Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  • Cited by 4
    • Show more authors
    • You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Select format
    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      September 2009
      November 2003
      ISBN:
      9780511487293
      9780521831192
      9780521036016
      Dimensions:
      (235 x 162 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.408kg, 168 Pages
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 150 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.26kg, 168 Pages
    You may already have access via personal or institutional login
  • Selected: Digital
    Add to cart View cart Buy from Cambridge.org

    Book description

    This book examines John Locke's claims about the nature and workings of language. Walter Ott proposes an interpretation of Locke's thesis in which words signify ideas in the mind of the speaker, and argues that rather than employing such notions as sense or reference, Locke relies on an ancient tradition that understands signification as reliable indication. He then uses this interpretation to explain crucial areas of Locke's metaphysics and epistemology, including essence, abstraction, knowledge and mental representation. His discussion challenges many of the orthodox readings of Locke, and will be of interest to historians of philosophy and philosophers of language alike.

    Reviews

    'Walter Ott's is a very welcome book … exclusively devoted to this important topic … Ott offers some genuinely fascinating insights into Locke …'

    Source: Annual Journal of Locke Research

    ‘… this promising first book devoted to Locke's philosophy of language opens with a … stimulating interpretation of Locke's views on signification, particles and propositions. General readers will also enjoy the broad scope of the remainder of Ott's book …'

    Source: British Journal for the History of Philosophy

    Refine List

    Actions for selected content:

    Select all | Deselect all
    • View selected items
    • Export citations
    • Download PDF (zip)
    • Save to Kindle
    • Save to Dropbox
    • Save to Google Drive

    Save Search

    You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

    Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
    ×

    Contents

    Bibliography
    Aaron, R. I. 1952. The Theory of Universals. Oxford: Clarendon Press
    Aarsleff, Hans. 1964. “Leibniz on Locke on Language.”American Philosophical Quarterly 1: 165–88
    Alston, William. 1964. The Philosophy of Language. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall
    Aquinas, St. Thomas. 1945. Basic Writings. 2 vols. Edited by Anton Pegis. New York: Random House
    Aquinas, St. Thomas. 1970. Commentary on the Posterior Analytics. Translated by F. R. Larcher. New York: Magi Books
    Aquinas, St. Thomas. 1993. Selected Philosophical Writings. Edited by T. McDermott. Oxford: Oxford University Press
    Aristotle. 1984. The Complete Works of Aristotle. 2 vols. Edited by Jonathan Barnes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
    Aristotle. 1989. Prior Analytics. Translated by Robin Smith. Indianapolis: Hackett
    Armstrong, D. M. 1978. Universals and Scientific Realism. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
    Armstrong,. 1989. Universals: An Opinionated Introduction. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1989
    Armstrong,. 1991. “Arda Denkel's Resemblance Nominalism.”Philosophical Quarterly 41: 478–82
    Arnauld, Antoine. 1775. Oeuvres de Messire Antoine Arnauld. 43 vols. Paris: Sigismond D'Arnay
    Arnauld, Antoine. 1990. On True and False Ideas. Translated by Stephen Gaukroger. Manchester: Manchester University Press
    Arnauld, Antoine and Claude Lancelot. 1966. Grammaire générale et raisonnée, ou La Grammaire de Port-Royal. Edited by Herbert E. Brekle. Stuttgart: Friedrich Fromman Verlag
    Arnauld, Antoine and Claude Lancelot. 1975. The Port-Royal Grammar. Translated and edited by Jacques Rieux and Bernard E. Rollin. Paris: Mouton
    Arnauld, Antoine and Pierre Nicole. 1964. The Art of Thinking: Translated by James Dickoff and Patricia James. New York: Bobbs-Merrill
    Arnauld, Antoine and Pierre Nicole. 1970. La Logique, ou L'art de Penser. Paris: Flammarion
    Arnauld, Antoine and Pierre Nicole. 1996. Logic or the Art of Thinking. Translated and edited by Jill Vance Buroker. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
    Ashworth, E. J. 1981. “Do Words Signify Ideas or Things?”Journal of the History of Philosophy 19: 299–326
    Ashworth, E. J.. 1984. “Locke on Language.”Canadian Journal of Philosophy 14: 45–73
    Ashworth, E. J.. 1988. “The Historical Origins of John Poinsot's Treatise on Signs.”Semiotica 69: 129–47
    Ashworth, E. J. 1990. “Domingo de Soto and the Doctrine of Signs.” In De Ortu Grammaticae, edited by G. L. Bursill-Hall, Sten Ebbesen, and Konrad Koerner. Philadelphia: John Benjamins
    Augustine. 1958. On Christian Doctrine. Translated by D. W. Robertson. New York: Bobbs-Merrill
    Augustine. 1975. De Dialectica. Translated by B. Darrell Jackson. Boston: D. Reidel
    Augustine. 1991. The Trinity. Translated by Edmund Hill. New York: New City Press, 1991
    Augustine. 1995. Against the Academicians and The Teacher. Translated by Peter King. Indianapolis: Hackett
    Ayer, A. J. 1946. Language, Truth and Logic. New York: Dover
    Ayers, M. R. 1975. “Introduction.” In George Berkeley: Philosophical Works, Including the Works on Vision, edited by M. R. Ayers. London: J. M. Dent
    Ayers, M. R. 1981. “Locke Versus Aristotle on Natural Kinds.”Journal of Philosophy 78: 247–72
    Ayers, M. R. 1986. “Are Locke's ‘Ideas’ Images, Intentional Objects, or Natural Signs?”The Locke Newsletter 17: 3–36
    Ayers, M. R. 1991. Locke: Epistemology and Ontology. London: Routledge
    Ayers, M. R. 1997. “Review of the Cambridge Companion to Locke.”The Locke Newsletter 28: 157–89
    Ayers, M. R. 1998a. “The Foundations of Knowledge and the Logic of Substance: the Structure of Locke's General Philosophy.” In Locke, edited by Vere Chappell. Oxford: Oxford University Press
    Ayers, M. R. 1998b. “Ideas and Objective Being.” In The Cambridge History of Seventeenth Century Philosophy, edited by M. R. Ayers and Daniel Garber. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
    Baker, Lynne Rudder. 1989. “Instrumental Intentionality.”Philosophy of Science 56, 2: 303–30
    Behan, David. 2000. “Descartes and Formal Signs.” In Descartes' Natural Philosophy, edited by Stephen Gaukroger, John Schuster, and John Sutton. London: Routledge
    Bennett, Jonathan. 1971. Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes. Oxford: Clarendon Press
    Berkeley, George. 1949–58. The Works of George Berkeley. 8 vols. Edited by A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop. London: Thomas Nelson
    Berkeley, George. 1987. Berkeley's Manuscript Introduction. Edited by Bertil Belfrage. Oxford: Doxa
    Blackburn, Simon. 1984. Spreading the Word. Oxford: Oxford University Press
    Bolton, Martha. 1998a. “The Relevance of Locke's Theory of Ideas to his Doctrine of Nominal Essence and Anti-essentialist Semantic Theory.” In Locke, edited by Vere Chappell. Oxford: Oxford University Press
    Bolton, Martha. 1998b. “Universals, Essences, and Abstract Entities.” In The Cambridge History of Seventeenth Century Philosophy, edited by M. R. Ayers and Daniel Garber. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
    Burnyeat, Myles F. 1982. “The Origins of Non-Deductive Inference.” In Science and Speculation: Studies in Hellenistic Theory and Practice, edited by Jonathan Barnes, Jacques Brunschwig, Myles Burnyeat, and Malcolm Schofield. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
    Buroker, Jill Vance. 1993. “The Port-Royal Semantics of Terms.”Synthese 96, 3: 455–45
    Cajetan (Cardinal Thomas de Vio). 1953. The Analogy of Names. Translated by E. A. Bushinski. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press
    Coimbran Commentators. 1976. Commentarii Conimbricenses in dialecticam Aristotelis (1607). Reprinted by Hildesheim: G. Olms
    Crane, Tim. 1995. The Mechanical Mind. London: Penguin
    Cummins, Robert. 1989. Meaning and Mental Representation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
    Denkel, Arda. 1989. “Real Resemblances.”Philosophical Quarterly 39: 36–56
    Descartes, René. 1984. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Vols. 1 and 2, edited by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch; vol. 3, edited by Cottingham, Stoothoff, Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny. New York: Cambridge University Press
    Digby, Sir Kenelm. 1657. Two Treatises: in the one of which, the nature of bodies, in the other the nature of mans soule is looked into: in way of discovery of the immortality of reasonable soules. London
    Donagan, Alan. 1971. “Universals and Metaphysical Realism.” In The Problem of Universals, edited by C. Landesman. New York: Basic Books
    Doney, Willis. 1956. “Locke's Abstract Ideas.”Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 16, 3: 406–9
    Doyle, John P. 1984. “The Conimbricenses on the Relations Involved in Signs.” In Semiotica, edited by John Deeley. New York: University Press
    Dretske, Fred. 1990. “Misrepresentation.” In Mind and Cognition, edited by William G. Lycan. Oxford: Blackwell
    Evans, Gareth. 1982. The Varieties of Reference. Oxford: Clarendon Press
    Ferguson, Sally. 2001. “Lockian Teleosemantics.”Locke Studies 1: 105–10
    Flew, Antony. 1993. “Was Berkeley a Precursor of Wittgenstein?” In Alciphron: In Focus, edited by David Berman. London: Routledge
    Fodor, Jerry. 1984. “Semantics, Wisconsin Style.”Synthese 59: 231–23
    Fodor, Jerry. 1987. Psychosemantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
    Frege, Gottlob. 1950. The Foundations of Arithmetic. Translated by J. L. Austin. Evanston: Northwestern University Press
    Frege, Gottlob. 1959. Collected Papers on Mathematics, Logic, and Philosophy. Translated by Max Black. Oxford: Blackwell
    Frege, Gottlob. 1977. Logical Investigations. Translated by P. T. Geach and R. H. Stoothoff. New Haven: Yale University Press
    Frege, Gottlob. 1980. Translations From the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege. Edited by Peter Geach and Max Black. 3rd edn. Oxford: Blackwell
    Frege, Gottlob. 1997. The Frege Reader. Edited by Michael Beaney. London: Blackwell
    Gassendi, Pierre. 1972. The Selected Works of Pierre Gassendi. Edited by Craig Brush. New York: Johnson
    Geach, Peter. 1957. Mental Acts. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul
    Geach, Peter. 1961. “Frege.” In Geach and G. E. M. Anscombe, Three Philosophers. London: Blackwell
    Geach, Peter. 1980. Reference and Generality. Ithaca: Cornell University Press
    Gilson, Etienne. 1956. The Christian Philosophy of Thomas St. Aquinas. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press
    Grice, H. P. 1957. “Meaning.”Philosophical Review 66: 377–37
    Guyer, Paul. 1994. “Locke's Philosophy of Language.” In The Cambridge Companion to Locke, edited by Vere Chappell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
    Hacking, Ian. 1975a. “The Identity of Indiscernibles.”Journal of Philosophy 72: 249–56
    Hacking, Ian. 1975b. Why Does Language Matter to Philosophy? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
    Hanna, Robert. 1991. “How Ideas Became Meanings: Locke and the Foundations of Semantic Theory.”Review of Metaphysics: 44: 775–805
    Harrison, John and Peter Laslett. 1971. The Library of John Locke. 2nd edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press
    Hobbes, Thomas. 1839–45. The English Works of Thomas Hobbes. 11 vols. Edited by William Molesworth. London: Richards
    Hobbes, Thomas. 1994. Human Nature and De Corpore. Oxford: Oxford University Press
    Hume, David. 1978. A Treatise of Human Nature. Edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge, revised by P. H. Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon
    Hylton, Peter. 1984. “The Nature of the Proposition and the Revolt Against Idealism.” In Philosophy in History, edited by Richard Rorty, J. B. Schneewind, and Quentin Skinner. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
    Hylton, Peter. 1992. Russell, Idealism, and the Emergence of Analytic Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press
    Inwood, Brad and L. P. Gerson. 1988. Hellenistic Philosophy: Introductory Readings. Indianapolis: Hackett
    Kant, Immanuel. 1958. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by N. K. Smith. London: Macmillan
    Kant, Immanuel. 1974. Logic. Translated by Robert Hartmann and Wolfgang Schwartz. New York: Dover, 1974
    Kenny, Anthony. 1994. Frege. London: Penguin
    Kretzmann, Norman. 1975. “The Main Thesis of Locke's Semantic Theory.” In Locke on Human Understanding, edited by I. C. Tipton. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Philosophical Review 77. First published in (1968): 175–17
    Land, Stephen K. 1986. The Philosophy of Language in Britain. New York: AMS Press
    Landesman, Charles. 1976. “Locke's Theory of Meaning.”Journal of the History of Philosophy 14: 23–35
    Lee, Henry. 1702. Anti-skepticism: or notes upon each chapter of Mr. Locke's Essay
    Leibniz, G. W. 1996. New Essays on Human Understanding. Translated and edited by Jonathan Bennett and Peter Remnant. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
    Levin, Michael E. 1971. “Length Relativity.”Journal of Philosophy 68, 6: 164–16
    Locke, John. 1812. The Works of John Locke. 11th edn. 10 vols. London: Otridge et al
    Locke, John. 1975. An Essay concerning Human Understanding. Edited by P. H. Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon
    Long, A. A. and D. N. Sedley. 1987. The Hellenistic Philosophers. 2 vols. New York: Cambridge University Press
    Losonsky, Michael. 1994. “Locke on Meaning and Signification.” In Locke's Philosophy: Content and Context, edited by G. A. J. Rogers. Oxford: Clarendon Press
    Loux, Michael. 1978. Substance and Attribute. Dordrecht: Reidel
    Lovejoy, Arthur O. 1907. “Kant's Classification of the Forms of Judgment.”Philosophical Review 16: 588–603
    Lowe, E. J. 1995. Locke on Human Understanding. London: Routledge
    Lowe, E. J. 2000. “Locke, Martin, and Substance.”Philosophical Quarterly 50: 499–514
    MacDonald, Scott. 1993. “Theory of Knowledge.” In The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas, edited by N. Kretzmann and E. Stump. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
    MacIntyre, Alasdair. 1999. Dependent Rational Animals. Chicago: Open Court
    Mackie, J. L. 1974. “Locke's Anticipation of Kripke.”Analysis 34: 177–17
    Mackie, J. L. 1976. Problems from Locke. Oxford: Oxford University Press
    Markus, R. A. 1957. “St. Augustine on Signs.”Phronesis 2: 60–83
    Martin, C. B. 1980. “Substance Substantiated.”Australasian Journal of Philosophy 58, 1: 3–10
    Mattern, Ruth. 1998. “Locke: ‘Our Knowledge, which All Consists in Propositions.’” In Locke, edited by Vere Chappell. Oxford: Oxford University Press
    Mattey, G. J. 1986. “Kant's Theory of Propositional Attitudes.”Kant-Studien 77, 4: 423–42
    Matthews, H. E. 1971. “Locke, Malebranche, and the Representative Theory.”The Locke Newsletter 2: 12–21
    McCann, Edwin. 1994. “Locke's Philosophy of Body.” In The Cambridge Companion to Locke, edited by Vere Chappell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
    McCracken, Charles J. 1983. Malebranche and British Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press
    Mill, J. S. 1867. A System of Logic. New York: Harper
    Nuchelmans, Gabriel. 1980. Late Scholastic and Humanist Theories of the Proposition. New York: North Holland
    Nuchelmans, Gabriel. 1983. Judgment and Proposition from Descartes to Kant. New York: North Holland
    Nuchelmans, Gabriel. 1986. “The Historical Background to Locke's Account of Particles.”Logique et Analyse 29: 53–71
    Ott, W. 1997. “Locke and the Scholastics on Theological Discourse.”The Locke Newsletter 28: 51–66
    Ott, W. 1999. “Locke and the Idea of God: A Reply to Vivienne Brown.”The Locke Newsletter 30: 67–71
    Ott, W. 2002a. “Locke's Argument from Signification.”Locke Studies 2: 145–14
    Ott, W. 2002b. “Propositional Attitudes in Modern Philosophy.”Dialogue 41: 1–18
    Ott, W. 2002c. “Locke and Signification.”Journal of Philosophical Research 27: 449–44
    Owen, David. “Locke and Hume on Belief, Judgment, and Assent.” Forthcoming, Topoi
    Panza, Christopher. “Partial Consideration, Mental Separation, and General Reference.” Forthcoming
    Philodemus. 1941. De Signis. Translated by W. and D. De Lacey. Philadelphia: American Philological Association
    Poinsot, John (John of St. Thomas). 1995. Tractatus de Signis. Translated and edited by John Deely. Berkeley: University of California Press
    Putnam, Hilary. 1973. “Meaning and Reference.”Journal of Philosophy 70, 19: 699–711
    Putnam, Hilary. 1975. Mind, Language, and Reality: Philosophical Papers, Vol. 2. New York: Cambridge University Press
    Quine, Willard Van Orman. 1969. Ontological Relativity and Other Essays. New York: Columbia University Press
    Quintilian. 1920. Institutio Oratoria. Translated by H. E. Butler. 4 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
    Robinson, Richard. 1950. Definition. Oxford: Clarendon Press
    Russell, Bertrand. 1912. The Problems of Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press
    Russell, Bertrand. 1937a. The Philosophy of Leibniz. London: Allen and Unwin
    Russell, Bertrand. 1937b. Principles of Mathematics. London: Allen and Unwin
    Russell, Bertrand. 1948. Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits. New York: Simon and Schuster
    Russell, Bertrand. 1983. The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell. 8 vols. Edited by Elisabeth Eames and Kenneth Blackwell. London: Allen and Unwin
    Russell, Bertrand. 1992. Logic and Knowledge. London: Routledge
    Searle, John. 1987. “Indeterminacy, Empiricism, and the First Person.”Journal of Philosophy 84, 3: 123–12
    Sedley, David. 1982. “On Signs.” In Science and Speculation: Studies in Hellenistic Theory and Practice, edited by Jonathan Barnes, Jacques Brunschwig, Myles Burnyeat, and Malcolm Schofield. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
    Sellars, Wilfrid. 1963. “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind.” In Science, Perception, and Reality. Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing Company
    Sergeant, John. 1984. Solid Philosophy Asserted Against the Fancies of the Ideists. New York: Garland
    Shoemaker, Sydney. 1982. “The Inverted Spectrum.”Journal of Philosophy 79, 7: 357–35
    Skorupski, John. 1989. John Stuart Mill. London: Routledge
    Soles, David E. 1998. “Locke on Ideas, Words, and Knowledge.”Revue International de Philosophie 42: 150–15
    Soles, David E. 1999. “Is Locke an Imagist?”The Locke Newsletter 30: 17–66
    Spencer, Thomas. 1628. The Art of Logic. London. Scolar Press facsimile
    Stillingfleet, Edward. 1697. A Discourse in Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity: with an Answer to the Late Socinian Objections against it from Scripture, Antiquity and Reason. London
    Swing, Thomas K. 1969. Kant's Transcendental Logic. New Haven: Yale University Press
    Taylor, C. C. W. 1978. “Berkeley's Theory of Abstract Ideas.”Philosophical Quarterly 28, 111: 1–19
    Thalberg, Irving. 1981. “The Discovery of Nonsense.” In Midwest Studies in Philosophy 6, edited by Peter French, Theodore Uehling, and Howard Wettstein. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press
    Urmson, J. O. 1967. Philosophical Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press
    Walmsley, Jonathan. 1999. “Locke on Abstraction: A Response to M. R. Ayers.”British Journal for the History of Philosophy 7: 123–12
    Weidemann, H. 1989. “Aristotle on Inferences from Signs.”Phronesis 34: 343–34
    Winkler, Kenneth. 1989. Berkeley: An Interpretation. Oxford: Clarendon Press
    Wisdom, John. 1931–3. “Logical Constructions Ⅰ–Ⅴ.”Mind40–2
    Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1953. Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. New York: Macmillan
    Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1958. The Blue and Brown Books. Translated by Rush Rhees. London: Blackwell
    Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 1974. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Translated by D. F. Pears and Brian McGuinness. London: Routledge
    Woolhouse, Roger. 1972. Locke's Philosophy of Science and Knowledge. New York: Barnes and Noble
    Woozley, A. D. 1964. “Introduction.” In Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, edited by Woozley. New York: Meridian
    Woozley, A. D. 1976. “Berkeley's Doctrine of Notions and Theory of Meaning.”Journal of the History of Philosophy 14: 427–42
    Yolton, John. 1968. John Locke and the Way of Ideas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968
    Yolton, John. 1970. Locke and the Compass of Human Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
    Yolton, John. 1984. Perceptual Acquaintance from Descartes to Reid. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
    Yolton, John. 2000. “Response to My Fellow Symposiasts.” In Descartes' Natural Philosophy, edited by Stephen Gaukroger, John Schuster, and John Sutton. London: Routledge
    Zemach, Eddy. 1976. “Putnam's Theory on the Reference of Substance Terms.”Journal of Philosophy 73, 5: 116–11

    Metrics

    Altmetric attention score

    Full text views

    Total number of HTML views: 0
    Total number of PDF views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    Book summary page views

    Total views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    * Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

    Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

    Accessibility standard: Unknown

    Why this information is here

    This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

    Accessibility Information

    Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.