Bloomsbury Academic Poetic Philosophy of Language, A: Nietzsche and Wittgenstein’s Expressivism (Bloomsbury Studies in Philosophy and Poetry)

Connecting poetry and the philosophy of language, Philip Mills bridges the continental and analytical divide by bringing together the writings of Nietzsche and Wittgenstein. Through an expressivist philosophy of poetry, he argues that we can understand some of the core questions in the philosophy of language.Mills highlights the continuity of poetic language with ordinary language, and positions Nietzsche’s and Wittgenstein’s thinking as the clearest way to expand the philosophy of poetry. By tracing the expressivist tradition of the philosophy of language, this study locates its roots in German Romanticism right through to the work of contemporary expressivists such as Huw Price and Robert Brandom. This history of philosophy further re-evaluates the place of poetry in philosophy, highlighting its importance to philosophy and aesthetics. Where poetry has been difficult to grasp with the traditional philosophical tools used by aestheticians, Poetic Affect and Philosophy of Language operates at the crossroads between philosophy of art and language, proposing a new philosophy of poetry with wide-ranging potentialities. Review Mills’ central question is compelling: what might the core questions of a traditionally ‘representationalist’ philosophy of language look like when viewed through the lens of a ‘poetic expressivism’? The answer, drawing on Nietzsche and Wittgenstein, is no less compelling, and admirably negotiates analytic, continental and pragmatic philosophical traditions. Highly recommended. --Sean Bowden, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Deakin University, Australia About the Author Philip Mills is a postdoctoral researcher in French Literature at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.