ENGLISH

Locke, Language and Early-Modern Philosophy

Book information

Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Year
2007
ISBN
9780521852715, 0521852714
Open Library ID
OL10437466M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
5 MB (5752816 bytes)
Series
Ideas in Context
Edition
1
Pages
381\381
Library
avaxhome.ws
Time added
2010-05-31 15:29:46

Description

In a powerful and original contribution to the history of ideas, Hannah Dawson explores the intense preoccupation with language in early-modern philosophy, and presents a groundbreaking analysis of John Locke's critique of words. By examining a broad sweep of pedagogical and philosophical material from antiquity to the late seventeenth century, Dr Dawson explains why language caused anxiety in writers such as Montaigne, Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, Gassendi, Nicole, Pufendorf, Boyle, Malebranche and Locke. Locke, Language and Early-Modern Philosophy demonstrates that new developments in philosophy, in conjunction with weaknesses in linguistic theory, resulted in serious concerns about the capacity of words to refer to the world, the stability of meaning, and the duplicitous power of words themselves. Dr Dawson shows that language so fixated all manner of early-modern authors because it was seen as an obstacle to both knowledge and society. She thereby uncovers a novel story about the problem of language in philosophy, and in the process reshapes our understanding of early-modern epistemology, morality and politics.

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