Paradigms Regainedis James L Battersby's effort to reclaim for literary study certain legitimate territories that have been needlessly abandoned on the theoretical battlefield. Despite assertions to the contrary by poststructuralist or new historicist critics, Battersby contends, it is still possible to talk intelligently, rigorously, and usefully about such issues as literary intentionality, stable references, determinate meaning, and objective value judgments of literary works.
What enables Battersby to make his argument is his reliance not on continental thought but on Anglo-American analytic and pragmatic philosophers, including Donald Davidson, Michael Dummett, Nelson Goodman, Hilary Putnam, John Searle, and Israel Scheffler. Battersby synthesizes and builds on their work in a way that is at once fresh and distinctive.
James L. Battersby is Professor Emeritus of English, The Ohio State University, and the author of Reason and the Nature of Texts, also available from the University of Pennsylvania Press.
A genuine contribution to literary theoretical debate. For once a supporter of traditional critical concepts and values has been prepared to reject the defensive anti-intellectual posture favored by so many opponents of contemporary theory and attempted to theorize his position. For this he deserves our respect. —British Journal of Aesthetics
One of the most important books published this year. —American Literary Scholarship, 1991
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