Abstract

Paradigms Regained is James L Battersby's effort to reclaim for literary study certain legitimate territories that have been needlessly abandoned on the theoretical battlefield. Despite assertions to the contrary by poststructuralist or new historicist critics, Battersby contends, it is still possible to talk intelligently, rigorously, and usefully about such issues as literary intentionality, stable references, determinate meaning, and objective value judgments of literary works. What enables Battersby to make his argument is his reliance not on continental thought but on Anglo-American analytic and pragmatic philosophers, including Donald Davidson, Michael Dummett, Nelson Goodman, Hilary Putnam, John Searle, and Israel Scheffler. Battersby synthesizes and builds on their work in a way that is at once fresh and distinctive.