Contemporary Philosophy of Thought Truth, World, Content

by Luntley, Michael

• ISBN13: 9780631190776
• ISBN10: 0631190775
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-01-28
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• More Book Details
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Summary

This lucid and engaging volume provides an introduction to the essential issues and concepts of contemporary analytic philosophy. It introduces students to the pivotal arguments that motivate work in the field, while arguing a definite point of view in a style that encourages discussion and debate. It develops a broadly Fregean methodology in which semantics is concerned with the concept of content required in rationalizing explanations of behaviour. Key problems and positions covered include: truth, meaning, and inference; arguments against the possibility of meaning; the realism/anti-realism debate, and the theory of inference.This text gives voice to the idea that the study of the philosophy of thought and language is more than a specialism, but rather lies at the very heart of the discipline.

Author Biography

Michael Luntley is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Warwick. He is the author of Reason, Truth, and Self: the Postmodern Reconditioned (1995), The Meaning of Socialism (1989), and Language, Logic, and Experience: the Case for Anti-Realism (1988).

Table of Contents

Preface

Methodologies

Russell's Theory of Descriptions

The Semantic Theory of Truth

Truth and Meaning

Interpretation, Minimal Truth and the World

Meaning, Metaphysics and Logic

The Possibility of a Naturalistic Theory of Meaning

What is a Theory of Reference?

Sense and Reference

The Causal Theory of Reference and the Social Character of Meaning

Content and Context

Contextual Content

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.