Azamat and Ingvar, (01)
Note to Azamat: (02)
I agree that Aristotle's short book _On Interpretation_
has been the most influential and most widely discussed
treatise on language in over two thousand years. (03)
Many of the philosophers I admire the most have also
worked in that tradition, among them are Peirce and
Whitehead, who said that all of western philosophy
may be regarded as a series of footnotes to Plato
and Aristotle -- but some of those footnotes are
very big and contain very important additions. (04)
Hilary Putnam observed "Whenever I become clearer
about some subject, I find that Aristotle has become
clearer also" -- in other words, we can still find
important hints and guidelines by reading those ancient
texts. On the other hand, there is vastly more to be
said about language than Aristotle managed to say. (05)
Note to Ingvar: (06)
I would say the same about recent work in linguistics
and philosophy of language: there is much more to be
said than the medieval scholastics and Peirce added
to Aristotle. But I believe that Putnam's comment
applies very well to Peirce: "Whenever I become
clearer about a subject, I realize that Peirce has
become clearer also." (07)
And yes, I recognize that Grice was doing something
different from Austin and Searle, and I also realize
that they pushed some areas farther than Peirce.
But Peirce had plowed the same ground they have all
been working, and the field would have been much better
developed if people like Quine had given equal attention
to both Peirce and Frege. (08)
John (09)
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Subscribe/Config: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To Post: mailto:ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (010)
|