A Gricean preamble concludes that though utterances have unintended meanings, those cannot be considered apart from their intended meanings. Intention distinguishes artworks from natural phenomena. To allocate an artwork to a genre, to accept its normal authorial boundaries and that its content is not random but chosen, is to concede intention's centrality. Wimsatt and Beardsley were right that meaning is public. But they think 'intention' is 'private' or 'unavailable'. However, it too is public, in the work. Fictions are utterances of (...) a curious kind. They may mimic, but are not meant to be taken for, veridical reports. Neither are they 'pseudo-statements' nor 'pretended illocutionary acts'. Their logical form is actually this: 'I [author] invite you [reader] to imagine that S [content].' This prescribes no response, nor claims to describe the 'real' world, even though it may elicit a response appropriate to real-life events. One reason for imagining fictional situations may be to strengthen the perceptions necessary for real life. (shrink)

This paper explores the thought of Hegel, Saussure and Derrida regarding the nature of the linguistic sign. It argues that Derrida is right to maintain that Hegel is an influence on Saussure. However, Derrida misrepresents both Hegel and Saussure by interpreting them as falling within the Platonic rather than the Aristotelian philosophical tradition.

The group of mathematicians known as Bourbaki persuasively proclaimed the isolation of its field of research – pure mathematics – from society and science. It may therefore seem paradoxical that links with larger French cultural movements, especially structuralism and potential literature, are easy to establish. Rather than arguing that the latter were a consequence of the former, which they were not, I show that all of these cultural movements, including the Bourbakist endeavor, emerged together, each strengthening the public appeal of (...) the others through constant, albeit often superficial, interaction. This codependency is partly responsible for their success and moreover accounts for their simultaneous fall from favor, which, however, can clearly be seen as also stemming from different internal problems. To understand this dynamics, I argue that Bourbaki’s role can best be captured by using the notion of cultural connector, which I introduce here. (shrink)

Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, later founder and President of the Republic of Czechoslovakia, studied philosophy in the University of Vienna from 1872 to 1876, where he came under the powerful influence of Franz Brentano. We survey the role of Brentano’s philosophy, and especially of his ethics, in Masaryk’s life and work.