Books by Roy Harris

The "Key Issues" series makes available the contemporary responses that met important books on their first appearance. The notion that language was a divine gift to humanity was seriously questioned by Darwin's theory of evolution. This text contains various contributions to the controversy.

Pays close attention to the early work of the Royal Society and to the twentieth-century semantic crisis caused by attempting to integrate Einsteinian relativity and quantum mechanics. This lucidly written book will be of interest to all those engaged in linguistics, semiotics, philosophy of science and cultural studies.

The problem of definition has a long history and has engaged the minds of some of the most eminent thinkers in the Western tradition, from Plato and Aristotle onwards. This work focuses on two areas where difficulties arise in a particularly acute form: lexicography and the law.

Roy Harris shows that the theory of writing adopted in modern linguistics is deeply flawed. Reversing the orthodox priorities, the author argues that writing is a far more powerful mode of linguistic communication than speech could ever be.

Reflects on the early nineteenth-century doctrine of 'art for art's sake'. Attacked by Proudhon and Nietzsche, but defended by Theophile Gautier and E M Forster, it influenced movements as diverse as futurism and Dada.

Examines the old debate about the relationship between rationality and literacy. This title challenges the received mainstream opinion that reason is an intrinsic property of the human mind, and argues that the whole Western conception of rational thought is a by-product of the way literacy developed in European cultures.

Are contemporary art theorists and critics speaking a language that has lost its meaning? This book takes a linguistic approach to the key issues and shows that what have been considered problems of aesthetics and artistic justification often have their source in underlying linguistic assumptions.