Language and Learning

The philosophers and scholars of the Hellenistic world laid the foundations upon which the Western tradition based analytical grammar, linguistics, philosophy of language, and other disciplines probing the nature and origin of human communication. Building on the pioneering work of Plato and Aristotle, these thinkers developed a wide range of theories about the nature and origin of language which reflected broader philosophical commitments. In this collection of nine essays, a team of distinguished scholars examines the philosophies of language developed by, among others, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, the Stoics, and Lucretius. They probe the early thinkers’ philosophical adequacy and their impact on later theorists. With discussions ranging from the Stoics on the origin of language to the theories of language in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the collection will be of interest to students of philosophy and of language in the classical period and beyond.

Author Biography

Dorothea Frede is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hamburg. She has written numerous articles on Greek philosophy and her previous publications include Philebos (Hackett, 1992) and (with André Laks) Traditions of Theology, Studies in Hellenistic Theology (Leiden 2002). Brad Inwood is Canada Research Chair in Ancient Philosophy at the University of Toronto. His recent publications include The Poem of Empedocles (Second edition, University of Toronto Press, 2001) and The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics (Cambridge University Press, 2003).