Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Review of Taylor


My review of Charles Taylor’s new book The Language Animal: The Full Shape of the Human Linguistic Capacity appears in the May 23 issue of National Review. 
Posted by at

14 comments:

  1. Robert ByersMay 10, 2016 at 6:12 PM

    you can't go wrong with Locke. Stay away from germans. language is just a tool, along with any body manipulation, to express thoughts. it doesn't shape us. We shape these communication tools. it is not a mystery. It just shows again the hostility toward human intelligence. Thinking comes first and then expression. We are not a product of our body. We have a soul first.

    ReplyDelete
  2. GeorgeMay 10, 2016 at 11:14 PM

    Why do you write in publications that are behind pay walls!?

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMay 11, 2016 at 12:21 AM

    Gee, George, do you want everything for free? And do you do everything for free?

    ReplyDelete
  4. gcallahMay 11, 2016 at 1:17 AM

    Robert Beyers: "you can't go wrong with Locke."

    I'd think rather that one can't go right with Locke!

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousMay 11, 2016 at 4:27 AM

    Decent reviews in The Times Higher Education, and The Guardian. Free!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Steven JakeMay 11, 2016 at 7:44 PM

    Feser,do you plan on reading, and possibly reviewing, Sean Carroll's new book The Big Picture?

    ReplyDelete
  7. SMCMay 12, 2016 at 12:07 AM

    I second the last question.

    ReplyDelete
  8. JohnDMay 12, 2016 at 3:11 AM

    I third that question!

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousMay 12, 2016 at 7:22 AM

    I fourth that question!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Edward FeserMay 12, 2016 at 9:19 AM

    Reading, yes, reviewing, we'll see.

    ReplyDelete
  11. UnknownMay 12, 2016 at 9:20 AM

    Because the 'questions' are also a request, let me fifth it.

    ReplyDelete
  12. GottfriedMay 12, 2016 at 1:10 PM

    Since we're tossing out book recommendations: I don't know if it's been mentioned here before, but I just started reading Michael Hanby's No God, No Science?: Theology, Cosmology, Biology, and so far it's really, really good.

    From what I've read, it could be taken as a sort of unintended preemptive strike against Carroll's book. :)

    ReplyDelete
  13. AnonymousMay 13, 2016 at 9:34 PM

    I'm glad to see Taylor is writing more on his theory of language, which has always been one of the more interesting parts of his work. However, I'm not exactly clear what this book is adding to his earlier writings. *Human Agency and Language* went some way into developing at least the rudiments of his expressivist viewpoint, complete with allusion to the 'triple-H' theory of meaning, and that was later developed further in his writings on Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty (some of which have been collected in *Philosophical Arguments*).

    The call to aim towards an Aristotelian story about humans as rational animals is new, as far as I know, but much of the rest reads as if it is little development of the central ideas from those earlier writings.

    ReplyDelete
  14. AnonymousMay 14, 2016 at 4:30 PM

    Oh the terrible blood soaked iron!
    Isnt the National Review one of the leading edge vectors of Orwellian new-speak, double-speak, and the world wide "culture" of death that now dominates the entire planet.
    And as such completely dis-heartening via its benighted influence.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)