This collection of fourteen original essays addresses the seminal contribution of Franz Brentano and his heirs, to philosophy of language. Despite the great interest provoked by the Brentanian tradition and its multiple connections with early analytic philosophy, precious little is known about the Brentanian contribution to philosophy of language. The aim of this new collection is to fill this gap by providing the reader with a more thorough understanding of the legacy of Brentano and his school, in their pursuit of a unique research programme according to which the analysis of meaning is inseparable from philosophical inquiries into what goes on in the mind and what there is in the world.
In three parts, the volume first reconstructs Brentano’s pathbreaking thoughts on meaning and grammatical illusions, exploring their strong connections with the Austro-German tradition and analytic philosophy. It then addresses the multifaceted debates on the objectivity of meaning in the Brentano School and its aftermath (Meinong, Husserl, Ingarden, Twardowski and the Lvov-Warsaw School). Finally, part three explores Brentano’s wider legacy, namely: Husserl’s theory of modification and typicality, Bühler’s theory of linguistic and non-linguistic expressions, and Wittgenstein’s thoughts on guidance and rule-following.
The result is a unique collection of essays which shows the significance, originality and timely character of the Brentanian philosophy of language.
Author(s): Arnaud Dewalque, Charlotte Gauvry, Sébastien Richard
Series: History of Analytic Philosophy
Edition: 1
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: 339
Series Editor’s Foreword
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Figures
1: Introduction: Mind, Meaning and Reality
1 The Invisibility of Brentano’s Philosophy of Language
2 Brentano’s Approach to Language
2.1 Behind the Words: Mental Phenomena
2.2 Grammatical Illusions
3 The Transformation of the Brentanian Research Programme
3.1 A Research Programme
3.2 The Objective Side of Meaning
4 Brentano and Analytic Philosophy
4.1 Philosophy as a Critique of Language
4.2 Ordinary Language Philosophy
4.3 Communication Theory
4.4 An Integrative View
5 Content of the Volume
References
Part I: Brentano and Philosophy of Language
2: The Context Principle in Austro-German Philosophy
1 The Context Principle in Frege’s Grundlagen
2 Some Readings of the CP
3 Contextual Definitions and Paraphrases
4 Grasping and Communicating
5 A Compromise between Brentano and Frege
6 Further Austro-German Applications of the Context Principle
References
Archive Materials
3: A Context Principle in Brentano?
1 Brentano: A Philosopher of Language?
2 Syncategorematic Expressions
3 Categorematic Expressions
4 A Contextualist?
5 Conclusion
References
4: Brentano and Mauthner on Grammatical Illusions
1 Critique of Language
2 Language Doesn’t Refer to the Outside World
3 Three Kinds of ‘Word Fetishes’
4 Some Differences
5 Concluding Remarks
References
5: Misleading Expressions: The Brentano-Ryle Connection
1 Analysis
2 Two Senses of ‘About’
3 Ficta
4 A Moral About the Meaning of ‘Meaning’
References
6: Sign and Language in Anton Marty: Before and after Brentano
1 The Destruction of the Cult of the Word
2 The Semiotics of the Young Marty
3 Marty and His Contemporaries on Signs
4 What Does ‘Instrumentalist’ Mean?
5 Austro-German Scholasticism
References
Part II: The Brentano School: Act, Meaning and Object
7: De Significatione: The Brentano-Ingarden Axis
1 Introduction
2 Brentano and others
3 Meinong I
4 Meinong II
5 Husserl
6 Twardowski
7 Ingarden
References
8: Meaning(s) in Roman Ingarden’s Philosophy of Language
1 Introduction
2 Language as a Polystratic Intentional Entity
3 Meaning, Rationality and Reference
4 Axiological Meaning
4.1 The Layer of Represented Objectivities: Metaphysical Qualities and Meaning2
4.2 Word-Sounds and the Life of Language
4.3 Concrete Examples of Value-Shaped Language: Art, Science and Ordinary Language
5 Conclusion
References
9: Overcoming Psychologism: Twardowski on Actions and Products
1 The Genesis of Psychologism in the Young Twardowski’s Work
2 Twardowski’s Picture Theory of Meaning and Husserl’s Criticism in the Logical Investigations
3 Twardowski’s Self-Criticism in his Lectures on the Psychology of Thinking
4 Preliminary Remarks on “Actions und Products”
5 Overview of Twardowski’s “Actions and Products”
6 Psychologism and the Delineation of Psychology and the Humanities
7 Final Remarks
References
10: Is the Content-Object Distinction Universally Valid? Meaning and Reference in Twardowski and Meinong
1 Twardowski’s Content-Object Distinction
2 Mental Content—Ideal Content—Object
3 Meinong’s Theory of Objects
4 A Few Principles of Meinongian (Non-Standard) Formal Logic
5 Twardowski’s Content-Object Distinction Threatened
6 The Content-Object Distinction as Regards Inexistent Objects
7 The Content-Object Distinction as Regards Abstract Objects
8 Are all Inexistent Objects Equal as Regards the Content-Object Distinction?
9 Conclusions
References
11: Extensionality/Intensionality in Polish Philosophy of Language: From Twardowski to Ajdukiewicz
1 Introduction
2 General Historical Remarks
3 Twardowski and Extensionality
4 Łukasiewicz and Leśniewski on the Extensionality of Logic
5 Extensionality and the Semantic Theory of Truth
6 Some Polish Attempts to Eliminate Intensionality
6.1 Kotarbiński
6.2 Ajdukiewicz
7 Final Remarks
References
Part III: Brentano’s Wider Legacy
12: Modifying Terms and Modification in Husserl and the Brentano School
1 Introduction
2 Modification in Brentano and the Brentano School
3 Modification in Husserl’s Logical Investigations
4 A Phenomenological Account of Modification
References
13: The Early Husserl on Typicality
1 Introduction: Some Typicalities
2 A Brief Excursus: The Later Husserl on Type Concepts
3 The Early Husserl’s Account of Typicality
4 Evaluation
References
14: Wundt and Bühler on Gestural Expression: From Psycho-Physical Mirroring to the Diacrisis
1 Introduction
2 Wundt: Expression and Grammar
3 Bühler: Diacrisis, Steering, Structure
References
15: On Being Guided, Signals and Rules: From Bühler to Wittgenstein
1 A Guide to Guidance
2 Reading and Guidance
3 Misleading Pictures and Pianolas: Machines and Modality, Rules and Rigidity
4 Early Bühler and Early Wittgenstein on Rule-Awareness
References
Index
