Options
Michael Dummet
Moriconi, Enrico
2012
Abstract
Michael Dummett is one of the most important English philosophers of the 20th century. His fame is due to his argumentatively rich work of clarification of the significance of the ‘lingustic turn’, the characterizing aspect of analytic philosophy in the Anglo-Saxon tradition. According to Dummett, the significance of the linguistic turn lies in the central role played by the philosophy of language. Assuming that the goal of philosophy is the analysis of the structure of thought, his proposal is that such an analysis, which is not an inquiry into the psychological process of thinking, should be conducted by means of an analysis of language. Closely related to this ‘historiographic’ inquiry are many significant contributions that Dummett made in the philosophy of language, of logic, of mathematics and metaphysics. The common trait of these contributions an anti-realist position based on the idea that, in order to understand a sentence (qua asserted) or assertion, it is not sufficient to know how the world should be in order for the sentence to be true, but we should also consider what changes in the world by asserting a sentence, which expectations that assertion can induce, and crucially, which evidence and justifications can be offered in favor or against what has been asserted. The contrast between the realist and the anti-realist conceptions can also lead to reconsider the universal validity of the laws of classical logic, hence a possible contrast between different systems of logic.
Journal
Publisher
EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste
Source
Enrico Moriconi, "Michael Dummet", in "APhEx 6", 2012, pp. 26
Languages
it
File(s)