What is language? How does it relate to the world? How does it relate to the mind? Should our view of language influence our view of the world? These are among the central issues covered in this spirited and unusually clear introduction to the philosophy of language.Making no pretense of neutrality, Michael Devitt and Kim Sterelny take a definite theoretical stance. Central to that stance is naturalism--that is, they treat a philosophical theory of language as an empirical theory like any other and see people as nothing but complex parts of the physical world. This leads them, controversially, to a deflationary view of the significance of the study of language: they dismiss the idea that the philosophy of language should be preeminent in philosophy.This highly successful textbook has been extensively rewritten for the second edition to reflect recent developments in the field.

《语言的逻辑句法》，本书作者卡尔纳普哲学思想的发展，一般说来，有语义、句法、语用三个阶段。在句法这个阶段，他强调把哲学变成科学语言的元语言——即句法。旨在把科学研究的内容与科学的语言形式分别开来。他认为，内容或对象属于具体的自然科学范围，与哲学无关。

摩尔关注日常语言及其分析，关注概念、命题的意义，其语言和逻辑的分析方法为分析哲学之滥觞。他一生著作不多，多是通过一些论文不断修正和发展自己的思想，本书为其重要论文集，收录了十篇论文。这些论文以“逻辑”和“经验”的方法分析了哲学和伦理学的一些基本问题，显示出分析哲学注重方法而非哲学观的特点，为后来的“逻辑经验主义”开辟了思路，在现代哲学史上影响广泛而深刻。

When it first appeared in 1979, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature hit the philosophical world like a bombshell. In it, Richard Rorty argued that, beginning in the seventeenth century, philosophers developed an unhealthy obsession with the notion of representation: comparing the mind to a mirror that reflects reality. Rorty's book is a powerful critique of this imagery and the tradition of thought that it spawned. Thirty years later, the book remains a must-read and stands as a classic of twentieth-century philosophy. Its influence on the academy, both within philosophy and across a wide array of disciplines, continues unabated. This edition includes new essays by philosopher Michael Williams and literary scholar David Bromwich, as well as Rorty's previously unpublished essay "The Philosopher as Expert."

Language consists of dispositions, socially instilled, to respond observably to socially observable stimuli. Such is the point of view from which a noted philosopher and logician examines the notion of meaning and the linguistic mechanisms of objective reference. In the course of the discussion, Professor Quine pinpoints the difficulties involved in translation, brings to light the anomalies and conflicts implicit in our language's referential apparatus, clarifies semantic problems connected with the imputation of existence, and marshals reasons for admitting or repudiating each of various categories of supposed objects. He argues that the notion of a language-transcendent "sentence-meaning" must on the whole be rejected; meaningful studies in the semantics of reference can only be directed toward substantially the same language in which they are conducted.

本书收入了作者有关语言哲学的系列论文，自1984年出版后，本书成为讨论语言哲学的参照点以及相关争论的焦点，其影响已扩展到语言理论、心灵哲学和认识论。 本书讨论的核心问题是，语词为什么具有它们所确实具有的意义。作者认为，哲学上有教益的意义理论应当承认对语言理解的整体论性质，它应当能够解释一个说话者或一群说话者所有实际的和潜在的话语；而它不应当依赖于它所要解释的概念，因为它应当是独立于说话者具体的命题态度而可证实的。本书所涵盖的论题包括了真理论与意义论之间的关系、翻译、引语、信念、彻底的解释、指称、隐喻、交流等。