Modernism and the Language of Philosophy

Modernism can be characterized by the acute attention it gives to language, to its potential and its limitations. Philosophers, artists and literary critics who worked in the first third of the twentieth century, on the one hand emphasized language's creative potential, but on the other, its impotence in conveying what was aimed at. In particular, modernists shared the belief that philosophical language was at a loss; that the kind of truth sub specie aeterni that was sought by philosophers is either meaningless or is more appropriately expressed by the arts - especially by literature and poetry. Modernism and the Language of Philosophy addresses the challenge this belief posed to philosophy, arguing that the modernist assumption rests upon a host of unacknowledged, repressed or denied dogmas or tacit images. Anat Matar begins by investigating the ideas that bring out this crisis in philosophical language, through examining the relevant views of the early Wittgenstein, Carnap and Artaud. The book goeson to look at the roots of the modernist crisis, focusing on Frege and Husserl's innovative ideas and analyzing the inner tensions in this pre-modern era. A contemporary solution is explored drawing on the work of Michale Dummett and Jacques Derrida. These two philosophers drive the narrative of Modernism and the Language of Philosophy and serve as spectacles through which both past and present day philosophers are looked at. Through the perspectives of Dummett and Derrida a dialogue is formed between the two philosophical traditions of the twentieth century - analytic and continental - and Matar shows that the dynamics of thought about language, philosophy and philosophical language in these traditions cannot be detached from one another.

Anat Matar is a senior lecturer at Tel-Aviv University, Israel.