Issues in the Philosophy of Language Past and Present

In the light of contemporary perspectives a good deal of traditional philosophical thought can be read as relating to the issue of 'Language versus Reality'. The chapters of this book vindicate this claim; bringing together thinkers different both in temperament and interests like Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Aquinas, Heidegger and Gadamer they suggest that some of their major tenets reflect conceptual assumptions concerning linguistic meaning and reference. In trying to both identify and elucidate the assumptions at stake the author shows, both historically and systematically, that some of the problems experienced in the past as well as much of our contemporary concern with the same issue form a continuous line and a common endeavour; and they have not yet come to an end.