Charles Taylor is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Philosophy at McGill University.
In seminal works ranging from Sources of the Self to A Secular Age, Charles Taylor has shown how we create possible ways of being, both as individuals and as a society. In his new book setting forth decades of thought, he demonstrates that language is at the center of this generative process.
For centuries, philosophers have been divided on the nature of language. Those in the rational empiricist tradition—Hobbes, Locke, Condillac, and their heirs—assert that language is a tool that human beings developed to encode and communicate information. In The Language Animal, Taylor explains that this view neglects the crucial role language plays in shaping the very thought it purports to express. Language does not merely describe; it constitutes meaning and fundamentally shapes human experience. The human linguistic capacity is not something we innately possess. We first learn language from others, and, inducted into the shared practice of speech, our individual selves emerge out of the conversation.
Taylor expands the thinking of the German Romantics Hamann, Herder, and Humboldt into a theory of linguistic holism. Language is intellectual, but it is also enacted in artistic portrayals, gestures, tones of voice, metaphors, and the shifts of emphasis and attitude that accompany speech. Human language recognizes no boundary between mind and body. In illuminating the full capacity of “the language animal,” Taylor sheds light on the very question of what it is to be a human being.
Reviews
“There is no other book that has presented a critique of conventional philosophy of language in these terms and constructed an alternative to it in anything like this way.”—Akeel Bilgrami, Columbia University
“Taylor is one of the handful of most important thinkers of our era. The line of thinking he develops in The Language Animal is basic to his whole work since Explanation of Behaviour. Many readers will grasp the importance of a constitutive view of language, and for them this will be a landmark book.”—Craig Calhoun, Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science
“Just as Humboldt believed that ‘possessing a language is to be continuously involved in trying to extend its powers of articulation,’ Charles Taylor’s new book, The Language Animal, demonstrates how the very study of language over time embodies the evolving human effort to extend our understanding—not only of language, but of the very self language helps to describe, propel, and transcend. It is a deeply thoughtful, historically enriching, and ultimately luminous book.”—Maryanne Wolf, Tufts University
發表於2024-11-07
The Language Animal 2024 pdf epub mobi 電子書 下載
In The Language Animal: The Full Shape of the Human Linguistic Capacity, seminal philosopher Charles Taylor examines the central role that language plays in constituting human experience. Charisma Lee praises this reflective and poetic account for exploring...
評分In The Language Animal: The Full Shape of the Human Linguistic Capacity, seminal philosopher Charles Taylor examines the central role that language plays in constituting human experience. Charisma Lee praises this reflective and poetic account for exploring...
評分In The Language Animal: The Full Shape of the Human Linguistic Capacity, seminal philosopher Charles Taylor examines the central role that language plays in constituting human experience. Charisma Lee praises this reflective and poetic account for exploring...
評分In The Language Animal: The Full Shape of the Human Linguistic Capacity, seminal philosopher Charles Taylor examines the central role that language plays in constituting human experience. Charisma Lee praises this reflective and poetic account for exploring...
評分In The Language Animal: The Full Shape of the Human Linguistic Capacity, seminal philosopher Charles Taylor examines the central role that language plays in constituting human experience. Charisma Lee praises this reflective and poetic account for exploring...
圖書標籤: 語言學 哲學 語言的動物:人類語言能力的整體範圍 語言哲學 泰勒 西方哲學 社科 政治哲學
我說你打錯瞭,很好的書
評分我說你打錯瞭,很好的書
評分我說你打錯瞭,很好的書
評分我說你打錯瞭,很好的書
評分這本書與人類的語言能力有關。這種能力是多種形式的,超齣人們曾經設想過的。它包括“意義創造”的能力,而不僅僅隻是“解碼信息和交流”的能力,後者經常被當成它的核心形式。泰勒受到的啓發來自1790年代德國所發展的語言觀,那個時間和空間正好是德國浪漫主義盛開的時候。泰勒受到Hamann/Herder/Humboldt的啓發,他稱之為3H理論。與這種外觀相對立的是早期現代性的思想傢,唯理論者和經驗論者,他們對現代認識論理論負責,他們繼承或有時反對笛卡爾的工作。這個傳統中的主要人物有Hobbes/Locke/Condillac,泰勒稱之為HLC理論。Saussure/Frege/Humboldt/後弗雷格分析哲學/認知理論。泰勒的一個很重要的工作就是通過發展3H理論的洞見來反駁HLC理論的遺産殘留。
The Language Animal 2024 pdf epub mobi 電子書 下載