Linguistics and Philosophy

Etienne Gilson (1884-1978) was a French philosopher and historian of philosophy. John Lyon has taught in departments of history, great books, history and philosophy of science, humanities, liberal arts, language and literature, and education. He has served as educational consultant at two universities and held administrative posts in five. He has translated several works from French and published in the history and philosophy of science.

"Gilson has attempted to speak from the tradition of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas to contemporary philosophers, not only to linguists, to whom this book is principally addressed, but to all, such as analysts, who give great attention to language. He makes . . .an argument that is well worth hearing. Philosophers should take from this book not only the principal argument . . . but also the implied judgement of the place of the philosopher in science. Gilson treats linguistics as a science that stands in need of philosophical reasoning in order to perform its proper scientific function. Too often . . . the philosopher's job is thought to be one of commenting on the scientist's work after the scientist's work has been done in a vacuum completely free of any philosophical impurity. . . . The scientific project is not a project separate from philosophy, but is a thoroughly philosophical project from beginning to end, although this fact is not always adverted to by the scientists. . . . Gilson has given in this book . . . excellent evidence of how the philosopher should work with scientific evidence to further the pursuit of truth, which is at once scientific and philosophical. - Canadian Philosophical Review "This book may be described as a hymn to thought, an elegant, powerfully argued, sometimes moving, always persuasive defense of being-against the abstractions of modern science." -Christian Science Monitor