Questions

53.49 €

Order
Questions
To the philosopher, the logician, and the linguist, questions have a special fascination. The two main views of language, that it describes the world, and that it expresses thought, are not directly applicable to questions. Ques tions are not assertions. A question may be apt, sharp, to the point, impor tant, or it may be inappropriate, ambiguous, awkward, irrelevant or irreverent. But it cannot be true or false. It does not have a truth value not just because an utterance like Was the letter long? does not indicate which letter is being talked about. The indicative The letter was not long has the same indeter minacy. In actual context the anaphoric definite article will be resolved both for a question and for an indicative sentence. Contextual resolutions are easily found for most cross-references. A question cannot be either true or it does not describe a state of affairs. Neither does it express false, because thought, because it is an expression of suspended thought, of lack of judge ment. To dress it in other philosophical styles, a question is not a judgment, it is not a proposition, it is not an assertion. A philosopher may try to paraphrase a question as an indicative sentence, for instance as a statement of ignorance, or as a statement of the desire to know. Hintikka, Wachowicz and Lang explore this territory. Or he may interpret it as a meta statement intimating the direction in which the flow of the discourse is going.

More from the series "Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy"

Log in to get access to this book and to automatically save your books and your progress.

Purchase this book or upgrade to dav Pro to read this book.

When you buy this book, you can access it regardless of your plan. You can also download the book file and read it in another app or on an Ebook reader.

80 % of the price goes directly to the author.

ISBN: 9789027710352

Language: English

Publication date: 30.11.1979

Number of pages: 383

Our shipping costs are a flat rate of €2.50, regardless of the order.
Currently, we only ship within Germany.

Shipping is free for PocketLib Pro users.

An error occured. Please check your internet connection or try it again later.