A History of Language Philosophies

Theory and history combine in this book to form a coherent narrative of the debates on language and languages in the Western world, from ancient classic philosophy to the present, with a final glance at on-going discussions on language as a cognitive tool, on its bodily roots and philogenetic role.
An introductory chapter reviews the epistemological areas that converge into, or contribute to, language philosophy, and discusses their methods, relations, and goals. In this context, the status of language philosophy is discussed in its relation to the sciences and the arts of language. Each chapter is followed by a list of suggested readings that refer the reader to the final bibliography.
About the author: Lia Formigari, Professor Emeritus at University of Rome, La Sapienza. Her publications include: Language and Experience in XVIIth-century British Philosophy. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, 1988; Signs, Science and Politics. Philosophies of Language in Europe 1700–1830. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: J. Benjamins, 1993; La sémiotique empiriste face au kantisme. Liège: Mardaga, 1994.

Talbot J. Taylor, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, USA, in Historiographia Linguistica Vol. 34:2/3 (2007):
Even at the structural level, this book instructs us. As anyone reading HL will know, the history of Western linguistic ideas has become un unmanageably vast field. [...] These chapters do not present a comprehensive history of linguistic thought during the period in question; nor could they. However, the discussion of each period is so well-directed that the reader will come away with the kind of insight into the intellectual history of the period that is nearly impossible to distill from the overwhelming wealth of information provided by the more comprehensive histories.