The rule-following debate, in its concern with the metaphysics and epistemology of linguistic meaning and mental content, goes to the heart of the most fundamental questions of contemporary philosophy of mind and language. This volume gathers together the most important contributions to the topic, including papers by Simon Blackburn, Paul Boghossian, Graeme Forbes, Warren Goldfarb, Paul Horwich, John McDowell, Colin McGinn, Ruth Millikan, Philip Pettit, George Wilson, Crispin Wright, and Jose Zalabardo. The debate has centred on Saul Kripke's reading of the rule-following sections in Wittgenstein and his consequent posing of a sceptical paradox that threatens our everyday notions of linguistic meaning and mental content. These essays are attempts to respond to this challenge and represent some of the most important work in contemporary theory of meaning. With an introductory essay and a comprehensive guide to further reading this book is an excellent resource for courses in philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, Wittgenstein, and metaphysics, as well as for all philosophers, linguists, and cognitive scientists with interests in these areas.

Table of Contents " Preface " Introductory " The Wittgensteinian Paradox " The Solution and the 'Private Language' Argument " Postscript Wittgenstein and Other Minds " Index.

Through detailed and trenchant criticism of standard interpretations of some of the key arguments in analytical philosophy over the last sixty years, this book arrives at a new conception of the proper starting point and task of the philosophy of language. To understand central topics in the philosophy of language and mind, Gary Ebbs contends, we must investigate them from our perspective as participants in shared linguistic practices; but our efforts at adopting this participant perspective are limited by our lingering loyalties to metaphysical realism (the view that we can make objective assertions only if we can grasp metaphysically independent truth conditions) and scientific naturalism (the view that it is only within science that reality can be identified and described). In Rule-Following and Realism, Ebbs works to loosen the hold of these views by exposing their roots and developing a different way of looking at our linguistic practices. Reexamining and extending influential arguments by Saul Kripke, W. V. Quine, Rudolf Carnap, Hilary Putnam, and Tyler Burge, Ebbs presents systematic redescriptions of our linguistic practices that transform our understanding of such central topics as rule-following, the analytic-synthetic distinction, realism, anti-individualism, the division of linguistic labor, self-knowledge, and skepticism.

“Providing up-to-date, in-depth coverage of the central question, and written and edited by some of the foremost practitioners in the field, this timely new edition will no doubt be a go-to reference for anyone with a serious interest in the philosophy of language.” Kathrin Glüer-Pagin, Stockholm University Now published in two volumes, the second edition of the best-selling Companion to the Philosophy of Language provides a complete survey of contemporary philosophy of language. The Companion has been greatly extended and now includes a monumental 17 new essays – with topics chosen by the editors, who curated suggestions from current contributors – and almost all of the 25 original chapters have been updated to take account of recent developments in the field. In addition to providing a synoptic view of the key issues, figures, concepts, and debates, each essay introduces new and original contributions to ongoing debates, as well as addressing a number of new areas of interest, including two-dimensional semantics, modality and epistemic modals, and semantic relationism. The extended “state-of-the-art” chapter format allows the authors, all of whom are internationally eminent scholars in the field, to incorporate original research to a far greater degree than competitor volumes. Unrivaled in scope, this volume represents the best contemporary critical thinking relating to the philosophy of language.

This book focuses on the problems of rules, rule-following and normativity as discussed within the areas of analytic philosophy, linguistics, logic and legal theory. Divided into four parts, the volume covers topics in general analytic philosophy, analytic legal theory, legal interpretation and argumentation, logic as well as AI& Law area of research. It discusses, inter alia, “Kripkenstein’s” sceptical argument against rule-following and normativity of meaning, the role of neuroscience in explaining the phenomenon of normativity, conventionalism in philosophy of law, normativity of rules of interpretation, some formal approaches towards rules and normativity as well as the problem of defeasibility of rules. The aim of the book is to provide an interdisciplinary approach to an inquiry into the questions concerning rules, rule-following and normativity.

First published in 2005. The essays and replies in this volume represent, with some modifications, the proceedings of a colloquium held in Oxford in Trinity Term, 1979. With occasional exceptions, critical response to the Philosophical Investigations following publication focused on a limited range of topics - an unsystematic book was discussed in an unsystematic fashion. This book employs a different approach, one that interprets disconnected discussions of Wittgenstein's as united by a single underlying set of powerful arguments.

In this textbook, Michael Morris offers a critical introduction to the central issues of the philosophy of language. Each chapter focusses on one or two texts which have had a seminal influence on work in the subject, and uses these as a way of approaching both the central topics and the various traditions of dealing with them. Texts include classic writings by Frege, Russell, Kripke, Quine, Davidson, Austin, Grice and Wittgenstein. Theoretical jargon is kept to a minimum and is fully explained whenever it is introduced. The range of topics covered includes sense and reference, definite descriptions, proper names, natural-kind terms, de re and de dicto necessity, propositional attitudes, truth-theoretical approaches to meaning, radical interpretation, indeterminacy of translation, speech acts, intentional theories of meaning, and scepticism about meaning. The book will be invaluable to students and to all readers who are interested in the nature of linguistic meaning.