Max De Gaynesford

If philosophy and poetry are to illuminate each other, we should first understand their tendencies to mutual antipathy. Examining mutual misapprehension is part of this task. J. L. Austin's remarks on poetry offer one such point of entry: they are often cited by poets and critics as an example of philosophy's blindness to poetry. These remarks are complex and their purpose obscure—more so than those who take exception to them usually allow or admit. But it is reasonable to think that, for all his levity at their expense, what Austin offers poets is exemption from forms of commitment. Since such exemption is precisely what poets and critics have sought, this diagnosis is eirenic. This exemption has a price, but it may be affordable.

Philosophy has tended to regard poetry primarily in terms of truth and falsity, assuming that its business is to state or describe states of affairs. Speech act theory transforms philosophical debate by regarding poetry in terms of action, showing that its business is primarily to do things. The proposal can sharpen our understanding of types of poetry; examples of the ‘Chaucer-Type’ and its variants demonstrate this. Objections to the proposal can be divided into those that relate to the agent of actions associated with a poem, those that relate to the actions themselves, and those that relate to the things done. These objections can be answered. A significant consequence of the proposal is that it gives prominence to issues of responsibility and commitment. This prominence brings philosophical debate usefully into line with contemporary poetry, whose concern with such issues is manifest in characteristic forms of anxiety.

Consensus identifies an underlying continuity to Wittgenstein's treatment of the self and 'I', despite certain obvious surface variations and revisions. Almost all Wittgenstein's arguments and observations concerning 'I' and the self in the Tractatus are arranged as attempts to explicate. The philosophical self is not the human being, not the human body, or the human soul, with which psychology deals, but rather the metaphysical subject, the limit of the world, not a part of it. The picture that forms around the consensus view is certainly enlightening about Wittgenstein on 'I' and the self, but this is so because rather than in spite of the difficulties we face in making it match. Contrary to the consensus view, there is little or no 'denigrating' of the first person in his thought, whether of the reductionist or eliminativist kind, and where it may be manifest limited uses only, and by contrast with the general case.

What is it for poetry to be serious and to be taken seriously? What is it to be open to poetry, exposed to its force, attuned to what it says and alive to what it does? These are important questions that call equally on poetry and philosophy. But poetry and philosophy, notoriously, have an ancient quarrel. Maximilian de Gaynesford sets out to understand and convert their mutual antipathy into something mutually enhancing, so that we can begin to answer these and other questions. The key to attuning poetry and philosophy lies in the fact that poetic utterances are best appreciated as doing things. For it is as doing things that the speech act approach in analytic philosophy of language tries to understand all utterances. Taking such an approach, this book offers ways to enhance our appreciation of poetry and to develop our understanding of philosophy. It explores work by a range of poets from Chaucer to Geoffrey Hill and J. H. Prynne, and culminates in an extended study of Shakespeare's Sonnets. What work does poetry set itself, and how does this determine the way it is to be judged? What do poets commit themselves to, and what they may be held responsible for? What role does a poet have, or their audience, or their context, in determining the meaning of a poem, what work it is able to achieve? These are the questions that an attuned approach is able to ask and answer.

Putnam is one of the most influential philosophers of recent times, and his authority stretches far beyond the confines of the discipline. However, there is a considerable challenge in presenting his work both accurately and accessibly. This is due to the width and diversity of his published writings and to his frequent spells of radical re-thinking. But if we are to understand how and why philosophy is developing as it is, we need to attend to Putnam's whole career. He has had a dramatic influence on theories of meaning, semantic content, and the nature of mental phenomena, on interpretations of quantum mechanics, theory-change, logic and mathematics, and on what shape we should desire for future philosophy. By presenting the whole of his career within its historical context, de Gaynesford discovers a basic unity in his work, achieved through repeated engagements with a small set of hard problems. By foregrounding this integrity, the book offers an account of his philosophy that is both true to Putnam and helpful to readers of his work.

Putnam is one of the most influential philosophers of recent times, and his authority stretches far beyond the confines of the discipline. However, there is a considerable challenge in presenting his work both accurately and accessibly. This is due to the width and diversity of his published writings and to his frequent spells of radical re-thinking. But if we are to understand how and why philosophy is developing as it is, we need to attend to Putnam's whole career. He has had a dramatic influence on theories of meaning, semantic content, and the nature of mental phenomena, on interpretations of quantum mechanics, theory-change, logic and mathematics, and on what shape we should desire for future philosophy. By presenting the whole of his career within its historical context, de Gaynesford discovers a basic unity in his work, achieved through repeated engagements with a small set of hard problems. By foregrounding this integrity, the book offers an account of his philosophy that is both true to Putnam and helpful to readers of his work.

Reflecting a recent flourishing of creative thinking in the field, _Agents and Their Actions_ presents seven newly commissioned essays by leading international philosophers that highlight the most recent debates in the philosophy of action Features seven internationally significant authors, including new work by two of philosophy's ‘super stars’, John McDowell and Joseph Raz Presents the first clear indication of how John McDowell is extending his path-breaking work on intentionality and perceptual experience towards an account of action and agency Covers all the major interconnections between action-agency and central areas of Philosophy: Metaphysics, Epistemology, History of Philosophy, Ethics, Logic, Philosophy of Language Provides a snapshot of current debate on the subject, which is fresh, enlightening, and fruitful

Claudia Bianchi defends what she calls ‘MacKinnon's claim’: that ‘works of pornography can be understood as illocutionary acts of subordinating women, or illocutionary acts of silencing women’ in response to Saul , and by appeal to the formulations of Langton , Hornsby and Hornsby and Langton . I think Bianchi has two different claims in mind , and that it is important to distinguish the two, since the argument offered for either claim frustrates the aim sought by the other.Bianchi expresses the first claim when she says ‘pornography is the subordination of women’, and that it subordinates ‘by conditioning people to regard women as willing sexual objects’ . Call this Subordination. She expresses the second claim when she says pornography ‘silences women’, and that it does so …

The central claim of this book is that I is a deictic term, like the other singular personal pronouns You and He/She. This is true of the logical character, inferential role, referential function, expressive use, and communicative role of all and only expressions used to formulate first-personal reference in any language. The first part of the book shows why the standard account of I as a ‘pure indexical’ (‘purism’) should be rejected. Purism requires three mutually supportive doctrines which turn out to be myths: a) that a simple rule is sufficient to give the meaning of I (‘rule theory’); b) that one can use I to express thoughts without having to identify what is being referred to (‘independence’); and c) that as a matter of the meaning of I, any use of the term is logically guaranteed against failure to refer (‘the guarantee’). The second part of the book shows why the radically new account of I should be endorsed as a deictic term. Substitution instances and the behaviour of I in inference reveal that it has an obligatorily deictic logical character and inferential role. I fulfils its referential function in the deictic way, providing determinacy of reference by making an individual referentially salient in the extra-sentential context. The discriminability of the referent of an I-use depends on recognizing the referentially salient individual. This is true of its discriminability both to the reference-maker and to the audience. So I has the expressive use and communicative role of a deictic term. The conclusion of the book directs research towards the next step, showing how the meaning of I may be used to elucidate the thoughts expressed by the term, and from there questions relating to self-knowledge, practical reasoning, belief-acquisition, and belief-ascription.