This volume explores the rich history of philosophy of language in the Western tradition, from Plato and Aristotle to the twentieth century. A team of leading experts focus in particular on key metaphysical debates about linguistic content, including questions of ontological status and metaphysical grounding.

• Introduction


• 1: Deborah Modrak: Method, Meaning, and Ontology in Plato's Philosophy of Language


• 2: Francesco Ademollo: Names, Verbs, and Sentences in Ancient Greek Philosophy


• 3: Margaret Cameron: On what is said: the Stoics and Peter Abelard


• 4: Peter Adamson and Alexander Key: Philosophy of Language in the Medieval Arabic Tradition


• 5: Joke Spruyt and Catarina Dutilh Novaes: Those 'funny words': medieval theories of syncategorematic terms


• 6: Gyula Klima: Semantic Content in Aquinas and Ockham


• 7: Lodi Nauta: Meaning and Linguistic Usage in Renaissance Humanism: The case of Valla


• 8: E. Jennifer Ashworth: Medieval Theories of Signification to John Locke


• 9: Benjamin Hill: Locke on the Names of Modes


• 10: Michael Forster: Herder's Doctrine of Meaning as Use


• 11: Patrick Rysiew: Thomas Reid on Language


• 12: Laurent Cesalli: 'Meaning in Action': Anton Marty's Pragmatic Semantics

Margaret Cameron completed her PhD in the Collaborative Program in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy at the University of Toronto in 2005. She is currently Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in the Aristotelian Tradition at the University of Victoria.
Robert Stainton first studied Philosophy and Linguistics as an undergraduate in his home town of Toronto, at Glendon College, part of York University. He completed the Ph.D. at MIT in 1993, and took up his first academic job at Carleton University in Ottawa, where he was Canada Research Chair in Cognitive Science. Presently he is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario in London.