Yo! and Lo!: The Pragmatic Topography of the Space of Reasons [Hardcover]

Much of twentieth-century philosophy was organized around the linguistic turn, in which metaphysical and epistemological issues were approached through an analysis of language. This turn was marked by two assumptions: that it was primarily the semantics of language that was relevant to broader philosophical issues, and that declarative assertions were the only verbal acts of serious philosophical interest. In Yo! and Lo! Rebecca Kukla and Mark Lance reject these assumptions. Looking at philosophical problems starting with the pragmatics of language, they develop a typology of pragmatic categories of speech within which declaratives have no uniquely privileged position. They demonstrate that non-declarative speech actsincluding vocative hails (Yo!) and calls to shared attention (Lo!)are as fundamental to the possibility and structure of meaningful language as are declaratives.

Entering into conversation with the work of Anglo-American philosophers such as Wilfrid Sellars, Robert Brandom, and John McDowell, and Continental philosophers including Heidegger and Althusser, Yo! and Lo! offers solutions (or dissolutions) to long-standing philosophical problems, such as how perception can be both inferentially fecund and responsive to an empirical world, and how moral judgment can be both objective and inherently motivating.

This project is important and exciting for many reasons, including its new themes for philosophical work, and its compelling new perspectives on some familiar issues. I found myself repeatedly finding unexpected insights and novel ways of formulating or addressing issues, or making wider philosophical connections.'Yo!' and 'Lo!' is an innovative investigation into the philosophy of language. It moves the pragmatics of language center-stage in a way unlike anything I have seen before. The authors offer us a new way of approaching important questions about what language does and what we can do with it. This is a truly seminal lCj