Contemporary Philosophy of Thought

This text introduces students to the central arguments that motivate contemporary work in the philosophy of thought and language, and offers a continuous engagement with the core epistemological, metaphysical and methodological issues that have shaped and been shaped by work in the field. This lucid and engaging volume provides an introduction to the essential issues and concepts of contemporary analytic philosophy. It introduces students to the pivotal arguments that motivate work in the field, while arguing a definite point of view in a style that encourages discussion and debate. It develops a broadly Fregean methodology in which semantics is concerned with the concept of content required in rationalizing explanations of behaviour. Key problems and positions covered include: truth, meaning, and inference; arguments against the possibility of meaning; the realism/anti-realism debate, and the theory of inference. This text gives voice to the idea that the study of the philosophy of thought and language is more than a specialism, but rather lies at the very heart of the discipline. This lucid and engaging volume provides an introduction to the essential issues and concepts of contemporary analytic philosophy.