Modernism and the Language of Philosophy

225 Pages·2006·1.44 MB·English

by  Anat Matar

Modernism and the Language
of Philosophy
Modernism can be characterised by the acute attention it gives to language, to its
potential and its limitations. Philosophers, artists and literary critics who worked in
the first third of the twentieth century, on the one hand emphasised language’s
creative potential, but on the other, its impotence in conveying what was aimed at.
In particular, modernists shared the belief that philosophical language was at a loss;
that the kind of truth sub specie aeterni that was sought by philosophers is either
meaningless or is more appropriately expressed by the arts– especially by literature
and poetry. Modernism and the Language of Philosophy addresses the challenge this
belief posed to philosophy, arguing that the modernist assumption rests upon a host
of unacknowledged, repressed or denied dogmas or tacit images.
Anat Matar begins by investigating the ideas that bring out this crisis in philo-
sophical language, through examining the relevant views of the early Wittgenstein,
Carnap and Artaud. The book goes on to look at the roots of the modernist crisis,
focusing on Frege and Husserl’s innovative ideas and analysing the inner tensions in
this pre-modern era. A contemporary solution is explored drawing on the work of
Michael Dummett and Jacques Derrida. These two philosophers drive the narrative
of Modernism and the Language of Philosophy and serve as lenses through which both
past and present day philosophers are looked at. Through the perspectives of
Dummett and Derrida a dialogue is formed between the two philosophical tradi-
tions of the twentieth century–analytic and continental– and Matar shows that the
dynamics of thought about language, philosophy and philosophical language in
these traditions cannot be detached from one another.
Anat Mataris a senior lecturer at Tel-Aviv University, Israel.
Routledge Studies in Twentieth-Century Philosophy
1The Story of Analytic Philosophy 12 From Kant to Davidson
Plot and Heroes The Idea of the Transcendental in Twentieth-
Edited by Anat Biletzki and Anat Matar Century Philosophy
Edited by Jeff Malpas
2Donald Davidson
Truth, Meaning and Knowledge 13 Collingwood and the Metaphysics of
Edited by Urszula M. Zeglén Experience
AReinterpretation
3Philosophy and Ordinary Language
Giuseppina D’Oro
The Bent and Genius of Our Tongue
Oswald Hanfling 14 The Logic of Liberal Rights
AStudy in the Formal Analysis of Legal
4The Subject in Question
Discourse
Sartre’s Critique of Husserl in The
Eric Heinze
Transcendence of the Ego
Stephen Priest 15 Real Metaphysics
Edited by Hallvard Lillehammer and Gonzalo
5Aesthetic Order Rodriguez-Pereyra
APhilosophy of Order, Beauty and Art
16 Philosophy After Postmodernism
Ruth Lorland
Civilized Values and the Scope of Knowledge
6Naturalism Paul Crowther
ACritical Analysis
17 Phenomenology and Imagination in
Edited by William Lane Craig and J. P.
Husserl and Heidegger
Moreland
Brian Elliott
7Grammar in Early Twentieth-Century
18 Laws in Nature
Philosophy
Stephen Mumford
RichardGaskin
19 Trust and Toleration
8Rules, Magic and Instrumental Reason
Richard H. Dees
ACritical Interpretation of Peter Winch’s
Philosophy of the Social Sciences 20 The Metaphysics of Perception
Berel Dov Lerner Wilfrid Sellars, Critical Realism and the
Nature of Experience
9Gaston Bachelard
Paul Coates
Critic of Science and the Imagination
Cristina Chimisso 21 Wittgenstein, Austrian Economics,
and the Logic of Action
10 Hilary Putnam
Praxeological Investigations
Pragmatism and Realism
Roderick T. Long
Edited by James Conant and Urszula Zeglén
22 Ineffability and Philosophy
11 Karl Jaspers Politics and Metaphysics
André Kukla
Chris Thornhill
23 Cognitive Metaphor and Continental 27 Analytic Philosophy Without
Philosophy Naturalism
Clive Cazeaux Edited by A. Corradini, S. Galvan and E.
J. Lowe
24 Wittgenstein and Levinas Ethical and
Religious Thought 28Modernism and the Language
Bob Plant of Philosophy
Anat Matar
25 Philosophy of Time
Time before Times
Roger McClure
26 The Russellian Origins of
Analytic Philosophy
Bertrand Russell and the Unity of
the Proposition
Graham Stevens

Modernism and the
Language of Philosophy
Anat Matar
First published 2006
by Routledge
2Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
©2006 Anat Matar
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Acatalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Acatalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN10: 0-415-35379-3 ISBN13: 978-0-415-35379-3
Taylor & Francis Group is the Academic Division of T&F Informa plc.
For Doron

For philosophical problems arise when language goes on holiday.
(Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations,§38)
“Routine things can be deadly, Vern, carried by extremes. I have a friend who says
that’s why people take vacations. Not to relax or find excitement or see new places.
Toescape the death that exists in routine things.’’
“What is he, a Jew?’’
“What’s that got to do with it?”
(Don Dellilo,White Noise, 248)