Beyond Ambiguity

This volume completes John Kinsella’s trilogy of critical activist poetics, begun two decades ago. It challenges familiar topoi and normatives of poetic activity as it pertains to environmental, humanitarian and textual activism in ‘the world-at-large’: it shows how ambiguity can be a generative force when it works from a basis of non-ambiguity of purpose. The book shows how there is a clear unambiguous position to have regarding issues of justice, but that from that confirmed point ambiguity can be an intense and useful activist tool. The book is an essential resource for those wishing to study Kinsella, and for those with an interest in twentieth and twenty-first-century poetry and poetics, and it will stand as an inspiring proclamation of the author's faith in the transformative power of poetry and literary activity as a force for good in the world.

In Beyond Schools: Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Wazīrʼs (d. 840/1436) Epistemology of Ambiguity, Damaris Wilmers offers the first extensive analysis of Ibn al-Wazīrʼs life and work and the significance of his thought for theological and legal diversity beyond the Yemeni context.

Ambiguity, vagueness and metaphor are pervasive features of language, deserving of systematic study in their own right. Yet they have frequently been considered mere deviations from ideal language or obstacles to be avoided in the construction of scientific systems. First published in 1979, Beyond the Letter offers a consecutive study of these features from a philosphical point of view, providing analyses of each and treating their relations to one another. Addressed to the fundamental task of logical and semantic explanation, the book employs an inscriptional methodology in the attempt to avoid prevalent forms of question-begging, and, further, in the conviction that sparseness of assumption often reveals points of theoretical interest irrespective of methodolgical preference. The author distinguishes and analyses several varieties of ambiguity, developing new semantic notions in the process; recasts the philosophical treatment of vagueness in the light of recent criticisms of analyticity; discusses the bearing of vagueness on logic; and provides a systematic critique of major recent interpretations of metaphor, developing a revised version of contextualism.

It has become commonplace to associate art and aesthetic experience with the category of ambiguity. Indeed, when we talk about art, we cannot do without the dynamic force of ambiguity just as the aesthetic itself cannot do without it. The great efforts to disambiguate aesthetic practices and their associated theories and contexts would eliminate art's unique ability to reshape our knowledge of the world, our sensory encounters with it, and our moral or political positions in it. The essays collected in this volume present different perspectives on this central category and develop interdisciplinary connections. Contributors include Frauke Berndt, Joy H. Calico, Stephan Kammer, Lutz Koepnick, Verena Krieger, Richard Langston, Rachel Mader, Lily Tonger-Erk, Gabriel Trop, and Thomas Wortmann.

Man Booker Prize nominee Peter Stamm explores in his sixth novel what it means to be in the middle of nowhere, in mind and in body. Happily married with two children and a comfortable home in a Swiss town, Thomas and Astrid enjoy a glass of wine in their garden on a night like any other. Called back to the house by their son's cries, Astrid goes inside, expecting her husband to join her in a bit. But Thomas gets up and, after a brief moment of hesitation, opens the gate and walks out. No longer bound by the ties of his everyday life--family, friends, work--Thomas begins a winding trek across the countryside, exposed as never before to the Alpine winter. At home, Astrid wonders where he's gone, when he'll come back, whether he's still alive. Following Thomas and Astrid on their separate paths, To the Back of Beyond becomes ultimately a meditation on the limits of freedom and on the craving to be wanted.

We are happy to present to the reader the first book of our Applied Logic Series. Walton's book on the fallacies of ambiguity is firmly at the heart of practical reasoning, an important part of applied logic. There is an increasing interest in artifIcial intelligence, philosophy, psychol ogy, software engineering and linguistics, in the analysis and possible mechanisation of human practical reasoning. Continuing the ancient quest that began with Aristotle, computer scientists, logicians, philosophers and linguists are vigorously seeking to deepen our understanding of human reasoning and argumentation. Significant communities of researchers are actively engaged in developing new approaches to logic and argumentation, which are better suited to the urgent needs of today's applications. The author of this book has, over many years, made significant contributions to the detailed analysis of practical reasoning case studies, thus providing solid foundations for new and more applicable formal logical systems. We welcome Doug Walton's new book to our series.

The present study explores the aesthetic productivity of idiomatic ambiguity in children’s literature. Looking at the connection between context and understanding of idiomatic expressions in either their phrasal or their compositional reading, the study investigates how ambiguity is activated, if, how, and when it is perceived on the different levels of communication, and how literary texts use this ambiguity in playful ways.

Ambiguity in the sense of two or more possible meanings is considered to be a distinctive feature of modern art and literature. It characterizes the "open artwork" (Eco) and is generated by "disruptive tactics" (Wellershoff) and strategies to engender uncertainty. While ambiguity is seen as a "paradigm of modernity" (Bode), there is skepticism regarding its use in the pre-modern era. Older studies were dominated by the conviction that there was a lack of ambiguity in pre-modernity because, according to the rules of the "old rhetoric", ambiguity was seen as an avoidable error (vitium) and a violation of the dictate of clarity (perspicuitas). The aim of the volume is to re-examine the putative "absence of ambiguity" in the pre-modern era. Is it not possible to find clear examples of deliberately employed (intended) ambiguity in antiquity? Are the oracles and riddles, the Palinode of Stesichoros and Socrates (Phaedrus), the dissoi logoi of rhetoric, the ambiguities of the tragedies all exceptions or do they not indicate a distinct interest in the artistic use of ambiguity? The presentations of the conference, which will include scholars from various philologies, will combine a recourse to theoretical concepts of intended ambiguity with exemplary analyses from the field of pre-modern art and literature.