This writing is part of a body of reflections about the ‘researching programs’ and ‘categories’ used in philosophy, philology and linguistics to explain human language. Within this framework, several categories like Modell, Vorbild and Paradigm are covered from a descriptive sense according to the ‘Wittgenstein’ research program. From Russell’s conception of language, there is a treatment to the prescriptive aspects of Plato’s ideas and their relation to universals. Then, the universal category in the predicament act and the denotation (...) act are linked proposing their relation with notions such as ‘knowledge’ and ‘truth’. Therefore some concerns, shared by Russell and Wittgenstein about a philosophical grammar, are pointed out for the expression of human understanding. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION WERNER ABRAHAM, LACI MARÁCZ, SJAAK DE MEY & WIM SCHERPENISSE University of Groningen The Groningen Conference on Topic, ...

A well‐established principle of language is that there is a preference for closely related words to be close together in the sentence. This can be expressed as a preference for dependency length minimization (DLM). In this study, we explore quantitatively the degree to which natural languages reflect DLM. We extract the dependencies from natural language text and reorder the words in such a way as to minimize dependency length. Comparing the original text with these optimal linearizations (and also (...) with random linearizations) reveals the degree to which natural language minimizes dependency length. Tests on English data show that English shows a strong effect of DLM, with dependency length much closer to optimal than to random; the optimal English grammar also has many specific features in common with English. In German, too, dependency length is significantly less than random, but the effect is much weaker than in English. We conclude by speculating about some possible reasons for this difference between English and German. (shrink)

0 Introduction 0.1 Variation in nominal coreference Nominal coreference has received much interest in the field of text linguistics as an essential strategy ...

Grammatical gender is independent of biological sex for the majority of animal names (e.g., any giraffe, be it male or female, is grammatically treated as feminine). However, there is apparent semantic motivation for grammatical gender classes, especially in mapping human terms to gender. This research investigated whether this motivation affects deductive inference in native German speakers. We compared German with Japanese speakers (a language without grammatical gender) when making inferences about sex-specific biological properties. We found that (...) class='Hi'>German speakers tended to erroneously draw inferences when the sex in the premise and grammatical gender of the target animal agreed. An over-generalization of the grammar–semantics mapping was found even when the sex of the target was explicitly indicated. However, these effects occurred only when gender-marking articles accompanied the nouns. These results suggest that German speakers project sex-specific biological properties onto gender-marking articles but not onto conceptual representations of animals per se. (shrink)

Bursill-Hall, writing as a linguist, has produced a book of interest and use to all students of philosophy who are intrigued either by medieval or by modern theories of language, or by both. Bursill-Hall’s book is the first full-length presentation of this material in English. After a brief, not to say, desultory, survey of the history of linguistic theory from the Greeks until the appearance of the so-called Modistae, the author discusses the descriptive technique and the terminology of the (...) speculative grammarians. The third chapter, "Metalanguage," offers a valuable analysis of the basic "elements" and "categories" of modistic grammar. One especially striking feature of this chapter is the author’s account of the sequence of operations through which a vox, or meaningless sound, becomes, first, a dictio, or sound capable of signifying, and, then, a pars orationis, a part of speech or word-class, capable of entering into syntactic relations with other partes orationis so as to produce a meaningful and well-formed sentence. The next four chapters form the core of the work. Taking as his primary sources the Belgian Siger of Courtrai, the German Thomas of Erfurt, and the Dane Martin of Dacia, Bursill-Hall expounds in detail the modistic treatments of the essential, specific and accidental features of the declinable and indeclinable word-classes and the modistic theories of syntax. An evaluative conclusion comparing modistic and modern linguistic theory is followed by a series of appendices in which detailed diagrams make visible the definitions and interrelations of the various modes and partes orationis in the texts of Siger, Thomas and Martin. The work includes a useful bibliography, a table of passages cited from medieval authors, an index of examples cited in the main text, an index of names and an index of subjects. The exposition and the apparatus combine to yield a volume of quickly apparent value for both reference and research. This said, and with due regard for the fact that the author is writing as a professional linguist, it must be said that a certain sense of philosophical disappointment cannot be suppressed. Looked at linguistically, speculative grammar is an attempt to inventory and describe those features of word-classes in virtue of which an element of language is potentially expressive of meaning and capable of entering into syntactic relations with other significant elements. Looked at philosophically, speculative grammar is a theory of the intelligibility of linguistic expressions—cp. Thomas of Erfurt, #225: the end served by a complete expression is "to express a composite mental concept and to generate a perfect understanding in the mind of the hearer." Intelligibility is seen in this theory as the product of the concurrence or interpenetration of the ontological constitution of extramental realities, the apprehensive powers of the intellect and the manners of signifying conferred by the intellect on the linguistic medium in accordance with its appreciation of extramental reality. The author is certainly aware of the philosophical matrix of the grammatical theories he rehearses. At the same time, he seems to give these underlying philosophical considerations rather short shrift. To say, as he does, that the Modistae "seem to have been unaware of... the fact that their theories were in fact a projection into reality of the basic patterns of the language in which they were expressed," is surely not to do justice to the complex ontological, epistemological and semantic issues informing their work. Similarly, a statement that comparison between modistic and modern theories faces the difficulty that "the medieval vision of man in his environment and the metaphysical theories of the world are entirely different from those of today" is, at best, uninformative and, at worst, a piece of vaporous historicism. At other times, it is not entirely clear what interpretation the author is recommending. This is especially true of his remarks about the inactive character of the modus intelligendi. While the Modistae were, after all, doing grammar and not epistemology or, should one say, rational psychology, still, their grammatical theory rests on their insistence that the forms of language are linked appropriately to the forms of being and it is the modus intelligendi activus that is responsible both for the possibility and the success of this linkage. This volume is well-produced and almost completely free of misprints. However, the obnoxiously high price asked by the publisher is not justified either by the quality of production or by the inclusion of numerous Latin citations; it only serves, I fear, as a barrier to the wide circulation the book deserves.—D. L. (shrink)

Bursill-Hall, writing as a linguist, has produced a book of interest and use to all students of philosophy who are intrigued either by medieval or by modern theories of language, or by both. Bursill-Hall’s book is the first full-length presentation of this material in English. After a brief, not to say, desultory, survey of the history of linguistic theory from the Greeks until the appearance of the so-called Modistae, the author discusses the descriptive technique and the terminology of the (...) speculative grammarians. The third chapter, "Metalanguage," offers a valuable analysis of the basic "elements" and "categories" of modistic grammar. One especially striking feature of this chapter is the author’s account of the sequence of operations through which a vox, or meaningless sound, becomes, first, a dictio, or sound capable of signifying, and, then, a pars orationis, a part of speech or word-class, capable of entering into syntactic relations with other partes orationis so as to produce a meaningful and well-formed sentence. The next four chapters form the core of the work. Taking as his primary sources the Belgian Siger of Courtrai, the German Thomas of Erfurt, and the Dane Martin of Dacia, Bursill-Hall expounds in detail the modistic treatments of the essential, specific and accidental features of the declinable and indeclinable word-classes and the modistic theories of syntax. An evaluative conclusion comparing modistic and modern linguistic theory is followed by a series of appendices in which detailed diagrams make visible the definitions and interrelations of the various modes and partes orationis in the texts of Siger, Thomas and Martin. The work includes a useful bibliography, a table of passages cited from medieval authors, an index of examples cited in the main text, an index of names and an index of subjects. The exposition and the apparatus combine to yield a volume of quickly apparent value for both reference and research. This said, and with due regard for the fact that the author is writing as a professional linguist, it must be said that a certain sense of philosophical disappointment cannot be suppressed. Looked at linguistically, speculative grammar is an attempt to inventory and describe those features of word-classes in virtue of which an element of language is potentially expressive of meaning and capable of entering into syntactic relations with other significant elements. Looked at philosophically, speculative grammar is a theory of the intelligibility of linguistic expressions—cp. Thomas of Erfurt, #225: the end served by a complete expression is "to express a composite mental concept and to generate a perfect understanding in the mind of the hearer." Intelligibility is seen in this theory as the product of the concurrence or interpenetration of the ontological constitution of extramental realities, the apprehensive powers of the intellect and the manners of signifying conferred by the intellect on the linguistic medium in accordance with its appreciation of extramental reality. The author is certainly aware of the philosophical matrix of the grammatical theories he rehearses. At the same time, he seems to give these underlying philosophical considerations rather short shrift. To say, as he does, that the Modistae "seem to have been unaware of... the fact that their theories were in fact a projection into reality of the basic patterns of the language in which they were expressed," is surely not to do justice to the complex ontological, epistemological and semantic issues informing their work. Similarly, a statement that comparison between modistic and modern theories faces the difficulty that "the medieval vision of man in his environment and the metaphysical theories of the world are entirely different from those of today" is, at best, uninformative and, at worst, a piece of vaporous historicism. At other times, it is not entirely clear what interpretation the author is recommending. This is especially true of his remarks about the inactive character of the modus intelligendi. While the Modistae were, after all, doing grammar and not epistemology or, should one say, rational psychology, still, their grammatical theory rests on their insistence that the forms of language are linked appropriately to the forms of being and it is the modus intelligendi activus that is responsible both for the possibility and the success of this linkage. This volume is well-produced and almost completely free of misprints. However, the obnoxiously high price asked by the publisher is not justified either by the quality of production or by the inclusion of numerous Latin citations; it only serves, I fear, as a barrier to the wide circulation the book deserves.—D. L. (shrink)

The article deals with the comparison of key terminology in the field of copyright in the Polish, English, Japanese and German languages. The research material consists of copyright acts binding in Poland, Great Britain, the United States of America, Japan and Germany. The terminology has been compared in order to reveal similarities and differences in the meaning. Firstly, statutory terms from the Polish, English, German and Japanese acts will be presented and discussed. Also, a list of functional equivalents (...) will be presented. The task was to search for functional equivalents, and if there is partial equivalence or no equivalence, an equivalent was provided according to techniques of providing equivalents for non-equivalent terms. They were made in such a way that equivalents will correspond with the reality of the laws in the above mentioned languages. The terms have been extracted with the usage of AntConc. The method of analysis of comparable texts has been applied as well as the one based on three categories of equivalence by Šarčević : “near equivalence”, “partial equivalence” and “non-equivalence”. Special attention has been paid to system-bound terminology existing in those five legal systems. To sum up, it should be borne in mind that the copyright law has been unified almost world-wide. As a result many countries have adopted similar or almost identical principles in this respect. Therefore, there is a significant convergence of meanings of analysed copyright terms with only slight differences resulting from deeply ingrained local and national legal traditions. (shrink)

In German, nouns are assigned to one of the three gender classes. For most animal names, however, the assignment is independent of the referent’s biological sex. We examined whether German-speaking children understand this independence of grammar from semantics or whether they assume that grammatical gender is mapped onto biological sex when drawing inferences about sex-specific biological properties of animals. Two cross-linguistic studies comparing German-speaking and Japanese-speaking preschoolers were conducted. The results suggest that German-speaking children utilize grammatical (...) gender as a cue for inferences about sex-specific properties of animals. Further, we found that Japanese- and German-speaking children recruit different resources when drawing inferences about sex-specific properties: Whereas Japanese children paralleled their pattern of inference about properties common to all animals, German children relied on the grammatical gender class of the animal. Implications of these findings for studying the relation between language and thought are discussed. (shrink)

The Grammar of Criminal Law is a 3-volume work that addresses the field of international and comparative criminal law, with its primary focus on the issues of international concern, ranging from genocide, to domestic efforts to combat terrorism, to torture, and to other international crimes. The first volume is devoted to foundational issues. The Grammar of Criminal Law is unique in its systematic emphasis on the relationship between language and legal theory; there is no comparable comparative study of legal (...) language. Written in the spirit of Fletcher's classic Rethinking Criminal Law, this work is essential reading in the field of international and comparative law. (shrink)

We argue for a perspective on bilingual heritage speakers as native speakers of both their languages and present results from a large-scale, cross-linguistic study that took such a perspective and approached bilinguals and monolinguals on equal grounds. We targeted comparable language use in bilingual and monolingual speakers, crucially covering broader repertoires than just formal language. A main database was the open-access RUEG corpus, which covers comparable informal vs. formal and spoken vs. written productions by adolescent and adult bilinguals (...) with heritage-Greek, -Russian, and -Turkish in Germany and the United States and with heritage-German in the United States, and matching data from monolinguals in Germany, the United States, Greece, Russia, and Turkey. Our main results lie in three areas. We found non-canonical patterns not only in bilingual, but also in monolingual speakers, including patterns that have so far been considered absent from native grammars, in domains of morphology, syntax, intonation, and pragmatics. We found a degree of lexical and morphosyntactic inter-speaker variability in monolinguals that was sometimes higher than that of bilinguals, further challenging the model of the streamlined native speaker. In majority language use, non-canonical patterns were dominant in spoken and/or informal registers, and this was true for monolinguals and bilinguals. In some cases, bilingual speakers were leading quantitatively. In heritage settings where the language was not part of formal schooling, we found tendencies of register leveling, presumably due to the fact that speakers had limited access to formal registers of the heritage language. Our findings thus indicate possible quantitative differences and different register distributions rather than distinct grammatical patterns in bilingual and monolingual speakers. This supports the integration of heritage speakers into the native-speaker continuum. Approaching heritage speakers from this perspective helps us to better understand the empirical data and can shed light on language variation and change in native grammars. Furthermore, our findings for monolinguals lead us to reconsider the state-of-the art on majority languages, given recurring evidence for non-canonical patterns that deviate from what has been assumed in the literature so far, and might have been attributed to bilingualism had we not included informal and spoken registers in monolinguals and bilinguals alike. (shrink)

In many papers dealing with the stylistic features of legal texts, metaphor is highlighted as a stylistic figure often used in the language of law. On a daily basis we can witness the frequent use of metaphoric collocations like soft laws, hard laws, silent partner, hedge funds, etc. In this paper, the author analyses the use of denotations for colours as constituent parts of metaphoric collocations in the language of law. The analysis is conducted by using a comparative (...) approach to examples extracted by means of computer technology from international bills and conventions available online. In the main part of the paper, examples are classified by using a colour denotation as the main criterion for the classification. After that, the examples are compared with corresponding expressions used in German and Croatian. Taking into account the main principle of the Skopos translation theory that differences between cultures strongly influence the translation process, the hypothesis of this research is that in many cases there will be no lexical equivalence between collocations with colour denotation in three languages. Due to the fact that international bills and conventions build the corpus of the research, and that the English language has become the lingua franca of international communication, it can be expected that some metaphoric terms and collocations would be literally translated from English. Conclusions drawn from the comparative analysis of legal collocations containing denotations for colours can be interesting to lawyers and LSP teachers in the field of law. In this sense, results of the research can contribute to motivational aspects of teaching Legal English and Legal German. (shrink)

A variety of commentators have explored the similarities between pragmatism and Thomas Reid’s Philosophy of Common Sense. Peirce himself claims his version of pragmatism either (loosely) is, or entails, a Critical Common-sensism, a blend of what is best in Kant and Reid. In this paper I argue for a neglected aspect of the relation between Peirce and Reid, and of each to common sense: linguistics. First, I summarize Peirce’s account of what distinguishes his common-sensism from Reid’s. Second, I argue for (...) the importance of appeals to linguistic universals by Reid as both a source for identifying common sense beliefs, and a basis for justifying them. While Peirce is occasionally tempted by such appeals, overall he is critical of appeals to language, especially as most Western philosophers have been familiar with a small set of (Indo-)European languages; say, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, and Latin. This leads to the third section, which concerns Peirce’s familiarity with major nineteenth century linguists, and his contention that the ‘peculiarity’ of Western European languages has impeded the development of logic and philosophy. In particular, I look at unpublished manuscripts where Peirce summarizes his own study of non-European languages, ranging from Arabic, to Ngarrindjeri, to Xhosa. Peirce was only an amateur linguist, and also aware of the challenges of doing cross-cultural linguistics through comparative grammar; e.g., the temptation to force unfamiliar languages onto the “Procrustean Bed of Aryan grammar” (CP 2.211). Nonetheless, this study left him suspicious of any claims of linguistic universals, and supported his anti-psychologism. That is, not only should logic and philosophy not be based upon psychology (at least as a special science), they should also be independent of linguistics. However, Peirce also advances something like the so-called Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, that language determines, or at least conditions, thought. The question now becomes what is the nature of a philosophy of common sense, even a critical one, without a common language, or possibly no commonalities across languages? (shrink)

In recent years, the study of formal semantics and formal pragmatics has grown tremendously showing that core aspects of language meaning can be explained by a few principles. These principles are grounded in the logic that is behind - and tightly intertwined with - the grammar of human language. In this book, some of the most prominent figures in linguistics, including Noam Chomsky and Barbara H. Partee, offer new insights into the nature of linguistic meaning and pave the (...) way for the further development of formal semantics and formal pragmatics. Each chapter investigates various dimensions in which the logical nature of human language manifests itself within a language and/or across languages. Phenomena like bare plurals, free choice items, scalar implicatures, intervention effects, and logical operators are investigated in depth and at times cross-linguistically and/or experimentally. This volume will be of interest to scholars working within the fields of semantics, pragmatics, language acquisition and psycholinguistics. (shrink)

Recent advances in genetics and neurobiology have greatly increased the degree of variation that one finds in what is taken to provide the biological foundations of our species-specific linguistic capacities. In particular, this variation seems to cast doubt on the purportedly homogeneous nature of the language faculty traditionally captured by the concept of “Universal Grammar.” In this article we discuss what this new source of diversity reveals about the biological reality underlying Universal Grammar. Our discussion leads us to support (...) (1) certain hypotheses advanced in evolutionary developmental biology that argue for the existence of robust biological mechanisms capable of canalizing variation at different levels, and (2) a bottom-up perspective on comparative cognition. We conclude by sketching future directions for what we call “comparative biolinguistics,” specifying which experimental directions may help us succeed in this new research avenue. (shrink)

Traditional grammar and current theoretical approaches towards modelling grammatical knowledge ignore language in interaction: that is, words such as huh, eh, yup or yessssss. This groundbreaking book addresses this gap by providing the first in-depth overview of approaches towards interactional language across different frameworks and linguistic sub-disciplines. Based on the insights that emerge, a formal framework is developed to discover and compare language in interaction across different languages: the interactional spine hypothesis. Two case-studies are presented: confirmationals and (...) response markers, both of which show evidence for systematic grammatical knowledge. Assuming that language in interaction is regulated by grammatical knowledge sheds new light on old questions concerning the relation between language and thought and the relation between language and communication. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the relation between language, cognition and social interaction. (shrink)

Comparative study of two languages of different structures has both theoretical and practical significance, enables somebody to identify similar and distinctive features, find universals and unique, helps to penetrate deeper into the inner workings of each of the compared languages and understand their national identity. The subject of our comparative study are languages of different structures - Russian and Bashkir languages - the first refers to a group of inflected, the second - to the group of agglutinative languages. Comparative research (...) of languages of different structures can be carried out in two aspects: theoretical and linguistic. In the first case, the analysis of language material is subjected without restriction at all levels of the language system. Data from these studies can be used in the creation of comparative descriptive grammars in lexicographical work and in the translation business. In the second case only microlanguage is matched, which is represented in the lexical and grammatical minimum of studied second language. Materials of such a compressed comparative analysis used in the practice of language teaching, mainly in teaching a second, non-native language. When a comparative study of languages in linguistic aspect is important direction of comparisons - what language is elected as the original one. Since the formation of national-Russian bilingualism is the subject of study of Russian language, as the source, it is desirable to choose Russian language. In this case, the reference point is the absorption of funds Russian as a second language. Materials of comparative study of two languages gives a clear idea of what linguistic phenomena and their symptoms are identical in them, what is only partially overlap, what is completely different. This knowledge will help to consciously manage the impact of native language on the studied non-native Russian language. In the comparative study of Russian and Bashkir languages done very little, but it is a lot of work has already begun. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophizing is deeply ontological, and can be defined as a reflexive gesture of keeping silent. The silence secured by reflexing is an essential part of a philosophy. A philosopher has to use language, but things that pass over in silence must influence things he or she says. The speech manifests not only in the spoken, but also in the unspoken. How is it possible? Through understanding a reflexive speech as an action or gesture of annihilation of speech. (...) The expressed words in philosophy and expressed philosophical concepts are just means of referring to the ultimate value which should be thrown away immediately because it cannot say anything about the inexpressible. The philosophy as a gesture of keeping silent is an attempt to meaningfully keep silent through the constantly evolving reflexive annihilation of your own speech. The philosophizing which takes into account the importance of silence becomes a minimalistic gesture. (shrink)

Mueller et al. discuss the role of acoustic cues in detecting language structure more generally. Across languages, there are clear links between acoustic cues and syntactic structure. They show that AGL experiments implementing analogous links demonstrate that prosodic cues, as well as various auditory biases, facilitate the learning of structural rules. Some of these biases, e.g. for auditory grouping, are also present in other species.

Introduction 1. Language and meaning Nothing is as easily overlooked, or as easily forgotten, as the most obvious truths. The tenet that language is a tool ...

This paper proposes the CorpRank algorithm to extract social hierarchies from electronic communication data. The algorithm computes a ranking score for each user as a weighted combination of the number of emails, the number of responses, average response time, clique scores, and several degree and centrality measures. The algorithm uses principal component analysis to calculate the weights of the features. This score ranks users according to their importance, and its output is used to reconstruct an organization chart. We illustrate the (...) algorithm over real-world data using the Enron corporation’s e-mail archive. Compared to the actual corporate work chart, compensation lists, judicial proceedings, and analyzing the major players involved, the results show promise. (shrink)

El escrito se concentra en la argumentación de van Fraassen contra la tesis de la relatividad ontológica de Quine. Primero se hace una reconstrucción de la tesis de Quine destacando los fundamentos en que descansa. Segundo se reconstruye la crítica de van Fraassen comenzando por puntualizar diversos aspectos generales sobre el alcance y límites de la crítica, continuando con la caracterización del enfoque semántico de las teorías que éste defiende y finalizando en el análisis de la idea básica de la (...) crítica, es decir, el error en que supuestamente caen los análisis del lenguaje al estilo de Quine: no diferenciar entre lenguajes formales y juegos de lenguaje. (shrink)

In her 2014 monograph, Sarah Broadie argues that Timaeus’s cosmology points to a radical Platonic insight: the full rationality of the cosmos requires the existence of individualized, autonomous, and finite beings like us. Only human life makes the cosmos truly complete. But can Timaeus do full justice to the uniquely human way of being and hence to his own insight? My paper argues that he cannot and that Plato means for us to see that he cannot, by showing how Timaeus (...) treats a famous Platonic theme: eros. Timaeus describes human perfection as assimilation to the mathematical proportions of the cosmos, but by comparing Timaeus with the Symposium I show that, given his deeply mathematized conception of reason, Timaeus cannot provide what Diotima can: a phenomenologically satisfactory account of how we come to identify ourselves with this perfection. Such identification is a transformation in our self-understanding explicable only because of the desirous and reflexive character of the soul. Expressing this character, however, requires combining the mathematical with a poetic, or even mantic, register. Only these sensibilities together grant access to Plato’s cosmology in its fullness. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to follow Honig's intention of thinking inoperativity as a form of refusal. It demonstrates that Agamben's inoperativity entails an intensification of use that can circumvent the pitfalls associated with the language of 'demands,' or the need to rescue the city as the space of the political par excellence, all while preserving its potential for instituting change. I claim that all destitution entails instituting practices and forms of experimentation that modify the subject, and that, (...) with the help of Agamben, subjects are nothing other than these modifications. The wager of this short intervention, therefore, is that a form of refusal that pays critical attention not only to the suspension but also to the intensification of use that this suspension inherently entails is attainable, all while acknowledging that the city is shaped by anti-blackness. (shrink)

With the publication of The Use of Bodies (2016) Agamben's multi-volume Homo Sacer project has come to an end, or to paraphrase Agamben, has been abandoned. We now have a new vantage point from which to reread Agamben's corpus; not only his method but his political and philosophical thought can been seen in a clearer light. This timely book both assesses and contributes to the debates on the Homo Sacer project in its entirety. Rethinking the notions of life and power (...) - two of the central themes in Agamben's work - through a reconstruction of his philosophical method and the examination of his critique of Western metaphysics, this book argues that Agamben's thought cannot be fully grasped if we do not account for the intertwining of politics and ontology. This book argues that it is only by revisiting Agamben's critique of signification and metaphysics and examining his reconstruction of the archaeological method that we can understand his notions of life and power. By bringing together the two parts of the Homo Sacer project, the archaeology of the signature of Sovereignty and the archaeology of governmentality, this book provides an analysis of the production of Agambenian 'bare life'. In this sense this project re-articulates Agamben's works on signification, language and ontology with his archaeology of power. Offering an original examination of Agamben's notion of resistance, this is essential reading for any thoughtful consideration of his philosophical legacy. (shrink)

Can the Euthydemus illuminate the philosophical significance of sophistry? In answering this question, I ask why the most direct and sustained confrontations between Socrates and the two brothers should all center on time and the soul. The Euthydemus, I argue, is a not primarily a polemic against eristic manipulation of language, but a diagnosis of the soul’s ambiguous unity. It shows that sophistic speech emerges from the soul’s way of relating to its own temporal character and to logos. Stated (...) differently, a central theme of this dialogue is one which, we are repeatedly told, the Greeks had not yet thematized--the nature of interiority. (shrink)

The most conceptually drastic change in natural language syntactic theory in recent years is the introduction of economy conditions (ECs). Although there is not a unified formal notion of economy, the intuition is that natural languages are governed by a general “less is more” principle. Those who take this seriously, and regard it not just as principle guiding the researcher but as something to be implemented directly in grammars, are often led to comparative economy conditions (comparative ECs), which select (...) from a set of structures the most economical among them according to some criterion. Such conditions are associated with the Minimalist Program (MP), but they are found also in Optimality Theory (OT) and Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG).1 The following is a sample of the prominent works mentioning ‘economy’. (shrink)

The article introduces an idea of practical philosophy, a philosophy which is aimed at changing a philosopher, not at developing philosophical knowledge. Philosophy is not another theory of being or knowledge, but a way of holding oneself in the state of being open. It is stated that this philosophy is based on differentiating the experience of the encounter and its conceptualization, that they are not equal. A philosophical concept not only points at the source of the philosophical thinking, but also (...) eclipses it. The main obstacle for a philosopher is his/her own self, tempted by his/her own philosophy. (shrink)