Modernism And The Language Of Philosophy

Modernism can be characterized by the acute attention it gives to language toits potential and its limitations. Philosophers artists and literary criticswho wor... » 

Modernism can be characterized by the acute attention it gives to language toits potential and its limitations. Philosophers artists and literary criticswho worked in the first third of the twentieth century on the one handemphasized languages creative potential but on the other its impotence inconveying what was aimed at. In particular modernists shared the belief thatphilosophical language was at a loss that the kind of truth sub specie aeternithat was sought by philosophers is either meaningless or is more appropriatelyexpressed by the arts especially by literature and poetry. Modernism and theLanguage of Philosophy addresses the challenge this belief posed to philosophyarguing that the modernist assumption rests upon a host of unacknowledgedrepressed or denied dogmas or tacit images.Anat Matar begins by investigating the ideas that bring out this crisis inphilosophical language through examining the relevant views of the earlyWittgenstein Carnap and Artaud. The book goeson to look at the roots of themodernist crisis focusing on Frege and Husserls innovative ideas andanalyzing the inner tensions in this premodern era. A contemporary solution isexplored drawing on the work of Michale Dummett and Jacques Derrida. These twophilosophers drive the narrative of Modernism and the Language of Philosophyand serve as spectacles through which both past and present day philosophersare looked at. Through the perspectives of Dummett and Derrida a dialogue isformed between the two philosophical traditions of the twentieth century analytic and continental and Matar shows that the dynamics of thought aboutlanguage philosophy and philosophical languagein these traditions cannot bedetached from one another. «