Proto-Phenomenology, Language Acquisition, Orality and Literacy: Dwelling in Speech II [Hardcover]

Through his innovative study of language, noted Heidegger scholar Lawrence Hatab offers a proto-phenomenological account of the lived world, the first world of factical life, where pre-reflective, immediate disclosiveness precedes and makes possible representational models of language. Common distinctions between mind and world, fact and value, cognition and affect miss the meaning-laden dimension of embodied, practical existence, where language and life are a matter of dwelling in speech. In this second volume, Hatab supplements and fortifies his initial analysis by offering a detailed treatment of child development and language acquisition, which exhibit a proto-phenomenological world in the making. He then takes up an in-depth study of the differences between oral and written language (particularly in the ancient Greek world) and how the history of alphabetic literacy shows why Western philosophy came to emphasize objective, representational models of cognition and language, which conceal and pass over the presentational domain of dwelling in speech. Such a study offers significant new angles on the nature of philosophy and language.Lawrence J. Hatab is Louis I. Jaffe Professor of Philosophy at Old Dominion University. He is the author of Nietzsches On the Genealogy of Morality (2008), Nietzsches Life Sentence: Coming to Terms With Eternal Recurrence (2005), Ethics and Finitude: Heideggerian Contributions to Moral Philosophy (2000), A Nietzschean Defense of Democracy: An Experiment in Postmodern Politics (1995) and Myth and Philosophy: A Contest of Truths (1990).

Written with elegance and ease, Lawrence J. Hatab's book argues that language is embedded in the lived world. Its thorough description of experiences that are not usually considered by philosophy adds a note of surprise. By the end of the book, the reader has gained valuable insights into child development, language acquisition, orality, and the emergence of literacy. This is phenomenological delsL