Mutual Misunderstanding: Scepticism and the Theorizing of Language and InterpretationDuke University Press, 1992 M07 30 - 279 pages Do others understand what we say or write? Do we understand them? Theorists of language and interpretation claim to be more concerned with questions about "what" we understand and "how" we understand, rather than with the logically prior question "whether" we understand each other. An affirmative answer to the latter question is apparently taken for granted. However, in Mutual Misunderstanding, Talbot J. Taylor shows that the sceptical doubts about communicational understanding do in fact have a profoundly important, if as yet unacknowledged, function in the construction of theories of language and interpretation. Mutual Misundertanding thus presents a strikingly original analysis of the rhetorical patterns underlying Western linguistic thought, as exemplified in the works of John Locke, Jacques Derrida, Gottlob Frege, Jonathan Culler, Noam Chomsky, Ferdinand de Saussure, H. Paul Grice, Michael Dummet, Stanley Fish, Alfred Schutz, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, Harold Garfinkel, and others. This analysis reveals how, by the combined effect of appeals to "commonsense" and anxieties about implications of relativism, scepticism has a determining role in the discursive development of a number of the intellectual disciplines making up the "human sciences" today, including critical theory, literary hermeneutics, philosophy of language and logic, communication theory, discourse and conversation analysis, pragmatics, stylistics, and linguistics. Consequently, this provocative study will be of value to readers from a wide variety of disciplinary backgrounds. |
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Page 6
... ? And what sense is there , therefore , in speaking of " government by consent " ? In the philosophy of science , sceptics again refute " re- ceived opinion , " arguing that two scientific theories cannot 6 To remedy the abuse of words.
... ? And what sense is there , therefore , in speaking of " government by consent " ? In the philosophy of science , sceptics again refute " re- ceived opinion , " arguing that two scientific theories cannot 6 To remedy the abuse of words.
Page 7
... arguing that two scientific theories cannot ultimately be shown to contradict each other , for each theory's ... arguments . Let me repeat and emphasize : it is not my aim to argue for or against the seriousness of sceptical perspectives ...
... arguing that two scientific theories cannot ultimately be shown to contradict each other , for each theory's ... arguments . Let me repeat and emphasize : it is not my aim to argue for or against the seriousness of sceptical perspectives ...
Page 9
... so what ? My answer to such a question can here only be brief , dogmatic , and without supporting argument ; and it is here that I will have to stand . Theories of language are theories of what we do ; On addressing understanding 9.
... so what ? My answer to such a question can here only be brief , dogmatic , and without supporting argument ; and it is here that I will have to stand . Theories of language are theories of what we do ; On addressing understanding 9.
Page 18
... argument to make about the truth or falsity of particular language theories , or indeed of language theory in general . ( I am well aware that such a remark must sound disingenuous . Given this , my only recourse is to ask my reader to ...
... argument to make about the truth or falsity of particular language theories , or indeed of language theory in general . ( I am well aware that such a remark must sound disingenuous . Given this , my only recourse is to ask my reader to ...
Page 28
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Contents
Communicational Codes | 47 |
Communicational Reasoning | 115 |
Communicational Practice | 155 |
Denouement | 231 |
References | 259 |
Index | 263 |
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acoustic image actions analogy anti-realism anti-realist arbitrary argues argument artificial language assertion assertion-conditions assumption behavior belief calls characteristics Chomsky code theory commonsense communica communicational acts communicational scepticism communicational understanding occurs communicators ordinarily understand conceived concept Condillac conformity context Derrida determined Dummett empirical justification epistemic ethnomethodology explain expression fact Frege given grasp guage holism I-language individual agents intellectual discourse intellectual metadiscourse interaction interlocutors internalized interpretation interpretive community intersubjectivity justified language code language theory language-game langue linguistic Locke Locke's Lockean logic means mental metacommunicational discourse Moreover municational mutual understanding natural naturalist normative object particular perspective picture possible practical metadiscourse pragmatic rules pragmatic theory premise problem psychological question realist reasoning relativism relativist rhetorical force rhetorical strategies rule rule-following Saussure Saussure's Saussurean semiotic sense sentence shared signifié signify social order speaker and hearer stand structuralist structure theorist thought tion treat utterance vehicle of communicational voluntary words