From formal semantics to transcendental pragmatics: Karl-Otto Apel’s original insight

2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (6) ◽  
pp. 627-650
Author(s):  
Jürgen Habermas
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Formal Semantics ◽  
Discourse Ethics ◽  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
Post War ◽  
Original Insight

Karl-Otto Apel occupies a pre-eminent place among the German philosophers of the first post-war generation. His groundbreaking achievement, which has been unjustly overshadowed by the tenacious debate over the ‘ultimate justification’ of ethics, consisted in disclosing a new dimension in the philosophy of language and thereby completing the ‘linguistic turn’. He made the transition from formal semantics, which concentrates on the structure of propositions, to ‘transcendental’ pragmatics of language, which focuses on the formal aspects of the use and interpretation of linguistic expressions. In pursuing this path, he also laid the foundations for discourse ethics. The essay traces the stages of this ‘transformation of transcendental philosophy’ leading from the late Heidegger to Apel’s conception of ‘transcendental hermeneutics’ inspired by Peirce. Continuing the lifelong discourse with my friend Karl-Otto, I will conclude by addressing some problems raised by his justification of discourse ethics.

Metaphilosophical metamorphoses of analytic philosophy of language

Semiotica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tadeusz Szubka
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
First Century ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
Current State ◽  
First Philosophy ◽  
New Millennium

Abstract The paper begins with an account of the emergence of analytic philosophy of language in the twentieth century in the context of the development of logic and the linguistic turn. Subsequently, it describes two examples of analytic philosophy of language in its heyday when the discipline was conceived as first philosophy. Finally, it provides, by way of conclusion, a succinct outline of the current state of philosophy of language, marked by modesty and fragmentation. It is claimed that even if one retains optimism about the prospects of philosophy of language in the first century of the new millennium, it would be unreasonable to disagree with the opinion that the present-day philosophy of language is a highly specialized and diversified discipline and no longer so central for philosophical enterprise as it used to be.

scholarly journals Stanislav Lem on the philosophy of language: recovery from fragments of phrases

2022 ◽  
pp. 94-105
Author(s):  
P. N. Baryshnikov
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Creative Thinking ◽  
Language Model ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Semantic Transparency ◽  
Intellectual Culture ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
Interdisciplinary Methods ◽  
Language Recovery ◽  
Linguistic Sign

This article examines some of S. Lem’s statements about his philosophical and worldview positions regarding the mysterious nature of language and the linguistic sign, the connection between language, mind and reality. The main goal of the paper is to understand what texts on the philosophy of language the Polish thinker read and what attitude he has formed towards them. Lem is the follower of an analytical intellectual culture that focuses on the naturalistic worldview and the consequences of the “linguistic turn” in Western philosophy. For Lem, language is not only an interesting philosophical object, but also a complex precise instrument of his own creative thinking. In this regard, the philosophy of language for a writer cannot be based only on logical-linguistic atomistic methodology. Lem seeks (and finds) in his contemporary interdisciplinary methods ways to combine realistic and anti-realist positions. Many concepts, such as “the effect of semantic transparency”, “polymorphic language model”, “variation model” are quite correlated with modern theories of language and require additional philosophical comments.

scholarly journals On the nature of the lexicon: The status of rich lexical meanings

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 865-891
Author(s):  
LOTTE HOGEWEG ◽  
AGUSTIN VICENTE
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Formal Semantics ◽  
World Knowledge ◽  
Semantic Representations ◽  
Structured Representations ◽  
The Status ◽  
Truth Conditional

Both in linguistics and in psycholinguistics there is some debate about how rich or thin lexico-semantic representations are. Traditionally, in formal semantics but also in philosophy of language as well as in cognitive pragmatics, lexical meanings have been thought to be simple stable denotations or functions. In this paper, we present and discuss a number of interpretational phenomena of which the analysis proposed in the literature makes crucial use of rich meanings. The phenomena in question are cases where the assignment of truth-conditional contents to utterances seems to follow rules that do not operate on simple stable denotations or any other kind of ‘thin’ meanings but where composition takes rich structured representations as input. We also discuss problems for such accounts, which are mostly based on the inability of extant rich meanings accounts to explain many other interpretational phenomena, and we discuss the solutions that have been proposed to solve them. Furthermore, we address the discussion whether the informationally rich meanings are part of semantics, and more specifically part of the lexicon, or whether this information should be ascribed to more general world knowledge.

scholarly journals The Problem of Schematism in Kant and its Transformation in Southwest Neo-Kantianism

Kant Yearbook ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-114
Author(s):  
Christian Krijnen
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Given ◽  
Internal Relationships

AbstractThe meaning and validity of Kant’s Kant’s doctrine of schematism remains contested until today. In neo-Kantianism and post-War transcendental philosophy, Kant’s schematism of the pure concepts of understanding is transformed drastically. Kant’s thesis of heterogeneity is overcome by taking it back into the internal relationships of the structure of cognition. The spontaneity of thought, performing schematizations, is retained, but Kant’s project of conceiving of the foundations of knowledge in the fashion of a theory of apperception of the I as well as the externality of the given and the determination of the given that goes along with it is sublated by an objective order of validity-noematic constitution and regulation. Kant’s doctrine of schematism, then, shows to be methodology.

scholarly journals Tradições epistemológicas nos estudos de organização dos saberes: uma leitura histórico-epistêmica a partir da filosofia da linguagem | Epistemological traditions in studies of knowledge organization: a historical-epistemic reading based on the philosophy

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gustavo Silva Saldanha
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Knowledge Building ◽  
Knowledge Organization ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
Construction Of Knowledge ◽  
Epistemological Tradition ◽  
Science Philosophy ◽  
Collective Construction

Resumo Analisa o campo da organização dos saberes a partir da filosofia da linguagem. Problematiza a virada lingüística e sua importância no campo informacional. Critica a terminologia adotada para classificar o campo que atua com preservação, representação e transmissão de conceitos e artefatos que possibilitam a construção coletiva do conhecimento. Categoriza a tradição representacionista e a tradição pragmática. Descreve as tradições epistemológicas do campo informacional fundadas em uma filosofia da linguagem através das manifestações institucionais que atravessaram o século XX.Palavras-chave epistemologia da ciência da informação; filosofia da linguagem; tradição epistemológica; tradição pragmática; tradição representacionistaAbstract The article examines the field of organization of knowledge building on the philosophy of language. Questions the linguistic turn and its importance in the informational field. Criticizes the terminology used to classify the field that works with preservation, representation and transmission of concepts and artifacts that allow the collective construction of knowledge. Categorizes the representationalist tradition and the pragmatic tradition. Describes the epistemological traditions of the informational field based on a philosophy of language in institutional manifestations across throughout the twentieth century.Keywords epistemology of information science; philosophy of language; epistemological tradition; pragmatic tradition; representationalist tradition 

scholarly journals Tower of Babel: transcendental linguistics in Friedrich von Hardenberg’s (Novalis) Fichte Studies

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 32
Author(s):  
Alexander Knopf
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Objective Knowledge ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Unsuccessful Attempt ◽  
Tower Of Babel ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
Original Insight ◽  
Insight Into

This article provides a new interpretation of the linguistic aspects of Friedrich von Hardenberg’s Fichte Studies. It argues that Hardenberg was searching, among other things, for a transcendental language for philosophy. The possibility of such a language was discussed intensely among his contemporaries, such as Maimon, Niethammer, Reinhold, Weißhuhn, and Fichte. Its necessity, however, had become apparent with Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Readers had noticed a disturbing discrepancy between the objective knowledge of transcendental philosophy—which, according to Kant, was supposed to be generally communicable—and Kant’s actual failure to communicate it. Hardenberg’s original insight into the inseparable unity of sign and signified, anticipating modern linguistic theories, led him to the assumption of a lawful relationship between both. From his unsuccessful attempt to disclose these laws, he went on to discover language as an independent realm fundamentally opposed to nature. Precisely because language is a necessary illusion, only the ‘presenting I’ (das darstellende Ich) achieves its end, namely absolute freedom. Philosophy, therefore, is pure as long as it remains within the boundaries of language alone, that is a language which does not refer to anything outside itself.

From a Rational Point of View

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Henning
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Rational Point ◽  
Formal Semantics ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Normative Reasons ◽  
Alternative Account ◽  
The World ◽  
Motivating Reasons ◽  
Normative Discourse

When we discuss normative reasons, oughts, requirements of rationality, hypothetical imperatives (or “anankastic conditionals”), motivating reasons, or weakness and strength of will, we often use verbs like “believe” and “want” to capture a relevant subject’s perspective. According to the received view, what these verbs do is describe the subject’s mental states. Many puzzles concerning normative discourse have to do with the role that mental states consequently appear to play in this discourse. This book uses tools from formal semantics and the philosophy of language to develop an alternative account of sentences involving these verbs. According to this view, called parentheticalism in honour of J. O. Urmson, we very commonly use these verbs in a parenthetical sense. Clauses with these verbs thereby express backgrounded side-remarks on the contents they embed, and these latter, embedded contents constitute the at-issue contents of our utterances. Thus, instead of speaking about the subject’s mental states, we often use sentences involving “believe” and “want” to speak about the world in a way that, in the conversational background, relates our utterances to her point of view. This idea is made precise and used to solve various puzzles concerning normative discourse. The result is a new, unified understanding of normative discourse, which does not postulate conceptual breaks between objective and subjective normative reasons, or normative reasons and rationality, or indeed between the reasons we ascribe to an agent and the reasons she herself can be expected to cite.

Cutting Philosophy of Language Down to Size

2001 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 125-140
Author(s):  
Ruth Garrett Millikan
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Philosophy Of Biology ◽  
Proper Place ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
Lecture Series ◽  
American Tradition ◽  
Anglo American

When asked to contribute to this lecture series, my first thought was to talk about philosophy of biology, a new and increasingly influential field in philosophy, surely destined to have great impact in the coming years. But when a preliminary schedule for the series was circulated, I noticed that no one was speaking on language. Given the hegemony of philosophy of language at mid-century, after ‘the linguistic turn’, this seemed to require comment. How did philosophy of language achieve such status at mid-century, and why is it losing it now? Has the Anglo-American tradition really begun to put the philosophy of language in better perspective? I hope so. Indeed, I will end with suggestions for how to keep it more securely in its proper place.

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