The Language of Wisdom and Folly; Background Readings in Semantics

San Francisco: International Society for General Semantics, (1949). First Edition (presumed; no prior editions or printings cited). Small quarto in jacket; xxii, 361 pages 23 cm Near fine in very good(-) jacket now in archival mylar. Hardcover.

Contents: Part I. The recognition of words as such: Everything has a name / Helen Keller. The development of vocabulary / W.W. Sawyer. The phenomenon of language / Susanne K. Langer. Symbolic pointing / W.A. Sinclair. The mobile word / Henri Bergson. Of the twofold meaning of terms: in extension and intension / W. Stanley Jevons. Two types of names / F.H. Allport. Precision in natural language / Leonard Bloomfield. Thought and its instrument: language / William A. White. pt. II. The functions and purposes of language in use: The three primary forms of discourse / Charles W. Morris. Two functions of speech / Kenneth Burke. Language and the communication of thought / Jean Piaget. The condition of clarity / Rudolf Carnap. The functions of poetry / F.S.C. Northrop. What is poetry? / Gertrude Stein. Behavior that language makes possible / Aldous Huxley. Talking about the weather / Holbrook Jackson. Classic speech / Thorstein Veblen pt. III. Matters of fact, fiction and opinion: Matters of fact and opinion / George Cornewall Lewis. The semantic conception of truth / Alfred Tarski. Scientific observation / William H. George. Every man his own historian / Carl Becker. Literature as revelation / Gilbert Murray. Knowledge by definition / Vilhjalmur Stefansson. Physics and reality / Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld. On the logic of fiction / Morris R. Cohen. Fictions, hypotheses and dogmas / Jerome Frank. Legal fictions / Edward Stevens Robinson pt. IV. Questions and answers: The nature of a question / Hans Reichenbach. Questioning questions / A.B. Johnson. "Footless" questions / P.W. Bridgman. Questions and answers / Cassius Jackson Keyser. The how and the why of things / Claude Bernard. The nature of explanation / C.J. Ducasse pt. V. The ambiguous word: On definition / Blaise Pascal. Third meaning of the word "is": definition / George Santayana. Nominal and real definitions / Augustus de Morgan. How is "exactness" possible? / F.C.S. Schiller. Definitions and reality / Louis de Broglie. The patient's language / Frederick C. Redlich Interpretation / I.A. Richards and Christine Gibson. Ambiguity and its avoidance / James MacKaye pt. VI. The recognition of differences: Of general terms / John Locke. Realists and nominalists / H.G. Wells. On knowing the difference / Robert Lynd. The passion for parsimony / William James. The individuality of things and the generality of language / A.B. Johnson. Statistical thinking / George Boas pt. VII. Verbal fascination: The attributive attitude / Ellis Freeman Reification / James W. Woodard Tabooed words / Sir James George Frazer. The context of associations / Margaret Schlauch. Images, words and formulas / Gustave Le Bon. The confusion of likeness with identity by means of comparisons and other figures of speech / Joshua Rosett Logotherapy / Malford W. Thewlis. The general theory of magical language / Bronislaw Malinowski pt. VIII. The structural patterns and implications of a language: Perception and language / Grace de Laguna. An experimental study of the effect of language on the reproduction of visually perceived form / L. Carmichael, H.P. Hogan, and A.A. Walter. Language and a view of the world / Ernst Cassirer. Language and thought / Franz Boas. Conceptual categories in primitive languages / Edward Sapir. Language and the categorizing of experience / Clyde Kluckhohn and Dorothea Leighton. Languages and logic / Benjamin Lee Whorf pt. IX. Escape from verbalism: Sensation and cerebration / Thomas Hornsby Ferril. An address on words and things / T. Clifford Allbutt. Life and the symbols of life / James S. Plant. Experience with languages / Warner Fite. Two kinds of knowledge / Elton Mayo. The study of man / L.J. Henderson. Preparation of the child for science / M.E. Boole Significs / V. Welby. Fate and freedom / Alfred Korzybski.