Philosophy of Language: a Contemporary Introduction introduces the student to the main issues and theories in twentieth-century philosophy of language, focusing specifically on linguistic phenomena. Topics are structured in three parts in the book. Part I, Reference and Referring Expressions, includes topics such as Russell's Theory of Desciptions, Donnellan's distinction, problems of anaphora, the description theory of proper names, Searle's cluster theory, and the causal-historical theory. Part II, Theories of Meaning, surveys the competing theories of linguistic meaning and compares their various advantages and liabilities. Part III, Pragmatics and Speech Acts, introduces the basic concepts of linguistic pragmatics, includes a detailed discussion of the problem of indirect force and surveys approaches to metaphor. Part IV, new to this edition, examines the four theories of metaphor. Features of Philosophy of Language include: New chapters on Frege and puzzles, inferentialism, illocutionary theories of meaning and relevance theory chapter overviews and summaries clear supportive examples study questions annotated further reading glossary

CONTENTS
1 The Fundamrntal Question
2 Putting a Meaning Together from Pieces
3 More about Predicates
4 Modifiers
5 Complexities of Referring Expressions
6 Quantifiers
7 Extensional vs. Intensional Contexts
8 Tense, Aspect, and Modality
9 Propositional Attitudes
10 The pragmatics of What's Given
11 The Pragmatics of Inference
12 Formal Semantics Today

简介：
《自足语义学》是当代知名哲学家赫尔曼·开普兰和厄尼·利珀尔的一部哲学力作。本书对哲学中形形色色的语境论倾向进行了系统而深入的归纳和分析，并根据不同的语境论展开了颇有针对性的批评，在此基础上提出了他们自己的哲学主张，即语义最简论和言语行为多元论
本书很巧妙地辩护了通常视为不相容的两个哲学立场：真值条件语义学和语义最简论。开普兰和利珀尔所提出的充满争议的观点，已经而且还会持续不断地成为探讨语言交流本质的核心论题。
——杰森·斯坦利，密歇根大学
开普兰和利珀尔把语境论争论中的各种脉络整理出来，并在已有的理论流派基础上提出语义最简论，他们的工作卓有成效。
——詹姆斯·希金博特姆，南加州大学
这是一个不多见而又非常复杂的哲学讨论，它意在说明戴维森的理论是如何处理语言使用中所广泛出现的语境敏感性的，很棒的哲学著作。
——保罗·彼得罗斯基，马里兰大学
目　录
主编序………………………………………………………………………………………………
译者的话……………………………………………………………………………………………
作者前言……………………………………………………………………………………………
鸣　谢………………………………………………………………………………………………
第一章　概览…………………………………………………………………………………
第一部分　从温和语境论到激进语境论…………………………………………………………
第二章　诠释：语境论者的方法论…………………………………………………………
第三章　语境转移论证的不稳定性…………………………………………………………
第四章　诊断：为什么语义学家误用语境转移论证………………………………………
第五章　不完全性论证的不稳定性…………………………………………………………
第六章　插曲：约束和隐蔽索引词…………………………………………………………
第二部分　对激进语境论的驳斥…………………………………………………………………
第七章　反驳激进语境论（一）：没有通过语境敏感性测试……………………………
第八章　反驳激进语境论（二）：致使交流无法实现……………………………………
第九章　反驳激进语境论（三）：内在矛盾………………………………………………
第三部分　语义最简论和言语行为多元论………………………………………………………
第十章　语义最简论…………………………………………………………………………
第十一章　语义学与形而上学………………………………………………………………
第十二章　语义学和心理学…………………………………………………………………
第十三章　言语行为多元论…………………………………………………………………
参考文献……………………………………………………………………………………………
索　引………………………………………………………………………………………………

"Insensitive Semantics" is an overview of and contribution to the debates about how to accommodate context sensitivity within a theory of human communication, investigating the effects of context on communicative interaction and, as a corollary, what a context of utterance is and what it is to be in one. This work: provides detailed and wide-ranging overviews of the central positions and arguments surrounding contextualism; addresses broad and varied aspects of the distinction between the semantic and non-semantic content of language; defends a distinctive and explanatorily powerful combination of semantic minimalism and speech act pluralism; and, confronts core problems which not only run to the heart of philosophy of language and linguistics, but which arise in epistemology, metaphysics, and moral philosophy as well.