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Author: N. J. Enfield Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 0262548461 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 309
Book Description
A fascinating examination of how we are both played by language and made by language: the science underlying the bugs and features of humankind’s greatest invention. Language is said to be humankind’s greatest accomplishment. But what is language actually good for? It performs poorly at representing reality. It is a constant source of distraction, misdirection, and overshadowing. In fact, N. J. Enfield notes, language is far better at persuasion than it is at objectively capturing the facts of experience. Language cannot create or change physical reality, but it can do the next best thing: reframe and invert our view of the world. In Language vs. Reality, Enfield explains why language is bad for scientists (who are bound by reality) but good for lawyers (who want to win their cases), why it can be dangerous when it falls into the wrong hands, and why it deserves our deepest respect. Enfield offers a lively exploration of the science underlying the bugs and features of language. He examines the tenuous relationship between language and reality; details the array of effects language has on our memory, attention, and reasoning; and describes how these varied effects power narratives and storytelling as well as political spin and conspiracy theories. Why should we care what language is good for? Enfield, who has spent twenty years at the cutting edge of language research, argues that understanding how language works is crucial to tackling our most pressing challenges, including human cognitive bias, media spin, the “post-truth” problem, persuasion, the role of words in our thinking, and much more.
Author: N. J. Enfield Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 0262548461 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 309
Book Description
A fascinating examination of how we are both played by language and made by language: the science underlying the bugs and features of humankind’s greatest invention. Language is said to be humankind’s greatest accomplishment. But what is language actually good for? It performs poorly at representing reality. It is a constant source of distraction, misdirection, and overshadowing. In fact, N. J. Enfield notes, language is far better at persuasion than it is at objectively capturing the facts of experience. Language cannot create or change physical reality, but it can do the next best thing: reframe and invert our view of the world. In Language vs. Reality, Enfield explains why language is bad for scientists (who are bound by reality) but good for lawyers (who want to win their cases), why it can be dangerous when it falls into the wrong hands, and why it deserves our deepest respect. Enfield offers a lively exploration of the science underlying the bugs and features of language. He examines the tenuous relationship between language and reality; details the array of effects language has on our memory, attention, and reasoning; and describes how these varied effects power narratives and storytelling as well as political spin and conspiracy theories. Why should we care what language is good for? Enfield, who has spent twenty years at the cutting edge of language research, argues that understanding how language works is crucial to tackling our most pressing challenges, including human cognitive bias, media spin, the “post-truth” problem, persuasion, the role of words in our thinking, and much more.
Author: Michael Devitt Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 9780262540995 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 366
Book Description
What is language? How does it relate to the world? How does it relate to the mind? Should our view of language influence our view of the world? These are among the central issues covered in this spirited and unusually clear introduction to the philosophy of language. Making no pretense of neutrality, Michael Devitt and Kim Sterelny take a definite theoretical stance. Central to that stance is naturalism--that is, they treat a philosophical theory of language as an empirical theory like any other and see people as nothing but complex parts of the physical world. This leads them, controversially, to a deflationary view of the significance of the study of language: they dismiss the idea that the philosophy of language should be preeminent in philosophy. This highly successful textbook has been extensively rewritten for the second edition to reflect recent developments in the field.
Author: Peter Godfrey-Smith Publisher: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 022677113X Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 412
Book Description
How does science work? Does it tell us what the world is “really” like? What makes it different from other ways of understanding the universe? In Theory and Reality, Peter Godfrey-Smith addresses these questions by taking the reader on a grand tour of more than a hundred years of debate about science. The result is a completely accessible introduction to the main themes of the philosophy of science. Examples and asides engage the beginning student, a glossary of terms explains key concepts, and suggestions for further reading are included at the end of each chapter. Like no other text in this field, Theory and Reality combines a survey of recent history of the philosophy of science with current key debates that any beginning scholar or critical reader can follow. The second edition is thoroughly updated and expanded by the author with a new chapter on truth, simplicity, and models in science.
Author: Peter Kingsley Publisher: Catafalque Press ISBN: 9781999638429 Category : Languages : en Pages : 600
Book Description
REALITY introduces us to the extraordinary mystical tradition that lies right at the roots of western philosophy, science and civilization.
Author: Janusz Wróbel Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing ISBN: 9027215391 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 146
Book Description
This book investigates the functioning of linguistic phenomena, especially in the area of semantics and pragmatics of the language of schizophrenics. By making semantics and pragmatics the primary objects of this work, the author departs from the traditional approach of those psycholinguistic and psychiatric studies which aim to explain how the language of schizophrenics differs from the common language. This book, on the other hand, basically attempts to provide the reason why this language differs. The shift from description to explanation required the development of a new psycholinguistic method and the assertion that schizophrenia is a semiotic illness. The remarkable humanistic value of this book lies in the sensitivity of the author's approach to the mentally ill and in the concept that the language of schizophrenics is understandable, and consequently, that it is possible to actually understand the sick person. The social consequences of this are of immense significance for those attempting to communicate, whether as doctors or family members, with the one in 100 persons who use schizophrenic language. Dr. Wrobel's interpretation of so-called schizophrenic illumination, in which the curtain is torn, behind which the essence of things is cancelled and the schizophrenic reaches the heart of the meaning of everything, numbers among the most apt descriptions of this unusual psychopathological phenomenon. Z. Ryn, Professor of Psychiatry
Author: Hans-Johann Glock Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1139436732 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 329
Book Description
Quine and Davidson are among the leading thinkers of the twentieth century. Their influence on contemporary philosophy is second to none, and their impact is also strongly felt in disciplines such as linguistics and psychology. This book is devoted to both of them, but also questions some of their basic assumptions. Hans-Johann Glock critically scrutinizes their ideas on ontology, truth, necessity, meaning and interpretation, thought and language, and shows that their attempts to accommodate meaning and thought within a naturalistic framework, either by impugning them as unclear or by extracting them from physical facts, are ultimately unsuccessful. His discussion includes interesting comparisons of Quine and Davidson with other philosophers, particularly Wittgenstein, and also offers detailed accounts of central issues in contemporary analytic philosophy, such as the nature of truth and of meaning and interpretation, and the relation between thought and language.
Author: Andrea Moro Publisher: MIT Press ISBN: 0262549239 Category : Language Arts & Disciplines Languages : en Pages : 157
Book Description
An investigation into the possibility of impossible languages, searching for the indelible “fingerprint” of human language. Can there be such a thing as an impossible human language? A biologist could describe an impossible animal as one that goes against the physical laws of nature (entropy, for example, or gravity). Are there any such laws that constrain languages? In this book, Andrea Moro—a distinguished linguist and neuroscientist—investigates the possibility of impossible languages, searching, as he does so, for the indelible “fingerprint” of human language. Moro shows how the very notion of impossible languages has helped shape research on the ultimate aim of linguistics: to define the class of possible human languages. He takes us beyond the boundaries of Babel, to the set of properties that, despite appearances, all languages share, and explores the sources of that order, drawing on scientific experiments he himself helped design. Moro compares syntax to the reverse side of a tapestry revealing a hidden and apparently intricate structure. He describes the brain as a sieve, considers the reality of (linguistic) trees, and listens for the sound of thought by recording electrical activity in the brain. Words and sentences, he tells us, are like symphonies and constellations: they have no content of their own; they exist because we listen to them and look at them. We are part of the data.
Author: N. J. Enfield
Author: N. J. Enfield
Author: Michael Devitt
Author: Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy
Author: Peter Godfrey-Smith
Author: Peter Kingsley
Author: Janusz Wróbel
Author: Hans-Johann Glock
Author: Frank Ackerman
Author: Andrea Moro
Author: Hilary Putnam