Roy Harris

The Origin of Writing

This book re-examines the old debate about the relationship between rationality and literacy. Does writing "restructure consciousness?" Do preliterate societies have a different "mind-set" from literate societies? Is reason "built in" to the way we think? How is literacy related to numeracy? Is the "logical form" that Western philosophers recognize anything more than an extrapolation from the structure of the written sentence? Is logic, as developed formally in Western education, intrinsically beyond the reach of the preliterate mind? What light, if any, do the findings of contemporary neuroscience throw on such issues? Roy Harris challenges the received mainstream opinion that reason is an intrinsic property of the human mind, and argues that the whole Western conception of rational thought, from Classical Greece down to modern symbolic logic, is a by-product of the way literacy developed in European cultures.

Rationality and the Literate Mind

The basic claim of this book is that for 2000 years and more the western tradition has relied on two very dubious assumptions about human communication: that each national language is a unique code and that linguistic communication consists in the utilization of such codes to transfer messages from mind to mind.

The Language Myth in Western Culture

Christopher Hutton

The long history of conflicting assumptions about the way language functions has engaged the minds of some of the most eminent thinkers in the Western tradition. This text explores the problem of definition, focusing in particular on two areas where this difficulty has arisen in a particularly acute form: lexicography and the law.

Language, Lexicography and the Law

Definition in Theory and Practice

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Foundations of Indo-European comparative philology, 1800-1850

"Four charming little pieces" for violin and piano

Riters

Talbot J. Taylor

By introducing the reader to the main issues and themes that have determined the development of the Western linguistic tradition, an evolution of linguistic thought quickly becomes apparent. Each chapter in this accessible book contains a short extract from a `landmark' text followed by a commentary which places the text in its social and intellectual context.The authors, who consider writers from Aristotle to Caxton to Saussure, have fully revised the original edition ofthis text. Complete with two new chapters on Bishop John Wilkins and Frege, a revised preface and updated bibliography, this book will be invaluable to anyone with an interest in the History of Linguistics, or the History of Western Thought.

The Western Tradition from Socrates to Saussure

Landmarks in Linguistic Thought 1

Public debate about language in the English-speaking world during the nineteenth century turned on the issue of how language began. The notion that language was a divine gift to humanity, not shared by lower creatures, was supported by the Biblical accounts of Adam naming the animals and of the Tower of Babel. It was still accepted by leading religious authorities. But this notion was seriously brought into question by the publication of Darwin's theory of evolution. Those who rejected Darwinism ridiculed all attempts to conjure up language out of primitive calls, grunts, and ejaculations. No animals, it was pointed out, had yet achieved communication remotely resembling the use of words. On the other side were those who held that it was possible to account for the birth of language rationally as a function of the development of human communicational needs in society.

Origin Of Language

A Critical Commentary on the Cours de Linguistique Générale

Reading Saussure

Saussure and Wittgenstein are arguably the two most important figures in the development of twentieth-century linguistic thought. By pointing out what their ideas have in common, in spite of intellectual sources, this study breaks new groundSaussure as a linguist and Wittgenstein as a philosopher of language are arguably the two most important figures in the development of twentieth-century linguistic thought. By pointing out what their ideas have in common, in spite of emanating from very different intellectual sources, this study breaks new ground.

Roy Harris

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