Philosophy of Language Commons^™

Disappearing Chairs And Related Matters: A Visual Essay For Wittgenstein’S Philosophical Investigations (Section 80), Michael R. Hill

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Are there rules capturing the meaning of all possible uses (now, past, and future) of the word “chair”? Ludwig Wittgenstein raised this issue in Section 80 of the Philosophical Investigations where he stated: “I say, ‘There is a chair over there’”. Does “chair” in his utterance mean anything? For myself, this question can be approached autobiographically and chronologically. As a youngster, my earliest understanding of “chair” is reflected in the graphic illustration from a Dick and Jane reader (Figure 1) with re-imagined dialog: “This is a chair”. I understood a chair to be a human-made object — usually constructed from …

Vagueness And The Logic Of The World, Zack Garrett

Department of Philosophy: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In this dissertation, I argue that vagueness is a metaphysical phenomenon---that properties and objects can be vague---and propose a trivalent theory of vagueness meant to account for the vagueness in the world. In the first half, I argue against the theories that preserve classical logic. These theories include epistemicism, contextualism, and semantic nihilism. My objections to these theories are independent of considerations of the possibility that vagueness is a metaphysical phenomenon. However, I also argue that these theories are not capable of accommodating metaphysical vagueness.

As I move into my positive theory, I first argue for the possibility of metaphysical …

Critical Discourse Analysis: Definition, Approaches, Relation To Pragmatics, Critique, And Trends, Linda R. Waugh, Theresa Catalano, Khaled Al Masaeed, Tom Hong Do, Paul G. Renigar

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

This chapter introduces the transdisciplinary research movement of critical discourse analysis (CDA) beginning with its definition and recent examples of CDA work. In addition, approaches to CDA such as the dialectical relational (Fairclough), sociocognitive (van Dijk), discourse historical (Wodak), social actors (van Leeuwen), and the Foucauldian dispositive analysis (Jager and Maier) are outlined, as well as the complex relation of CDA to pragmatics. Next, the chapter provides a brief mention of the extensive critique of CDA, the creation of critical discourse studies (CDS), and new trends in CDA, including positive discourse analysis (PDA), CDA with multimodality, CDA and cognitive linguistics, …

Disciplinary Permeations: Complicating The "Public" And The "Private" Dualism In Composition And Rhetoric, Erica E. Rogers

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

As Composition and Rhetoric rose in disciplinary status and academic legitimacy the discourse practice of negation, the positioning of texts in oppositional binaries that set the “new” over the “old,” the “novel” over the “familiar,” became embedded in academic tradition, seeming to be an inherited part of scholarship instead of an individual’s rhetorical choice and deliberate ethos strategy. Negation, when one idea or set of ideas constructed by another is critiqued, advocated, and/or redeveloped by another scholar, is a discourse practice firmly established in the Rhetorical Tradition as part of Socratic dialogues, reappears in “modern rhetoric”, and remains today as …

The Parapraxis Of Translation, Roland K. Végső

Department of English: Faculty Publications

Within the context of politics and culture, provides a theoretic framework for the analysis of modern translation. Includes section titles, "The paradoxa of translation," "The pragmatics of translation," and "The truth of translation."

Affirmative Judgments: The Sabbath Of Deconstruction, Roland K. Végső

Department of English: Faculty Publications

For reasons that are equally strategic and philosophical, we need to understand that the correct answer to the question ‘What is deconstruction?’ is that deconstruction is the unconditional affirmation of the undeconstructible. Calling upon Derrida, Kant, and Hegel, Végső posits that the fact that we have almost completely lost sight of this dimension of deconstructive thought accounts for much of the confusion surrounding its ethical and political force. In order to clarify some of these points, an explanation of the nature of this unconditional affirmation is needed. Végső puts forth the proposition that the truth of deconstruction is aptly encapsulated …

The Subject, Étienne Balibar, Roland K. Végső

Department of English: Faculty Publications

This selection is a partial translation of the entry “Subject,” written by Etienne Balibar for the Vocabulaire Européen des Philosophies, directed by Barbara Cassin and forthcoming from Éditions du Seuil and Le Robert.

The Role Of Language In The Theory Of Communication Of Nicolas Malebranche, Thomas M. Carr Jr.

French Language and Literature Papers

Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715) is perhaps the most important French philosopher between Descartes and the Revolution of 1789. His synthesis of Cartesian elements and Augustinianism in the last quarter of the seventeenth century had great influence on several generations of thinkers before the rationalism he represented was replaced by the new Lockian sensualism. There has been a European revival of interest in Malebranche in the last twenty years, centering around the first critical edition of his complete works, a task headed by the Belgian historian of philosophy André Robinet, and there are signs that American interest is growing as well with …