Author: Jones, Owen Roger (ed).
Title: The private language argument.
Description: London : Macmillan, 1971. Paperback. 284 pp. 23 cm. (Macmillan Student editions; Controversies in philosophy; Papermac 3803). Contributors : A.J. Ayer, Hector-Neri Castañeda, V.C. Chappell, Newton Garver, Helen Hervey, L.C. Holborow, Anthony Kenny, Norman Malcolm, C.W.K. Mundle, Rush Rhees, P.F. Strawson, J. F. Thomson, Judith Jarvis Thomson, L. Wittgenstein. Mailorder only - Alleen verzending mogelijk. Book condition : very good. - The articles in this collection have been brought together with the aim of giving a fair impression of the many facets of the private language controversy. These are so arranged that opposed viewpoints are brought alongside each other in each chapter, thus giving prominence to the tensions of the controversy. The collection begins with the expositions by Malcolm and Strawson which have formed the basis of so much subsequent discussion, and follows up with the famous symposium by Ayer and Rhees to which so many later writers keep returning. These are followed by articles which show how questions relating to the philosophy of mind and to behaviourism come into the argument. Then we have Castañeda's treatment of the argument as a formal deduction, and his contention that it fails to prove the impossibility of a private language. It is answered by Chappell and Thomson, but the latter also raises anew the question of interpreting Wittgenstein's position. Eventually Malcolm's particular interpretation comes in for severe criticism from Judith Thomson on the score that it rests on the Verification Principle and is quite unrepresentative of what Wittgenstein was trying to do. Finally, Kenny, in an original contribution, argues that the private language argument has to do not so much with verificationsim as with the picture theory of meaning. This collection shows how something that appears to be one simple question can turn out to involve a multiplicity of important philosophical issues, two of which stand out as especially prominent. One is Cartesianism, which has been the basis of so much thinking about the philosophy of mind, and the other is the problem of the nature of language and the way it depends on rule-following. Philosophers who take opposing view points are seen to agree on one thing, namely, that these two great themes are interlocked in the private language issue. ISBN 9780333105351.

Keywords: PHILOSOPHY,