Ricerc@Sapienza

The notion of field has been very productive in twentieth-century language theory in its various forms and varieties: it is an important epistemological notion, originally developed in physics, in the psychology of perception and in Gestalt psychology, and later introduced in language theories. In this transition, an important step was the notion of field elaborated by Bühler, in his studies on perception and Gestalt, as well as on animal languages, along the lines of the ones also carried out by Köhler.

L'articolo illustra la posizione del filosofo greco Epicuro sul problema dello statuto del significato linguistico, alla luce del corrente dibattito su tale tema, in chiave sia storica che teorica. In base a un'analisi delle evidenze testuali si sostiene che in E. esiste una genuina concezione dell'esistenza e dell'autonomia del significato in stretto nesso con la sua teoria gnoseologica.

In this article I examine Plato’s conception of λόγος, as a significant sequence (συνέχεια) of ὄνομα
and ῥῆμα, with a detailed commentary of Sophist 261d-262e. I particularly discuss the following
points: 1. Why the linguistic terms, in the case of a sequence of nouns or of a sequence of verbs,
do not indicate any action or any absence of action (οὐδεμίαν ... πρᾶξιν οὐδ᾽  πραξίαν), any
reality that is or any reality that is not (οὐδὲ οὐσίαν ὅντος οὐδὲ μὴ ὄντος, 262c2-4) ? 2. What is

Introduzione e curatela di un numero monografico dedicato: "Field theories. Psychology, linguistics, biology"(ed. by Marina De Palo).

An important development of the notion of “field” in linguistics is found in Karl Bühler’s Sprachtheorie (1934), and in particular in his theory of the two fields (symbolical and deictical), through which he provides a perceptual, pragmatic and social anchoring of language. In Bühler’s work, situation and context jointly determine the material space for the play of linguistic forms (Spielraum). The idea of action is the key to his notion of “field”.

This is a note on what philosophy can do if it takes a postcritical attitude. It begins with a juxtaposition of literature and philosophy and explains both what they share and what the latter can do better than the former. The main claim is that postcritical philosophy can enter life in a way that philosophy is no longer used to doing insofar as it ties up with other disciplines.