Signs, Science and Politics

Philosophies of language in Europe 1700–1830

Author

Lia Formigari | University of Rome

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027245571 (Eur) | EUR 105.00

ISBN 9781556193651 (USA) | USD 158.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027276889 | EUR 105.00 | USD 158.00

This book tells the story of how 18th-century European philosophy used Locke's theory of signs to build a natural history of speech and to investigate the semiotic tools with which nature and civil society can be controlled. The story ends at the point where this approach to language sciences was called into question. Its epilogue is the description of the birth of an alternative between empiricism and idealism in late 18th- and early 19th-century theories of language. This alternative has given rise to such irreducible dichotomies as empirical linguistics vs. speculative linguistics, philosophies of linguistics vs. philosophy of language. Since then philosophers have largely given up reflecting on linguistic practice and have left the burden of unifying and interpreting empirical research data to professional linguists, limiting themselves to the study of foundations and to purely self-contemplative undertakings. The theoretical and institutional relevance to the present of the problems arising from this situation is in itself a sufficient reason for casting our minds back over a period in which, as in no other, linguistic research was an integral part of the encyclopaedia of knowledge, and in which philosophers reflected, and encouraged reflection, upon the semiotic instruments of science and politics.

[Studies in the History of the Language Sciences, 70] 1993. x, 218 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/sihols.70

Table of Contents

0. Preface and Acknowledgments | p. v

1. The Semiotic Control of Experience | p. 1

1.1 Towards a natural history of speech
1.2 Language and the “way of ideas”
1.3 Semiotics and philosophy
1.4 The theory of signs and the metaphysical revival

2. The Semiotic Control of Civil Society | p. 63

2.1 “Sapienza ben parlante” or: the use of eloquence
2.2 Linguistic theory and reformist philosophy in Italy
2.3. Theories of language in Italy from Revolution to Restoration
2.4 Theories of language and theories of power in France

3. The Birth of Idealism in Linguistics: The History of a Transition | p. 169

3.1 Transcendental subjectivity and language
3.2 Linguistics and transcendental philosophy
3.3 A critique of linguistic transcendentalism
3.4 Conclusions

A. Primary sources | p. 191

B. Secondary sources | p. 203

Index of Authors | p. 211

Index of Subjects & Terms | p. 217

Cited by

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2023. Questões sociais e políticas da “vulgarização científica” na Revolução [francesa] (1780-1810). Revista Brasileira de História da Ciência 16:1 ► pp. 358 ff.

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2005. La langue politique et la Révolution française. Langage et société n° 113:3 ► pp. 63 ff.

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2022. The variance of word-forming suffixes in conversational person names based on external features. Ukrainska mova :1 ► pp. 3 ff.

Lauzon, Matthew

1996. Savage eloquence in America and the linguistic construction of a British identity in the 18th century. Historiographia Linguistica 23:1-2 ► pp. 123 ff.

Mueller-Vollmer, Kurt

2000. Language theory and the art of understanding. In The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, ► pp. 162 ff.

Oesterreicher, Wulf & Roland Schmidt-Riese

1999. Amerikanische Sprachenvielfalt und europäische Grammatiktradition. Missionarslinguistik im Epochenumbruch der Frühen Neuzeit. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 29:4 ► pp. 62 ff.

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1995. Reviews. Henry Sweet Society for the History of Linguistic Ideas Bulletin 24:1 ► pp. 3 ff.

Straub, Jürgen, Werner Nothdurft, Hartmut Rosa, Norbert Ricken, Nicole Balzer, Klaus Jonas, Marianne Schmid Mast, Hans-Herbert Kögler, Mary Snell-Hornby, Gabriele Cappai, Martin Fuchs, Werner Nothdurft, Thorsten Bonacker & Lars Schmitt

2007. Grundbegriffe. In Handbuch interkulturelle Kommunikation und Kompetenz, ► pp. 5 ff.

[no author supplied]

2013. Bibliographie. In Mille ans de langue française, histoire d’une passion, ► pp. 627 ff.

[no author supplied]

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This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

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