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Unique in its approach, it brings together a range of topics and explains the relevance of these questions to broader issues in epistemology, metaphysics, and psychology. Its theoretical and naturalist perspectives encourage lively and engaging discussions.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49615221686545,"sku":"GOR007449591","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53148293988625,"sku":"GOR007816394","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0631196897.jpg?v=1750742191"},{"product_id":"language-and-reality-book-michael-devitt-9780631150114","title":"Language and Reality","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49653869936913,"sku":"GOR013434075","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0631150110.jpg?v=1751008902"},{"product_id":"biological-essentialism-book-michael-devitt-9780198840282","title":"Biological Essentialism","description":"The consensus in philosophy of biology is that biological essences, such as the essences of species, are wholly relational; Michael Devitt argues that they are at least partly intrinsic. He further argues that an individual is essentially a member of its species. He concludes by considering whether race is biologically 'real'.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49742114423057,"sku":"NGR9780198840282","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52495842640145,"sku":"NIN9780198840282","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0198840284.jpg?v=1751389385"},{"product_id":"coming-to-our-senses-book-michael-devitt-9780521498876","title":"Coming to our Senses","description":"Michael Devitt is a distinguished philosopher of language. In this book he takes up one of the most important difficulties that must be faced by philosophical semantics: namely, the threat posed by holism. Three important questions lie at the core of this book: what are the main objectives of semantics; why are they worthwhile; how should we accomplish them? Devitt answers these 'methodological' questions naturalistically and explores what semantic programme arises from the answers. The approach is anti-Cartesian, rejecting the idea that linguistic or conceptual competence yields any privileged access to meanings. This new methodology is used first against holism. Devitt argues for a truth-referential localism, and in the process rejects direct-reference, two-factor, and verificationist theories. The book concludes by arguing against revisionism, eliminativism, and the idea that we should ascribe narrow meanings to explain behaviour.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50045671506193,"sku":"GOR009998866","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50604181225745,"sku":"CIN0521498872G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52407731945745,"sku":"NLS9780521498876","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0521498872.jpg?v=1751326456"},{"product_id":"language-and-reality-book-michael-devitt-9780262540995","title":"Language and Reality","description":"What is language? How does it relate to the world? How does it relate to the mind? Should our view of language influence our view of the world? These are among the central issues covered in this spirited and unusually clear introduction to the philosophy of language. Making no pretense of neutrality, Michael Devitt and Kim Sterelny take a definite theoretical stance. Central to that stance is naturalism--that is, they treat a philosophical theory of language as an empirical theory like any other and see people as nothing but complex parts of the physical world. This leads them, controversially, to a deflationary view of the significance of the study of language: they dismiss the idea that the philosophy of language should be preeminent in philosophy. This highly successful textbook has been extensively rewritten for the second edition to reflect recent developments in the field.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50096235741457,"sku":"CIN0262540991G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0262540991.jpg?v=1751133279"},{"product_id":"realism-and-truth-book-michael-devitt-9780691011875","title":"Realism and Truth","description":"In this provocative and wide-ranging book, Michael Devitt argues for a thoroughgoing realism about the common-sense and scientific physical world, and for a correspondence notion of truth. Furthermore, he argues that, contrary to received opinion, the metaphysical question of realism is distinct from, and prior to, any semantic question about truth. The book makes incisive responses to Putnam, Dummett, van Fraassen, and other major anti-realists. The new afterword includes an extensive discussion of the metaphysics of nonfactualism, and new thoughts on the need for truth and on the determination of reference.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50175003296017,"sku":"CIN0691011877G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52492351930641,"sku":"GOR008806066","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53081714819345,"sku":"NIN9780691011875","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0691011877.jpg?v=1750880772"},{"product_id":"blackwell-guide-to-the-philosophy-of-language-book-michael-devitt-9780631231424","title":"The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Language","description":"The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Language is a collection of twenty new essays in a cutting-edge and wide-ranging field.     Surveys central issues in contemporary philosophy of language while examining foundational topics   Provides pedagogical tools such as abstracts and suggestions for further readings   Topics addressed include the nature of meaning, speech acts and pragmatics, figurative language, and naturalistic theories of reference","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50557680615697,"sku":"CIN0631231420G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50695942504721,"sku":"GOR005547282","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50942596808977,"sku":"GOR014136365","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52736042565905,"sku":"NIN9780631231424","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0631231420.jpg?v=1751327555"},{"product_id":"ignorance-of-language-book-michael-devitt-9780199250974","title":"Ignorance of Language","description":"The Chomskian revolution in linguistics gave rise to a new orthodoxy about mind and language. Michael Devitt throws down a provocative challenge to that orthodoxy. What is linguistics about? What role should linguistic intuitions play in constructing grammars? What is innate about language? Is there a 'language faculty'? These questions are crucial to our developing understanding of ourselves; Michael Devitt offers refreshingly original answers. He argues that linguistics is about linguistic reality and is not part of psychology; that linguistic rules are not represented in the mind; that speakers are largely ignorant of their language; that speakers' intuitions do not reflect information supplied by the language faculty and are not the main evidence for grammars; that the rules of 'Universal Grammar' are largely, if not entirely, innate structure rules of thought; indeed, that there is little or nothing to the language faculty. Devitt's controversial theses will prove highly stimulating to anyone working on language and the mind","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51221752381713,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51221753528593,"sku":"NIN9780199250974","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52480752222481,"sku":"NLS9780199250974","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0199250979.jpg?v=1751070393"},{"product_id":"blackwell-guide-to-the-philosophy-of-language-book-michael-devitt-9780631231417","title":"The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Language","description":"The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Language is a collection of twenty new essays in a cutting-edge and wide-ranging field.     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A dominant theme of this book is the semantics of proper names, definite descriptions, and demonstratives. It shows that these terms have conventional \"referential\" uses to express \"singular\" thoughts. Those uses are explained by a unified \"causal\" theory: a term's reference is largely fixed in an object by a causal link between the person and the object when it is, or was, the focus of that person's perception. Furthermore, Devitt argues that a term's meaning is its largely causal mode of reference. So, a related theme is the rejection of the \"direct reference\" view that the meaning of a name is its bearer.  Another theme in Reference and Beyond concerns thoughts and their ascriptions, including \"de se\" thoughts and Kripke's Paderewski puzzle. Devitt approaches the semantics of ascriptions from a perspective on thoughts, thus according with the slogan, \"Put Metaphysics First,\" that governs the author's approach to all philosophical problems. A further framework is naturalism. Languages are parts of the spatio-temporal world playing causal roles in virtue of certain properties, \"meanings.\" The task of a theory of language is then to explain the nature of those causally significant properties. The book takes a very dim view of the popular idea that \"propositions\" have a place in explanations of meanings. The naturalism leads to a rejection of the received view that theories of language must rest on an evidential base of speakers' intuitions and to a search for a respectable empirical base.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51595307811089,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":51595308106001,"sku":"NGR9780199280810","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53013768143121,"sku":"NIN9780199280810","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0199280819.jpg?v=1772272357"},{"product_id":"finding-eve-book-michael-devitt-9781304025821","title":"Finding Eve","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51666541150481,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51666541510929,"sku":"NIN9781304025821","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1304025829.jpg?v=1751207365"},{"product_id":"putting-metaphysics-first-book-michael-devitt-9780199576975","title":"Putting Metaphysics First","description":"The metaphysical part of this book is largely concerned with realism issues. Michael Devitt starts with realism about universals, dismissing Plato's notorious 'one over many' problem. Several chapters argue for a fairly uncompromising realist view of the external physical world of commonsense and science. Both the nonfactualism of moral noncognitivism and positivistic instrumentalism, and deflationism about truth, are found to rest on an antirealism that is hard to characterize. A case is presented for moral realism. Various biological realisms are considered. Finally, an argument is presented for an unfashionable biological essentialism.   The second part of the book is epistemological. Devitt argues against the a priori and for a Quinean naturalism. The intuitions that so dominate 'armchair philosophy' are emipirical not a priori.  Throughout the book there is an emphasis on distinguishing metaphysical issues about what there is and what it's like from semantic issues about meaning, truth, and reference. Another central theme, captured in the title, is that we should 'put metaphysics first'. We should approach epistemology and semantics from a metaphysical perspective rather than vice versa. The epistemological turn in modern philosophy, and the linguistic turn in contemporary philosophy, were something of disasters.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52146873565457,"sku":"NLS9780199576975","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":53610637426961,"sku":"NIN9780199576975","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780199576975.jpg?v=1757598687"},{"product_id":"coming-to-our-senses-book-michael-devitt-9780521495431","title":"Coming to our Senses","description":"Michael Devitt is a distinguished philosopher of language. 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