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The theory of language that underlies Plotinus’ Enneads is considered in relation to his broader metaphysical vision. For Plotinus, language is neither univocal nor equivocal, but is something in-between, incapable of precisely describing reality, but nonetheless not completely useless. Propositional knowledge expressed discursively represents an imperfect shadow of reality which is defective in relation to the pure apprehension of Intellect. Passages in Plotinus which relate language to the sensible world are examined and it is argued that, although it plays a useful role in relating the sensible world to Intellect, discursive reason is nonetheless intrinsically inferior to both as a mode of representation. Plotinus holds that the inadequacy of language is “global” in character; language cannot describe any aspect of reality precisely, from the mundane to the transcendent. Language as a whole is an inferior image or imitation of the world as a whole. Therefore, the flaws in our linguistic representations cannot all be untangled or conceptually unpacked by means of language. There are passages in the Enneads which hint at an underlying semantic holism. Plotinus’ theory implies that apparent verbal contradictions which occur in different contexts might nonetheless still represent the optimal linguistic description of a reality that strictly speaking is ineffable. Therefore, discursive logical deduction is not always reliable, and needs to be subordinated to a vision of Intellect. True philosophical reasoning (dialectic) represents ostension towards the transcendent. Those who are sufficiently liberated to attain to an apprehension of the Forms, thereby come to inhabit the same “higher world”, involving a shared mystical intersubjectivity, which can be expressed linguistically, but only in an approximate manner. Plotinus’ theory presents a potential way out of the nihilistic impasse into which contemporary philosophy has arguably become enmeshed.

Une approche humoristique du peuplement ontologique

Un essai de caractérisation de l'identité du point de vue de la pragmatique linguistique

Essai wittgensteinien de pragmatique. Que signifie suivre une flèche?

As part of a bigger project to investigate the history and features of Roman culture, Varro set out to study the Latin language in all its components: where its vocabulary came from, and what such derivation revealed about the history of Latin speakers; how its words were arranged into classes based on their morphological features, and to what extent this arrangement was rationally motivated and self-consistent; and how various people used language differently, some employing distinct sections of its lexicon depending on their backgrounds or professions, others bending grammatical rules either out of ignorance or for literary purposes. My thesis focuses on some of the main subjects explored in Varro’s linguistic writings: “nature” as a criterion for Latinitas; the notion of “kinship” in language; etymology (both the theories underpinning it and the methods used to reconstruct the origin of a word); analogy and anomaly (notoriously the focal points of an ancient controversy and a vexata quaestio in Varronian scholarship). For each of these subjects, I inquire into how Varro engaged with the scholarship produced before him, what principles and methods he absorbed, and how he re-worked previous material to make it suitable for his own goals and readership. I use my findings to piece together a portrait of Varro as a scholar who had extensive knowledge of previous treatments of the subjects he tackled and drew on a multitude of sources, combining philosophical, literary critical, philological, and historical-antiquarian influences. I also highlight how Varro’s production was aimed at contributing to the conversations ongoing in cultural circles in his own time, in which he was actively involved.

Meaning understood in terms of teachability and learnability is crucial to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later work. As regards the resolution of philosophical problems – and epistemological problems in particular - this approach seems to posit a hierarchy of meaning that excludes endless deferral. This is the basis of Wittgenstein’s attack on philosophical scepticism. Jacques Derrida’s approach to language seems to require both non-hierarchy and endless deferral characterized by a concept of non-simple origin. Consequently, his concept of origin is characterized by identity and difference simultaneously, irreducibly, non-simply. One question is whether it is possible for there to be a compromise between the two philosophers: a hierarchy of meaning that does not in principle exclude endless deferral. It is concluded that endless deferral is antithetical to Wittgenstein’s concepts of teachability and learnability, and both philosophers would agree on this.

The issues in this dissertation reside at the intersections of, and relationships between, topics concerning the meaning of generic generalizations, natural language modality, the nature and role of moral principles, and the place of supererogation in the overall structure of the normative domain. In ’Generics and Weak Necessity’, I argue that generics—exception-granting generalizations such as ’Birds fly’ and ’Tigers are striped’—involve a covert weak necessity modal at logical form. I argue that this improves our understanding of the variability and diversity of generics. This chapter also argues that we can account for variability concerning normative generics within a modal approach to generics. In ’The Genericity of Moral Principles’, I provide evidence for the view that moral principles are generic generalizations, and, on the basis of this claim, argue that moral principles do not provide adequate support for reasoning about the moral statuses of particular cases. In ’Supererogation and the Structure of the Normative Domain’, I investigate the diversity of the central normative modal notions and argue that we should distinguish between two senses of supererogation based different ways deontic modals are sensitive to background information.

Meaning understood in terms of teachability and learnability is crucial to Wittgenstein’s later work. As regards the resolution of philosophical problems – and epistemological problems in particular - this approach seems to posit a hierarchy of meaning that excludes endless deferral. This is the basis of Wittgenstein’s attack on philosophical scepticism. Derrida’s approach to language seems to require both non-hierarchy and endless deferral. Consequently fundamental to his concept of origin is identity and difference simultaneously, irreducibly, non-simply. One question is whether it is possible for there to be a compromise between the two philosophers: a hierarchy of meaning that does not in principle exclude endless deferral.

Annotations on V. N. Voloshinov's study "Marxism and the Philosophy of Language" (1929), on topics such as reflexion vs. refraction, consciousness and signs, language and ideology, Saussurean structuralism, verbal interaction, and theme vs. meaning.

This note criticises some equivocations and ambivalent notions in the writings of Derrida, especially 'Limited Inc' and 'De la grammatologie', as regards the notions of norm, intention, system, center, consciousness, writing, speech act and literal meaning. Derrida is shown to both have his cake and eat it, using his own text as a paradoxical metalanguage on the semiotic phenomena he deconstructs.

This thesis concerns the nature of knowledge-how, in particular the question of how we ought to combine philosophical and linguistic considerations to understand what it is to know how to do something. Part 1 concerns the significance of linguistic evidence. In chapter 1, I consider the range of linguistic arguments that have been used in favour of the Intellectualist claim that knowledge-how is a species of propositional knowledge. Chapter 2 considers the idea that sentences of the form ‘S knows how to V’ involve a free relative complement, and the relation between this claim and the Objectualist claim that knowledge-how is a kind of objectual knowledge. Chapter 3 argues that Intellectualism about knowledge-how faces a problem of generality in accounting for the kinds of propositions that are known in knowledge-how, which is analogous to the generality problem for Reliabilism. Part 2 turns to philosophical considerations, offering an extended inquiry into the point of thinking and talking about knowledge-how. Chapter 4 considers why we should want to work with a concept of knowledge, isolating two hypotheses: i) that thinking and talking about knowledge-how helps us to pool skills, and ii) that thinking and talking about knowledge-how helps us to engage in responsible practices of co-operation. Chapter 5 criticises the former hypothesis by arguing against the suggestion that there is a knowledge-how norm on teaching. Chapter 6 offers an indirect argument for the latter hypothesis, arguing for a knowledge-how norm on intending. Part 3, which consists of chapter 7, offers a positive account of knowledge-how which takes into account both philosophical and linguistic considerations. According to what I will call the Interrogative Capacity view, knowing how to do something consists in a certain kind of ability to answer the question of how to do it.

This thesis discusses the central ideas that surround Michael Dummett’s claim that there is an incompatibility between a truth-conditional conception of meaning and a minimalist conception of truth. These ideas are brought into relation to the work of John McDowell and Donald Davidson, as all three philosophers can be better understood by locating them within Dummett’s dialectic regarding the incompatibility. Dummett’s argument crucially depends upon the assumption that a meaning-theory should be full-blooded in nature, against McDowell’s insistence that a meaning-theory can only ever be modest. The main contention of this thesis is that neither Dummett nor McDowell is successful in establishing their strong contentions regarding the form that a meaning-theory should take. McDowell only wants to provide trivial answers to questions about the constitutive nature of the meanings and competency of particular items in a language. Dummett, on the other hand, wants to provide a reductive account of the central concepts that concern the philosophy of language. What this thesis will argue is that once both of these claims have been rejected, the position Dummett and McDowell jointly dictate is in fact the position that we should read Davidson as occupying, who lies in a conceptual space between the extremes of maximal full-bloodedness and modesty. This is an understanding of Davidson that is contrary to how McDowell reads him, who has been an influential commentator of Davidson. How Davidson should actually be interpreted is achieved by understanding how he has the resources to avoid Dummett’s claim of an incompatibility between a truth-conditional conception of meaning and a minimalist conception of truth.

According to the Encoding Model, speakers communicate by encoding the propositions they want to communicate into sentences, in accordance with the conventions of a language L. By uttering a sentence that encodes p, the speaker says that p. Communication is successful only if the audience identifies the proposition that the speaker intends to communicate, which is achieved by decoding the uttered sentence in accordance with the conventions of L. A consequence of the Encoding Model has been the proliferation of underdetermination arguments, each of which concludes against some linguistic theory T, on the grounds that, were T true, audiences would be unable to know what was said by utterances of some particular linguistic form, and therefore unable to know what speakers intended to communicate by these utterance. The result, if we accept the conclusion of these arguments, is radical restriction of the domain of viable linguistic theory. This Thesis defends an alternative model according to which there need be nothing encoded in an uttered sentence – nothing that is said by its utterance – for the audience to retrieve. Rather, there are indefinitely many ways to interpret uttered sentences – indefinitely many routes to the propositions that speaker intend to communicate – which proceed through different interpretations of what is said.

Philosophy of language from a linguistic point of view

In the first part of this paper, I will briefly introduce the concept of incongruity and its relation to humor and seriousness, connecting the ideas of Arthur Schopenhauer and the contemporary work of John Morreall. I will reveal some of the relations between Schopenhauer’s notion of “seriousness” and the existentialists such as Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Lewis Gordon. In section II, I will consider the relationship between playfulness and incongruity, noting the role that enjoyment of incongruity plays in creative, non-dogmatic thinking. In section III, I will critique Morreall’s arguments against the efficacy of humor as a means of serious protest, analyzing the complex relationship between the ambiguous terms “seriousness” and “playfulness”. In the final section, I contend that Morreall’s conception of humor, with which I generally agree, fails to adequately address subversive humor. He is cognizant of the benefits of a humorous attitude and of the work of rebellious groups who use humor, but his insistence that the play mode of humor precludes emotional attachment and practical concern, renders his philosophical analysis of humor far less comprehensive than his (2009) title suggests. I will make the case, contra Morreall, and he is the most prominent of many humor theorists who make similar points, that some humor in play mode is non-existentially, non-gravely serious, and intends to do more than simply “delight” audiences; the subversive humorist, in particular, is attempting to disclose and transmit information in such a way as to create change in both attitudes and practical social interactions.

This thesis presents an account of the nature of structured propositions and addresses a series of questions that arise from that proposal. Chapter 1 presents the account and explains how it meets standard objections to such views. Chapter 2 responds to the objection that this version of propositionalism is really a form of sententialism by arguing for the distinct advantages of the propositionalist view. Chapter 3 argues against a closely related view of propositions by way of general principles about how to construct such theories. Chapter 4 illustrates how a theory of propositions of the sort proposed can be defended against a recent argument that propositions need not play a central role in linguistic theory.

Deflasyonal teori, günümüz felsefesinin en etkili doğruluk teorilerinden birisidir. Bu teori, doğruluğun bir özellik olmadığını ve `doğru` kelimesinin cümle içinde kullanımının gereksiz olduğunu; diğer bir deyişle, bu cümleleri kullanarak ifade ettiğimiz şey üzerinde kesinlikle hiçbir etkisi olmadığını savunur. Fakat, deflasyonal teorisyenlerin kitaplarında, makalelerinde bu teoriyi örneklendirmek için kullandıkları varsayımsal cümlelerin tamamı bağlamlarından çıkarılmıştır. Dolayısıyla, `doğru` kelimesinin bağlam içerisinde, kullanıldığı cümleye anlamsal bakımdan ne kattığını analiz etmek imkansız bir hal almaktadır. Biz bu teoriye felsefe bir zeminde değil, empirik bir zeminde, gündelik dil felsefesi yaklaşımıyla karşı çıkmaktayız. `Doğru` kelimesinin yüklem olarak açık şekilde kullanıldığı 7610 adet örnek, ABD'de basılan 10 gazete ve derginin arşivlerinden bilgisayar yardımıyla toplandı. Bu örnekler önce bilgisayarla, daha sonra okunarak içerdikleri bağlaçların konumuna göre sınıflandırıldı. Bu sınıflandırmanın amacı `doğru` kelimesinin kullanıldığı önermenin, etrafındaki önermelerle bağlamsal ilişkilerini irdelemektir. 34 farklı sözdizimsel örüntü ile karşılaşıldı. Bu araştırmadaki argümanımız, `doğru` kelimesinin bazı kullanımlarında, bu kelimenin varlığının edimsel bir fiille aynı minvalde vurgu yaptığı ve edim gerçekleştirdiğidir. Bu tezde, dilsel olarak güvenilir medyada kullanılmış ve deflasyonal teoriye karşı örnek oluşturan, `doğru` kelimesinin açık şekilde kullanıldığı gündelik dil örnekleri sunulmaktadır. The deflationary theory has been one of the most influential theories of truth in contemporary philosophy. This theory holds that there is no property of truth at all, and that overt uses of the predicate `true` in our sentences are redundant, having absolutely no effect on what we express. However, all hypothetical examples used by deflationary theorists in exemplifying the theory, in papers, books, have been taken out of context. Thus, there is no way to examine and analyze what the predicate adds to the sentence within context. We oppose this theory not on philosophical grounds, but on empirical grounds, with an `ordinary language philosophy` approach. We computationally collect 7610 occurrences of overt uses of the predicate `true` in the form `it is true that`, from 10 influential periodicals (newspapers and magazines) published in the United States. We classify and annotate these examples with respect to coordinating and subordinating conjunctions' positions they contain. We investigate contextual relations of the proposition following the phrase `it is true that` with its surrounding propositions. We encounter 34 different syntactical patterns. We propose that in some occurrences of overt uses of the predicate `true`, existence of the predicate makes an emphasis, performs an action in the same manner as a performatory verb does. We provide ordinary language appearances of overt uses of the predicate `true`, which have been used in linguistically reliable media and constitute pragmatic `counter-examples` to the deflationary theory of truth. 77

In the first part of the dissertation, chapters 1 to 3, I criticize several views which tend to set philosophy apart from other cognitive achievements. I argue against the popular views that 1) Intuitions, as a sui generis mental state, are involved crucially in philosophical methodology 2) Philosophy requires engagement in conceptual analysis, understood as the activity of considering thought experiments with the aim to throw light on the nature of our concepts, and 3) Much philosophical knowledge is a priori. I do not claim to have a proof that nothing in the vicinity of these views is correct; such a proof might well be impossible to give. However, I consider several versions, usually prominent ones, of each of the views, and I show those versions to be defective. Quite often, moreover, different versions of the same worry apply to different versions of the same theory. In the fourth chapter I discuss the epistemology of the judgements involved in philosophical thought experiments, arguing that their justification depends on their being the product of a competence in applying the concepts involved, a competence which goes beyond the possession of the concepts. I then offer, drawing from empirical psychology, a sketch of the form this cognitive competence could take. The overall picture squares well with the conclusions of the first part. In the last chapter I consider a challenge to the use of thought experiments in contemporary analytic philosophy coming from the ‘experimental philosophy’ movement. I argue that there is no way of individuating the class of hypothetical judgements under discussion which makes the challenge both interesting and sound. Moreover, I argue that there are reasons to think that philosophers possess some sort of expertise which sets them apart from non-philosophers in relevant ways.

What does it mean to be a rational language user? What is it to obey linguistic rules? What is the proper account of linguistic competence? A Fregean answer to these questions would make essential appeal to the notion of sense: we are masters of a language to the extent that we are able to recognise the cognitive value of its expressions; we are rational judges regarding truth-value assignments to the extent that we are sensitive to the ways in which the sense of an expression guides us in the semantic evaluation process; and as for obeying rules, it is our ability to respond to how sense directs us, for a particular assertion of a sentence, towards the determination of its truth-value that best exemplifies what it is like to follow a linguistic rule. My thesis explores a cluster of closely interrelated issues arising from these questions (whether or not considered from a Fregean perspective). Accordingly, in tracing the routes of sense my dissertation places itself at the intersection of the philosophy of language, linguistics, philosophy of logic, and meta-ethics—and indeed, I end up agreeing with Allan Gibbard that the theory of meaning really belongs to meta-ethical reflection. Chapter 1 introduces some of the main research questions that I try to address in the rest of the thesis. In chapter 2 I state a number of theses which I take to be the defining ones for semanticism. I show that they form a class of jointly incompatible commitments. I choose nonsense as a problem case for compositionality and I argue that it forces the semanticist to abandon either the learnability or the compositionality constraint. The escape route I adopt, going radically minimalist about content, is incompatible with another key semanticist thesis, namely, that grasp of meaning is grasp of truth-conditions (robustly conceived). In chapter 3, I consider the account of atomic meanings given by both the semanticist and the pragmaticist and I conclude that on neither account does interpretation come out as a process of rational choice between candidate bearers of content. Again, I suggest the lesson from indeterminacy is that we ought to embrace an ineradicably minimal conception of content. In chapter 4 I turn my attention to the meaning of the logical constants and I argue that indeterminacy worries extend to the very heart of the compositional machinery. Chapter 5 examines the view that logic is the science of reasoning. Unsurprisingly, I conclude that a defence of this claim requires endorsing content-minimalism. In chapter 6 I conclude my dissertation by sketching a radical view of content minimalism and I try to show how it can solve the puzzles I had been considering over the course of the previous chapters.

In this thesis, it is our aim to discuss several aspects and developments of the Greek concept of πτῶσις, commonly know as case. This term was first coined by Aristotle in relation to both the grammatical and the philosophical category of the ὑποκειμένον (hypokeimenon) or subject. It is our contention that the concept of πτῶσις (ptōsis), as it was first developed by Aristotle and inscribed by the Stoic philosophers in a grammatical regime, can be deployed to inspect several aspects of Martin Hei- degger’s concept of the Verfallenheit or fallenness of Dasein, and that a reading of his work through the lens of Stoic grammatical theory reveals several complications of the concept of the subject that have, in our opinion, not yet been brought to the fore.

This thesis consists of four essays and an introduction dedicated to two main topics: indexicality and presupposition. The first essay is concerned with an alleged problem for the standard treatment of indexicals on which their linguistic meanings are functions from context to content (so-called characters). Since most indexicals have their content settled, on an occasion of use, by the speaker’s intentions, some authors have argued that this standard picture is inadequate. By demonstrating that intentions can be seen as a parameter of the kind of context that characters operate on, these arguments are rejected. In addition, it is argued that a more recent, variable-based framework is naturally interpreted as an intention-sensitive semantics. The second essay is devoted to the phenomenon of descriptive uses of indexicals on which such an expression seems to contribute, not its standard reference as determined by its character, but a property to the interpretation. An argument that singular readings of the cases in question are incoherent is shown to be incorrect, and an approach to descriptive readings is developed on which they arise from e-type uses akin to other well known cases. Further, descriptive readings of the relevant kind are seen to arise only in the presence of adverbs of quantification, and all sentences in which such an adverb takes scope over an indexical are claimed to be ambiguous between a referential and an e-type (descriptive) reading. The third essay discusses a version of the variable analysis of pronouns on which their descriptive meanings are relegated to the so-called phi-features – person, gender and number. In turn, the phi-features are here seen as triggering semantic presuppositions that place constraints on the definedness of pronouns, and ultimately of sentences in which they appear. It is argued that the descriptive information contributed by the phi-features diverges radically from presuppositional information of both semantic and pragmatic varieties on several dimensions of comparison, and instead the main role of the phi-features is seen to be that of guiding hearers’ attempts to ascertain the speaker’s intentions. The fourth essay addresses an issue concerning the treatment of presuppositions in dynamic semantics. Representing a semantic treatment of pragmatic presuppositions, the dynamic framework is shown to incorrectly regard conversational infelicity as sufficient for semantic undefinedness, given the standard way of defining truth in terms of context change. Further, it is shown that a proposal for a solution fail to make correct predictions for epistemic modals. A novel framework is developed on which context change potentials act on contexts that have more structure than the contexts usually countenanced by dynamic semantics, and it is shown that this framework derives truth from context change while making correct predictions for both presuppositions and modals.

When David Kaplan put forward his theory of sentence truth incorporating demonstratives, initially proposed in ‘Dthat’ (1978) and later developed in ‘Demonstratives’ (1989a) and ‘Afterthoughts’ (1989b), it was, to his mind, simply a matter of book-keeping, a job that had been pushed aside as a complication when a truth conditional semantics had been proposed. The challenges considered in this thesis are challenges to the effect that Kaplan’s theory of sentence truth is, for one reason or another, inadequate. My overarching aim is to defend Kaplan’s theory of sentence truth against these challenges. In chapter one I am concerned only with setting out some preliminary considerations. In chapter two I defend Kaplan’s theory of sentence truth against a general challenge, motivated by linguistic data from ‘contextualists’ and ‘relativists’. I argue that the methods and data employed by proponents of contextualism and relativism are lacking and as such should not be taken to have seriously challenged Kaplan’s theory of sentence truth. In chapter three I defend Kaplan’s theory of sentence truth against challenges to the effect that his theory is not suited to delivering on its initial purpose—to provide a semantics for indexical and demonstrative terms. I then develop a form of semantic pluralism that I take to be entirely compatible with the Kaplanian model. In chapters four I demonstrate the efficiency of this Kaplanian model when it comes to defending Kaplan’s theory against the challenge of providing suitable semantics to accommodate discourse involving future contingents. And finally, in chapter five I consider contextualist accounts of discourse concerning vague predicates.

Neuss: Bruno Buike 2010, 55p. - Most people will have to look up, who Max Bense (1910-1990) was. He however was "involved" in the evolving FORMAL LOGICS and some applications of same - and a special study center for Max-Bense topics until today is in Stuttgart/Germany. Here however another facet of Max Bense is dealt with, which is his declared PHILOSOPHICAL ATHEISM. And this essay has a decisive RESULT: If someone for whatever reasons is inclined to philosophical atheism, he perhaps would be better off, if searching for OTHER and BETTER arguments, than were proposed by Max Bense! Which of course is MY PERSONAL VIEW, which however is a LEARNED view, at least "somehow".

Straipsnyje siekiama parodyti, kad kalba yra pamatinė žmogaus veiksena: įvardydama pasaulio būtybes, ji sukuria tvarkingą ir struktūruotą žmogiškosios buveinės – kur – visumą. Bet koks tikrovės įvardijimas, pavadinimas žodžiu visada reprezentuoja žmogaus požiūrį į pasaulį. Kalbos problema straipsnyje nagrinėjama pasitelkus Antano Maceinos kalbos ir kultūros apmąstymams skirtus tekstus, taip pat – Wilhelmo von Humboldto, Martino Heideggerio, Maurice'o Merleau-Ponty ir kitų autorių svarstymus. It is necessary to begin from the point that human existence always supposes relationship with the world where language appears the only way to be therein. However, primarily human being is not well provided. Moreover, he does not possess his world so immediately and clearly, as the animals possess their own location in the wild. Hence, language is the first human's step to this location, to his own world which discloses itself only in the utterance. Language allows us to nuance all our impressions and designate each of them by a particular name. It originates an ordered and a structural whole of human habitation by naming the world's creatures, things, phenomena, as well as plenty of features and aspects. Entities of the world are essentially constituted by language in human reality. Besides, every word and every utterance always reveals a particular view as well as interpretation of a certain entity. Only that world which has a name discloses itself as an ordered whole which, on the other hand, always covers something that is not said. It is the main principle of Λóyoς in a pure sense. It shows us the expansion of human world until the boundaries that are defined by language. In the article, the language as world-view is investigated according to the language researches of A. Maceina, M. Heidegger, W. von Humboldt and other authors' reflections concerning language. The investigation of language that is presented in the article allows us to arrive at these conclusions. The analysis of similarities between interjection and word as well as their differences have shown that interjection as well as word belongs to the plane of subjectivity. In contrast, the word always strives to transcend the plane of subjectivity by making a motion towards externality. Thus, the word belongs to the domain of subjectivity and simultaneously reaches the world where it realizes itself in a concrete sense. Interjections are the merest emotional reactions which carry instinctive cries: they have instinctive origin. Hereby, the word is ambivalent. It includes both: the interjection and the sense. In consideration on language and its links with the thinking, it is necessary to infer that the word stands at the beginning of thinking. Every process of thinking begins with naming of an object. Hence, human thinking is not wordless or empty, on the contrary, it is always lingual. [...]

F. Kafkos, Jeano-Paulio Sarte’o, Albert’o Camus, Ilzės Škipsnos filosofinio žanro romanuose pavartotas gnoseologinis naratyvas, kurį galima vadinti dominuojančiu metanaratyvu egzistencialistų tekstuose. Tai pasireiškia kaip personažo dvasinis ieškojimas arba patirties įgijimo kelias, labirintas – abejonių, spėjimų, klaidų ir netikėtų pergalių kelias. Egzistencialistų naratyvas yra epistemologinė kategorija, kuri numato būtinų naracijos strategijų, ypatingų pasakojimo bei siužeto priemonių pasirinkimą. Pasakotojas yra užuominų mechanizmo kūrėjas, o užuomina egzistencialistų romanuose tampa pakartojimui pajungtos detalės, simboliai, mitologemos, kultūrinės reminiscencijos ir kt. Tai numatyta skaitytojo suvokimo eigai kontroliuoti. Personažo vidinio ieškojimo arba pažinimo procesas egzistencialistų prozoje atskleidžia mas arba alegorija, arba metafora. Autoriai, kurie yra sukūrę savo teoriją (Ž. P. Sartre’as), arba užmezga dialogą su kokio nors visiems žinomo teoretiko nuomonėmis (I. Škipsna), arba naratyvui organizuoti pavartoja metaforą (baimės, nepažadėtosios žemės). Autoriai, kurie neturi teorinių darbų ir savo filosofinę nuomonę išreiškia tik tai kuriuose kūriniuose (F. Kafka, A. Camus), naratyvui organizuoti pasirenka permatomesnę priemonę – alegoriją. Šie egzistencialistai atsisako dviprasmybių bei daugiareikšmių leksemų vartojimo. Vienarūše leksika jie vengia galimų nesusipratimų suvokiant alegorijas. Tiek alegoriniai, tiek metaforiški vaizdai atspindi stichinius... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] Epistemological narrative is used in philosophical novels by Franz Kafka, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Ilze Šķipsna and can be called dominant meta-narrative in the writings of existentialists. It is shown through the character’s mental exploration or the way of gaining experience, a labyrinth – the way of doubts, guesses, mistakes and accidental victories. The narrative of existentialists is an epistemological category, which anticipates a definite structure of narration, a particular choice of message and plot. The narrator is the one, providing the mechanism of clues, details, symbols, mythologems, cultural reminiscences, etc. that are meant for the control of the reader’s perception process. Internal search or a cognition process of characters in prose of existentialists is revealed either by using allegory or metaphor. Authors, who have developed their own theories (J. P. Sartre) or those who dialogize with cognitions of well-known theoreticians (I. Šķipsna) use metaphor for organizing their narrative (sickness, the unpromised land). Authors who haven’t developed theoretical elaborations express their philosophical cognitions only through literary works (F. Kafka, A. Camus); they choose more transparent means for organizing narrative, allegory. These existentialists refuse ambiguity as well as usage of polysemous lexemes. By using homogeneous vocabulary they avoid possible misunderstandings in comprehension of allegory. Both allegorical and metaphorical characters... [to full text]

This is a brief note criticising some anti-foundationalist and anti-essentialist semiotic assumptions in Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, from the standpoint of a classical structuralist perspective which (following Saussure) sees the play of differences as crucially constitutive of a system of positive terms.

The article presents one of the most popular trend in 20–th century Thomistic philosophy – existential Thomism. According to existential Thomists, the most important notion in philosophy of St.Thomas Aquinas is the notion of esse. Indeed, the doctrine of actus essendi has become the fundamental tenet of traditional Thomism of our days. The article attempts to analyze the most important insights of such prominent existential Thomists as Jacques Maritain ir Etienne Gilson in the light of analytical philosophy. These are the «intuition of being» and the «concept of being», proposed by Maritain and discussed by Gilson. In discussing and subsequently rejecting the possibility of conceptualizing the esse, Gilson has denied the essentialism of his Neotomistic predecessors. The article shows that Thomistic notion of being as analyzed by existential Thomism is capable of analytical interpretation through proper understanding of St.Thomas’s epistemology. Šis straipsnyje pristatoma viena įtakingiausių XX amžiaus filosofijos krypčių - egzistencinis tomizmas kaip analitinio tomizmo pirmtakas, turėjęs lemiamos reikšmės šiuolaikiniams ontologijos bei epistemologijos tyrinėjimams.

Humboldt's Writings on Language. Selection

Ankara : Institute of Economics and Social Sciences of Bilkent Univ., 1991. Thesis (Master's) -- Bilkent University, 1991. Includes bibliographical references leaves 133-135. This study investigates a number of differences between Turkish and English in the area of speech acts of requests and apologies and links them with different cultural norms and cultural assumptions, By comparing these two speech acts in two languages, the goal was to find out whether native knowledge and use of these speech act patterns influence Turkish students’ performance in English. The theoretical and methodological framework for this investigation has been developed based on a number of studies conducted in the same area in languages other than Turkish and English. Two sets of questionnaires (Turkish and English) consisting of sixteen situations, eight eliciting requests and eight eliciting apologies were used as the instruments for this study. The data collection method is based on a set of questionnaires, and data analysis is based on a set of coding schemes for the responses elicited from the questionnaires. The data analysis procedure is illustrated by giving examples from the data. The data consist of three sets; (1) Turkish Baseline, (2) English Baseline and (3) L2 Experimental Data. The coding schemes consists of two main categories for requests; (1) units of analysis and (2) directness in requests; and of two categories for apologies; (1) semantic formulas and (2) acknowledgement of responsibility strategies. This kind of contrastive analysis provided accountable results for cross-cultural variability in the realization patterns of the same speech acts. The speech act patterns were also described both from social superiors’ and inferiors’ point of view. Results showed that a number of differences occur between Turkish and English speech act patterns. Different patterns and usages led to students’ negative transfer while similarities led to positive transfer. It was also found that because of the lack of proficiency in English, students sometimes avoid using the patterns and sometimes use them in linguistically incorrect forms in the target language. This result suggests that in EEL situations, the goals of syllabus design should be based on theoretical descriptions and research evidence. It might also be suggested that differences between learners' native culture and target language cultures should be emphasized in foreign language teaching. Mızıkaçı, Fatma M.A.