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Sign and Language in Anton Marty: Before and after Brentano

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Philosophy of Language in the Brentano School

Part of the book series: History of Analytic Philosophy ((History of Analytic Philosophy))

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Abstract

On the basis of Marty’s 1867 Preisschrift, this paper offers a reconstruction of Marty’s semiotic and linguistic investigations just before he became a student of Brentano. It first considers Marty’s critique of the traditionalism of Louis de Bonald and his claim that language is a necessary condition for thought. It then examines the young Marty’s conception of what a sign is and discusses the traditional scholastic aspects of this conception. Finally, it compares Marty’s analysis of the notion of sign in his dissertation with the semantic and semiotic theories developed in Marty’s later work and within the Austro-German tradition. By giving a more precise account of the “functionalist” or “instrumentalist” label as applied to Marty’s philosophy of language, the paper makes it possible to reassess the originality of his thought.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    “Die Lehre des hl. Thomas über die Abstraction der übersinnlichen Ideen aus den sinnlichen Bildern. Summa theol. I q. 85 art. 1–3. nebst: Darstellung und Kritik der übrigen Erkenntnißtheorien” (title transl. in Rollinger 2014).

  2. 2.

    Although it was briefly described by Oskar Kraus (1916, 3), the Preisschrift remained unknown until its rediscovery in the Masaryk Archives. These archives contain a huge number of unpublished writings of remarkable value, but because they have not yet been systematically catalogued they have been little studied. See however O. Funke’s introduction to the first volume of the Nachgelassene Schriften (Marty 1940); see also Raynaud (1982, 290). The Preisschrift has been transcribed by Giuliano Bacigalupo as a part of the SNF project “Meaning and Intentionality in Anton Marty: At the Crossroads of the Philosophy of Language and Mind”, 2014–2017. Laurent Cesalli, Guillaume Fréchette, Hélène Leblanc and Hamid Taieb are currently preparing an edition of the text.

  3. 3.

    Unless otherwise specified, all translations are mine.

  4. 4.

    The expression is frequently quoted, but it appears more often in the Untersuchungen, although in less compact versions. See for instance Marty (1908, 76), with reference to Marty (1875).

  5. 5.

    I am especially grateful to Laurent Cesalli, Guillaume Fréchette, Claudio Majolino, and Hamid Taieb, who provided very helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut des Civilisations, Arts et Lettres (INCAL), UCLouvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

    Hélène Leblanc

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  1. Hélène Leblanc
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium

    Arnaud Dewalque

  2. Department of Philosophy, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium

    Charlotte Gauvry

  3. Department of Philosophy, Free University of Brussels (ULB), Brussels, Belgium

    Sébastien Richard

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Leblanc, H. (2021). Sign and Language in Anton Marty: Before and after Brentano. In: Dewalque, A., Gauvry, C., Richard, S. (eds) Philosophy of Language in the Brentano School. History of Analytic Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52211-7_6

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