Limits of Intelligibility

Limits of Intelligibility
Author: Jens Pier
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 378
Release: 2022-11-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1000803082

The chapters in this volume investigate the question of where, and in what sense, the bounds of intelligible thought, knowledge, and speech are to be drawn. Is there a way in which we are limited in what we think, know, and say? And if so, does this mean that we are constrained—that there is something beyond the ken of human intelligibility of which we fall short? Or is there another way to think about these limits of intelligibility—namely, as conditions of our meaning and knowing anything, beyond which there is no specifiable thing we cannot do? These issues feature prominently in the writings of Kant and Wittgenstein who each engaged with them in unique and striking ways. Their thoughts on the matter remain provocative and stimulating, and accordingly, the contributions to this volume address the issues surrounding the limits of intelligibility both exegetically and systematically: they examine how they figure in Kant’s and Wittgenstein’s most significant works and put them in touch with contemporary debates that are shaped by their legacy. These debates concern, inter alia, logically and morally alien thought, the semantics and philosophy of negation, disjunctivism in philosophy of perception and ethics, paraconsistent approaches to contradiction, and the relation between art, literature, and philosophy. The book is divided into four parts: Part I gives a first assessment of the issues, Part II examines limits as they feature in Kant, Part III as they feature in Wittgenstein, and Part IV suggests some ways in which the questions might be reconsidered, drawing upon ideas in phenomenology, dialetheism, metamathematics, and the works of other influential authors. Limits of Intelligibility provides insight into a theme that is central to the thought of two of the most important figures in modern philosophy, as well as to recent metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of logic, epistemology, and ethics.

Wittgenstein and the Limits of Language

Wittgenstein and the Limits of Language
Author: Hanne Appelqvist
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2019-11-25
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1351202650

The limit of language is one of the most pervasive notions found in Wittgenstein’s work, both in his early Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and his later writings. Moreover, the idea of a limit of language is intimately related to important scholarly debates on Wittgenstein’s philosophy, such as the debate between the so-called traditional and resolute interpretations, Wittgenstein’s stance on transcendental idealism, and the philosophical import of Wittgenstein’s latest work On Certainty. This collection includes thirteen original essays that provide a comprehensive overview of the various ways in which Wittgenstein appeals to the limit of language at different stages of his philosophical development. The essays connect the idea of a limit of language to the most important themes discussed by Wittgenstein—his conception of logic and grammar, the method of philosophy, the nature of the subject, and the foundations of knowledge—as well as his views on ethics, aesthetics, and religion. The essays also relate Wittgenstein’s thought to his contemporaries, including Carnap, Frege, Heidegger, Levinas, and Moore.

Explaining the Normative

Explaining the Normative
Author: Stephen P. Turner
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2013-05-02
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0745654533

Normativity is what gives reasons their force, makes words meaningful, and makes rules and laws binding. It is present whenever we use such terms as ‘correct,' ‘ought,' ‘must,' and the language of obligation, responsibility, and logical compulsion. Yet normativists, the philosophers committed to this idea, admit that the idea of a non-causal normative realm and a body of normative objects is spooky. Explaining the Normative is the first systematic, historically grounded critique of normativism. It identifies the standard normativist pattern of argument, and shows how this pattern depends on circularities, assumptions about the unique correctness of preferred descriptions, problematic transcendental arguments, and regress arguments that end in mysteries. The book considers in detail a paradigm case: legal normativity as constructed by Hans Kelsen. This case exemplifies the problems with normativist arguments. But it also shows how normativism was constructed as an alternative to ordinary social science explanation. The normativist argument is that social science explanations themselves are forced to rely on normative conceptsÑminimally, on normative rationality and on a normative view of ‘concepts' themselves. Empathic understanding of the reasoning and meanings of others, however, can solve the regress problems about meaning and rationality that are central to the appeal of normativism. This account has no need for a parallel normative world, and has a surprising and revealing lineage in the history of philosophy, as well as a basis in neuroscience.

Understanding the Tacit

Understanding the Tacit
Author: Stephen P. Turner
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2014-01-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1134643950

This book outlines a new account of the tacit, meaning tacit knowledge, presuppositions, practices, traditions, and so forth. It includes essays on topics such as underdetermination and mutual understanding, and critical discussions of the major alternative approaches to the tacit, including Bourdieu’s habitus and various practice theories, Oakeshott’s account of tradition, Quentin Skinner’s theory of historical meaning, Harry Collins’s idea of collective tacit knowledge, as well as discussions of relevant cognitive science concepts, such as non-conceptual content, connectionism, and mirror neurons. The new account of tacit knowledge focuses on the fact that in making the tacit explicit, a person is not, as many past accounts have supposed, reading off the content of some sort of shared and fixed tacit scheme of presuppositions, but rather responding to the needs of the Other for understanding.

The Intelligible World

The Intelligible World
Author: James Lawler
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 485
Release: 2014-09-26
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1443867764

Understanding Kant’s “pre-critical” philosophy is central to appreciating his three critiques. Overshadowed by the critiques, the early work stands on its own as a central contribution to the development of the philosophy of its time. In addition, it not only prepares the way for the critiques, but constitutes a hidden background without which they cannot be adequately understood. Here we find Kant’s great cosmology, which is what Kant later regarded as the “thing-in-itself,” persisting behind his notions of the noumenon, the intelligible world, and the postulates of morality. Although he finally decided that his grand cosmological vision could not be demonstrated, what cannot be strictly known can still be conjectured, justifiably believed, or postulated. Kant’s “only possible proof” for the existence of God remains implicit in the first critique. The only writer about whom Kant ever dedicated a major work, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer Elucidated by Dreams of Metaphysics, was Emanuel Swedenborg. Kant here explores a conjectural metaphysics of matter and spirit, and further formulates the meaning of “the intelligible world,” providing the ontological framework of his later ethics. If only one of Swedenborg’s documented spirit-seeings was valid, how feeble must the metaphysical dreams of philosophers themselves seem.

Reading Riddles

Reading Riddles
Author: Brian Tucker
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
Total Pages: 199
Release: 2010-12-16
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1611480299

Reading Riddles: Rhetorics of Obscurity from Romanticism to Freud explores how the riddle becomes a figure for reading and writing in early German Romanticism and how this model then enables Sigmund Freud's approach to the psyche. It traces a migration of ideas from literature to psychoanalysis and argues that the relationship between them must be situated at the methodological level. Through readings of texts by August Wilhelm, Friedrich Schlegel, G.W.F. Hegel, and Ludwig Tieck Reading Riddles documents how the Romantics expand the field of poetic signification to include obscure, distorted signs and how they applied this rhetoric of obscurity to the self. The book argues that this model of self and signification plays a central role in the formulation of Freud's psychoanalytic theory. If the self is a riddle, as many in the nineteenth century claim, Freud takes the figure seriously and interprets the mind according to all the structures and techniques of that textual genre.

A Companion to Ancient Philosophy

A Companion to Ancient Philosophy
Author: Mary Louise Gill
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 832
Release: 2009-02-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1405178256

A Companion to Ancient Philosophy provides a comprehensive and current overview of the history of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy from its origins until late antiquity. Comprises an extensive collection of original essays, featuring contributions from both rising stars and senior scholars of ancient philosophy Integrates analytic and continental traditions Explores the development of various disciplines, such as mathematics, logic, grammar, physics, and medicine, in relation to ancient philosophy Includes an illuminating introduction, bibliography, chronology, maps and an index

From Communicative Action to the Face of the Other

From Communicative Action to the Face of the Other
Author: Steve Hendley
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 204
Release: 2000
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780739101414

Although the continental philosophers Jurgen Habermas and Emmanuel Levinas are both inescapably important to an array of debates in contemporary moral theory, they are rarely assessed in relation to each other. Steven Hendley's study is based on the conviction that beneath the surface there is in fact a remarkable degree of convergence in the two philosophers' work that is usually overlooked. Hendley discovers and explains the complementarity of Levinas's conception of discourse in relation to the Other to Habermas's theory of communication as the basis for recognition of universal moral norms.

The Nature and Limits of Political Science

The Nature and Limits of Political Science
Author: Maurice Cowling
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2006-04-20
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780521025829

This book provides a fascinating and critical overview of the study of political subjects within English universities in the mid-twentieth-century, and the strengths and weaknesses of certain patterns of thinking.

Speaking from Elsewhere

Speaking from Elsewhere
Author: José Medina
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2007-06-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 079148095X

Develops a contextualist view of identity, agency, and discursive practices. In Speaking from Elsewhere, author JoseŒ Medina argues for the critical and transformative power of speech from marginalized locations by articulating a contextualist view of meaning, identity, and agency. This contextualism draws from different philosophical traditions (Wittgenstein, pragmatism, and feminist theory) and crosses disciplinary boundaries (philosophy, cultural studies, women’s studies, and sociology) to underscore both the diversity of voices and viewpoints and the openness of discursive contexts and practices. Expressing a robust notion of discursive responsibility, Medina contends that, as speakers and members of linguistic communities, we cannot elude the obligation to open up discursive spaces for new voices and to facilitate new dialogues that break silences and empower marginalized voices. José Medina is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University and the author of The Unity of Wittgenstein’s Philosophy: Necessity, Intelligibility, and Normativity, also published by SUNY Press, and Language: Key Concepts in Philosophy, and the coeditor (with David Wood) of Truth: Engagements Across Philosophical Traditions.