ‘language as such’ with actual language, Hirschkop dissects the investments made in words and sentences and the visions behind them. The constellation of linguistic turns is explored as an intellectual event in its own right and as the pursuit of social theory by other means.Less
Linguistic Turns rewrites the intellectual and cultural history of early twentieth-century Europe. In chapters that range over the work of Saussure, Russell, Wittgenstein, Bakhtin, Benjamin, Cassirer, Shklovskii, the Russian Futurists, Ogden and Richards, Sorel, Gramsci, and others, it shows how European intellectuals came to invest ‘language’ with extraordinary force, at a time when the social and political order of the continent was in question. By examining linguistic turns in concert rather than in isolation, Hirschkop changes the way we see them—no longer simply as moves in individual disciplines, but as elements of a larger constellation, held together by common concerns and anxieties. In a series of detailed readings, he reveals how each linguistic turn invested ‘language as such’ with powers that could redeem not just individual disciplines but Europe itself. We see how, in the hands of different writers, language becomes a model of social and political order, a tool guaranteeing analytical precision, a vehicle of dynamic change, a storehouse of mythical collective energy, a template for civil society, and an image of justice itself. By detailing the force linguistic turns attribute to language, and the way in which they contrast ‘language as such’ with actual language, Hirschkop dissects the investments made in words and sentences and the visions behind them. The constellation of linguistic turns is explored as an intellectual event in its own right and as the pursuit of social theory by other means.
Donald R. Kelley
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300120622
- eISBN:
- 9780300135091
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300120622.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Historiography
This chapter examines issues concerning the newer “new histories,” interdisciplinary encounters, the “linguistic turn,” the question of the “end of history,” and various other postmodernist ideas. It ...
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This chapter examines issues concerning the newer “new histories,” interdisciplinary encounters, the “linguistic turn,” the question of the “end of history,” and various other postmodernist ideas. It offers a more personal critique of the state of history at the start of the third millennium within deepening perspectives and expanding horizons. It also discusses personal experiences in historical studies and argues that the idea of an end to history belongs to the philosophy or theology of history and not to historical inquiry.Less
This chapter examines issues concerning the newer “new histories,” interdisciplinary encounters, the “linguistic turn,” the question of the “end of history,” and various other postmodernist ideas. It offers a more personal critique of the state of history at the start of the third millennium within deepening perspectives and expanding horizons. It also discusses personal experiences in historical studies and argues that the idea of an end to history belongs to the philosophy or theology of history and not to historical inquiry.
Frank Ankersmit
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801450716
- eISBN:
- 9780801463853
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801450716.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, Historiography
This chapter attempts to develop a reconstruction of the (often implicit) beliefs that predispose historians to a belief in the possibility of a direct contact with the past. It refers to this mostly ...
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This chapter attempts to develop a reconstruction of the (often implicit) beliefs that predispose historians to a belief in the possibility of a direct contact with the past. It refers to this mostly intuitive view of historical writing as “the Magritte conception of history.” This conception can be translated into a theory upholding the possibility of direct access to or contact with the past—what was called historical experience in Chapter 9. Thus, the defense of historical experience agrees with the basic intuitions of historians about their discipline in spite of their well-attested reluctance with regard to the notion of historical experience. But the linguistic turn revealed the Magritte conception to be an illusion. Since Hayden White we know that the historical text always stands between us and the past and that when we mistakenly think we are looking at the past itself through the text, we are in fact looking at the historical text, which inexorably occludes the past from view. The chapter argues that the linguistic turn is not the last word about the relationship between the past and the historical text.Less
This chapter attempts to develop a reconstruction of the (often implicit) beliefs that predispose historians to a belief in the possibility of a direct contact with the past. It refers to this mostly intuitive view of historical writing as “the Magritte conception of history.” This conception can be translated into a theory upholding the possibility of direct access to or contact with the past—what was called historical experience in Chapter 9. Thus, the defense of historical experience agrees with the basic intuitions of historians about their discipline in spite of their well-attested reluctance with regard to the notion of historical experience. But the linguistic turn revealed the Magritte conception to be an illusion. Since Hayden White we know that the historical text always stands between us and the past and that when we mistakenly think we are looking at the past itself through the text, we are in fact looking at the historical text, which inexorably occludes the past from view. The chapter argues that the linguistic turn is not the last word about the relationship between the past and the historical text.
Jeffrey J. Williams
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823263806
- eISBN:
- 9780823266432
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823263806.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter observes the new trend of quantification in literary studies. It suggests a "statistical turn" that has replaced "the linguistic turn," and raises questions about the anti-humanistic ...
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This chapter observes the new trend of quantification in literary studies. It suggests a "statistical turn" that has replaced "the linguistic turn," and raises questions about the anti-humanistic results of the rush to the digital.Less
This chapter observes the new trend of quantification in literary studies. It suggests a "statistical turn" that has replaced "the linguistic turn," and raises questions about the anti-humanistic results of the rush to the digital.
