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Oxford Pragmatism: Ryle and Austin’s Debt

By (author) Cheryl Misak

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normal price: R 1 412.95

Price: R 1 270.95


| book description |

Oxford Pragmatism uncovers and explores the unrecognized impact of American pragmatism on the Oxford linguistic philosophy that thrived from the 1930s to the 1950s, made famous by Gilbert Ryle and J. L Austin. Cheryl Misak argues that Margaret Macdonald, a neglected British analytic philosopher and excellent scholar of American pragmatism, delivered core pragmatist ideas to her friend Ryle: the mind as a set of dispositions to behave; laws as 'inference tickets', and the distinction between knowing that something is true and knowing how to do something. Macdonald found these ideas in the work of the founder of pragmatism C. S. Peirce and his two most impressive followers, Clarence Irving Lewis in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Frank Ramsey in Cambridge, England. Ryle, it is argued, picked them up from Macdonald, though failed to acknowledge them as hers or as pragmatist. A lineage is also traced from American pragmatism to Austin's ideas that when we use words we perform actions, and that definitions must be fit for purpose. This route runs from Peirce and Lewis to Austin and through to contemporary conceptual engineers who follow in Austin's footsteps. Along the way, the views of Wittgenstein, Russell, Schiller, Ayer, and Cook Wilson are canvassed and assessed. In a Postscript, Misak outlines how pragmatism played out in the next generation of Oxford philosophers, such as Strawson and Wiggins.

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Normally shipped | Usually dispatched in 3 to 6 weeks as supplier is out of stock
Publisher | Oxford University Press
Published date | 24 Jul 2025
Language |
Format | Hardback
Pages | 336
Dimensions | 240 x 163 x 26mm (L x W x H)
Weight | 647g
ISBN | 978-0-1988-7588-8
Readership Age |
BISAC | philosophy / history & surveys / modern


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Normally shipped | Forthcoming. We are not accepting backorders for this item yet
Readership Age |
Normal Price | R 1 781.95
Price | R 1 603.95 | on special |



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