Contemporary Philosophy of Thought: Truth, World, Content

This lucid and engaging volume provides an introduction to the essential issues and concepts of contemporary analytic philosophy. It introduces students to the pivotal arguments that motivate work in the field, while arguing a definite point of view in a style that encourages discussion and debate. It develops a broadly Fregean methodology in which semantics is concerned with the concept of content required in rationalizing explanations of behaviour. Key problems and positions covered include: truth, meaning, and inference; arguments against the possibility of meaning; the realism/anti–realism debate, and the theory of inference. This text gives voice to the idea that the study of the philosophy of thought and language is more than a specialism, but rather lies at the very heart of the discipline.

Preface. 1. Methodologies. 2. Russell′s Theory of Descriptions. 3. The Semantic Theory of Truth. 4. Truth and Meaning. 5. Interpretation, Minimal Truth and the World. 6. Meaning, Metaphysics and Logic. 7. The Possibility of a Naturalistic Theory of Meaning. 8. What is a Theory of Reference?. 9. Sense and Reference. 10. The Causal Theory of Reference and the Social Character of Meaning. 11. Content and Context. 12. Contextual Content. Notes. Bibliography. Index.

Michael Luntley is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Warwick. He is the author of Reason, Truth, and Self: the Postmodern Reconditioned (1995), The Meaning of Socialism (1989), and Language, Logic, and Experience: the Case for Anti–Realism (1988).

"Luntley writes clearly...and defends his philosophical claims with arguments. The breadth and depth of his scholarship are impressive. This book should be in the library of any school where philosophy is studied." H. Pospesel, Choice "...lucid and engaging style...ability to cover well–trodden ground in a fresh and informative way...Luntley is to be commended for the scope of his project. He pursues the neo–Fregean methodology wherever it leads and many of the topics it leads him to are dealt with extremely well. Luntley is able to condense often difficult and complex material, making it accessible even to fairly novice readers, and providing new insights and outlooks which will be of benefit to all those with an interest in the...philosphy of mind and language." Emma Borg, Mind, Vol. 109, No. 436, October 2000