Author Description
Assertions belong to the family of speech acts that make claims regarding how things are. They include statements, avowals, reports, expressed judgments, and testimonies - acts which are relevant across a host of issues not only in philosophy of language and linguistics but also in subdisciplines such as epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, ethics, and social and political philosophy. Over the past two decades, the amount of scholarship investigating the speech act of assertion has increased dramatically, and the scope of such research has also grown. The Oxford Handbook of Assertion explores various dimensions of the act of assertion: its nature; its place in a theory of speech acts, and in semantics and meta-semantics; its role in epistemology; and the various social, political, and ethical dimensions of the act. Essays from leading theorists situate assertion in relation to other types of speech acts, exploring the connection between assertions and other phenomena of interest not only to philosophers but also to linguists, psychologists, anthropologists, lawyers, computer scientists, and theorists from communication studies.
Menrva's Summary
THE THESIS
This volume investigates the fundamental nature, function, and multifaceted implications of the speech act of assertion within contemporary philosophical and linguistic discourse. Editor Sanford C. Goldberg compiles a collection of essays from prominent theorists to examine how assertions operate as claims about reality. The work provides a comprehensive framework for understanding assertion across diverse fields, including epistemology, ethics, and social theory, by synthesizing recent scholarship from the past two decades.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- Theoretical analysis of the nature of assertion and its role in speech act theory.
- Investigations into the intersection of assertion with semantics and meta-semantics.
- Explorations of the epistemological, ethical, and social dimensions of making claims.
- Interdisciplinary perspectives from linguistics, psychology, anthropology, and computer science.
Scope Limits
- The text focuses primarily on philosophical and theoretical dimensions rather than practical communication training or rhetoric.
- It does not provide an exhaustive historical survey of speech act theory prior to the last twenty years.
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Experts recognize this handbook as a definitive resource for scholars and advanced students navigating the complexities of assertion in contemporary philosophy. Readers frequently note the high academic density of the prose, which serves as a rigorous reference point for research across multiple disciplines.
Page Count:
904
Publication Date:
2020-03-17
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190675233
ISBN-13:
9780190675233
Philosophy
Linguistics
Ethics
Social Philosophy
Epistemology
Philosophy of
Metaphysics