Language, Logic and Epistemology

Norris presents a series of closely linked chapters on recent developments in epistemology, philosophy of language, cognitive science, literary theory, musicology and other related fields. While to this extent adopting an interdisciplinary approach, Norris also very forcefully challenges the view that the academic 'disciplines' as we know them are so many artificial constructs of recent date and with no further role than to prop up existing divisions of intellectual labour. He makes his case through some exceptionally acute revisionist readings of diverse thinkers such as Derrida, Paul de Man, Wittgenstein, Chomsky, Michael Dummett and John McDowell. In each instance Norris stresses the value of bringing various trans-disciplinary perspectives to bear while none-the-less maintaining adequate standards of area-specific relevance and method. Most importantly he asserts the central role of recent developments in cognitive science as pointing a way beyond certain otherwise intractable problems in philosophy of mind and language.

Autorentext

CHRISTOPHER NORRIS is Distinguished Research Professor in Philosophy at Cardiff University and has also held visiting posts in California (Berkeley), USA, The City University of New York Graduate Centre, USA and the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. He is the author of more than twenty books to date on various aspects of philosophy and critical theory.

Zusammenfassung
In this book Christopher Norris addresses a range of topics - deconstruction, epistemology, philosophy of logic, philosophical semantics, and music theory - on which his work has focused during the past two decades. Along the way he raises some crucial questions about the scope and limits of an interdisciplinary approach that seeks to 'deconstruct' the boundaries between various fields of enquiry. Norris makes his case through a close analysis of the arguments put forward by philosophers, linguists, cognitive psychologists, music theorists, and advocates of a Wittgensteinian treatment of philosophical problems that would count them mere symptoms of our chronic 'bewitchment by language'. He also argues for the vital role of cognitive science in resolving certain issues raised by recent philosophy of mind and language. This claim is pursued in chapters on Chomskian psycholinguistics and on the way that deconstructive musicologists have allowed their foregone theoretical commitments to preclude any adequate reckoning with our perceptual experience of music.A notable feature of Norris's book is its heterodox approach to the work of some widely influential contemporary thinkers. Thus, for instance, he reads Derrida as making a significant (though so far unrecognised) contribution to current debate about modal, deviant, and paraconsistent logics. While acknowledging the value of interdisciplinary work on these and other topics Norris urges that this should be combined with a due respect for certain area-specific standards of relevance and method.

Inhalt

Acknowledgements Introduction Derrida on Rousseau: Deconstruction as Philosophy of Logic The Limits of Whose Language?: Wittgenstein on Philosophy of Science and Mathematics Modularity, Nativism and Reference-Fixing: on Chomsky's Internalist Assumptions The Perceiver's Share (1): Realism, Scepticism, and Response-Dependence The Perceiver's Share (2): Deconstructive Musicology and Cognitive Science Cange, Conservation and Crisis-Management in the Discourse of Analytic Philosophy Index