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Language Analysis and Metaphysical Inquiry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Irving M. Copilowish
Irving M. Copilowish*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
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Extract

The traditional attitude of philosophers towards the analysis of language is that it may have some corrective value, but can make no positive contribution to philosophy. The world must be investigated in itself: an analysis of the language in which we describe it will perhaps give us greater insight into the description, but not into what is described. Many philosophers have been suspicious of language, considering it a hindrance rather than an aid in philosophical investigation. This tradition has a long history, some of whose high points we can mention briefly.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , January 1949 , pp. 65 - 70
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1949

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Footnotes

∗

Paper read at the Meeting of the Western Division of the American Philosophical Association, at Knox College in May 1948.

References

1 The Dialogues of Plato, Jowett translation. Random House edition, 1937. “Cratylus” 439.

2 Descartes Selections, edited by R. M. Eaton. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1927. “Meditation on First Philosophy”, p. 104.

3 Essay on Human Understanding, John Locke. Book II, Chapter XIII, §18.

4 Berkeley: Essay, Principles, Dialogues, etc., edited by M. W. Calkins. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1929. “A Treatise Concerning The Principles of Human Knowledge”, p. 120 f.

5 Principles of Mathematics, Bertrand Russell. Cambridge University Press, 1903. 2nd ed. Norton & Company, 1938. p. 42.

6 An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, Bertrand Russell. Norton & Company, 1940. p. 438.

7 “Vagueness”, Bertrand Russell, Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy, Vol. I. (1923) No. 2. p. 84.

8 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Introduction by Bertrand Russell. Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1922. p. 8.

9 “Vagueness”, Russell, p. 85.

10 Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, Russell, p. 415.

11 Tractatus, 3.325.

12 Tractatus, Introduction, p. 7.

13 Ibid. p. 8.

14 Tractatus, 5.4731.

15 See, for example“ Russell's Philosophy of Language”, by Max Black, The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, edited by P. A. Schilpp. Library of Living Philosophers, 1944.

16 Critique of Pure Reason, Kant. Müller translation. Macmillan Company, 1927. p. 483.

17 Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, Russell, p. 431.

18 Ibid. p. 291.