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Spreading the Word: Groundings in the Philosophy of Language Reprint Edition

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Simon Blackburn (Author)
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4.7 out of 5 stars 3 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-0198246510
ISBN-10: 019824651X
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  • Spreading the Word: Groundings in the Philosophy of Language
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 378 pages
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press; Reprint edition (March 8, 1984)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 019824651X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0198246510
  • Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 0.9 x 5.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #874,871 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4.0 out of 5 starsBest Introduction to Blackburn's Quasi-Realism
By ctdreyer on February 23, 2004
Format: Hardcover
This book is an introduction to the philosophy of language; it's also one of the most important books in contemporary meta-ethics. Chapters 5-7, I think, constitute the best introduction to Blackburn's quasi-realism. As a matter of fact, these chapters may constitute the best expression of the nature of, and motivations for, the quasi-realist project that Blackburn has published. (Ruling Passions is more detailed and expansive, but it's also evasive and frustratingly unclear in parts; this book is much clearer and more direct. The papers in Essays in Quasi-Realism are good, but they're aimed at those already working on these subjects; this book, while not an easy read, doesn't assume the reader is coming to it with this sort of background.)
Chapter 5 is Blackburn's introduction to issues concerning language and realism, and Blackburn uses debates about moral realism as his example of an area where linguistic issues are appealed to as providing evidence for an against certain forms of realism and anti-realism. The chapter involves a brief introduction to the sort of noncognitivist expressivism he favors. According to Blackburn, we can best understand moral judgments as expressions of our attitudes. This sort of noncognitivism, he argues, provides us with the best account of the nature, which is not best understood as language used to respond to some moral aspect of reality (as language about ordinary physical objects is best understood as responding to things outside our minds and the properties they possess). To the extent that we can legitimately speak of a moral aspect of reality, of the moral properties of things, they are projections of our attitudes; they're "out there" in virtue of our spreading our attitudes onto the world.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsGood book, deserves to be widely read
By HH on December 21, 2015
Format: Paperback
The title of this book has a double meaning. On the one hand, Blackburn intends to "spread the word" about the philosophy of language; for, among other things, "Spreading the Word" is a comprehensive introduction to, and survey of, the subject. On the other hand, a central part of this book is a sympathetic presentation of "projectivist" accounts of various things -- e.g., values and causation -- and he follows Hume in representing certain of our "sayings" as the mind's "spreading itself" on the world.

"Spreading the Word" is organized in two parts. Part 1, titled "Our Language and Ourselves", discusses issues relating to the compositionality of language and linguistic competence (what Blackburn calls the "elasticity of our understanding"), and in this connection Blackburn discusses the views of Frege, Chomsky, and Quine, and others. The next two chapters are about meaning. In the first, "How Is Meaning Possible? (1)," Blackburn attacks "dog-legged" accounts of meaning -- i.e., theories that explain the meaningfulness of words in terms of their relation to something else (e.g., Locke's "ideas") which is already assumed to have unexplained, representational content. Here we get the Berkeley-Wittgenstein criticism of "imagist" theories, along with criticisms of Fodor's "innate representational medium" and Quine and Davidson on "radical interpretation." In the second chapter, "How Is Meaning Possible? (2)," Blackburn employs the notion of a "bent predicate" (e.g., "grue") and a "bent rule" (e.g.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsthe best and most challenger introduction
By Fernando C. Cardoso on August 21, 2010
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
man this book is really nice. sure you will disagree with a lot of the stuff but will be a good challenger! i liked...
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