Grammar in Early Twentieth-Century Philosophy

This book is a systematic and historical exploration of the philosophical significance of grammar. In the first half of the twentieth century, and in particular in the writings of Frege, Husserl, Russell, Carnap and Wittgenstein, there was sustained philosophical reflection on the nature of grammar, and on the relevance of grammar to metaphysics, logic and science.

Richard Gaskin is Reader in Philosophy at the University of Sussex, and has held visiting appointments at the Universities of Edinburgh, Mainz and Bonn. He has extensive publications in ancient, medieval and modern metaphysics and philosophy of language, including The Sea Battle and the Master Argument: Aristotle and Diodorus Cronus on the Metaphysics of the Future (Walter de Gruyter, 1995).

Introduction: Proposition and World Richard Gaskin 1. Frege and the grammar of truth Richard Mendelsohn 2. Categories, constructions and congruence: Husserl's tactics of meaning Peter Simons 3. Logical form, general sentences, and Russell's path to 'on denoting' James Levine 4. Grammar, ontology, and truth in Russell and Bradley Stewart Candlish 5. A few more remarks on logical form Alex Oliver 6. Logical syntax in the Tractatus Ian Proops 7. Wittgenstein on grammar, meaning and essence Bede Rundle 8. Nonsense and necessity in Wittgenstein's Mature Philosophy Richard Gaskin 9. Carnap's logical syntax Gary Ebbs 10. Heidegger and the grammar of being Graham Priest