7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Academic Overview, Sep 23 2011
By Reader - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Philosophy of Language (Hardcover)
Published in 2010 Scott Soames' `Philosophy of Language' is an instalment in Princeton Foundations of Contemporary Philosophy series. Soames is a well known philosopher with numerous publications in the philosophy of language.
In this brief text (less than 200 pages) Soames focuses on two subjects that have occupied many thinkers in the analytic tradition over the last century, the search for a comprehensive theoretical framework for the study of language and the analysis of linguistic notions such as, reference, truth, meaning, and so on. The discussion takes place within the mathematic-logical strand of the philosophy of language, the tradition that runs through; Frege, Russell, Tarski, Carnap, Quinn, Kripke, and their successors. As opposed to the less formal strand that tracks through Latter Wittgenstein, Austin, Searle et al.
An accomplished philosopher in his own right Soames is particularly adept at summarizing and assessing the work of others. It is important to note that while this is an excellent piece of work; the writing is terse and dense, aimed very much at an expert audience. Despite being familiar with the subject matter the book caused me to go back and reread chunks of Frege, Russell and Tarski (by no means a bad thing). Soames' 2-Volume work `Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century' is also helpful in providing background information and context.
Overall, this is an excellent book by an excellent philosopher. I recommend it for advanced students of the philosophy of language. For readers seeking a broader introductory-level piece Searle's short essay `What is Language' available on internet may be worth a look.
