Introduction. Philosophica, 75, 2005, 5-10.

Abstract

This editorial introduces the Philosophica special issue Truth, Knowledge and the Pragmatics of Natural Language, devoted to the pragmatic turn in the philosophy of language and its implications for semantics, epistemology, and philosophy of science. It situates the volume against the background of Charles Morris’s tripartite division of semiotics and traces the shift toward pragmatics inspired by later Wittgenstein and Peircean semiotics. The issue brings together contributions that address core problems in general pragmatics as well as pragmatically informed approaches to knowledge and truth. Robert M. Harnish defends a Gricean account of illocutionary communication against Austinian alternatives; Jaroslav Peregrin examines normative pragmatics through Brandom’s and Davidson’s views; John Collier and Konrad Talmont-Kamiński develop a functional pragmatics grounded in Peircean semiotics; Adam Grobler offers a presupposition-based account of knowledge and truth; and Maciej Witek argues against deflationism about truth. Together, the papers illustrate the scope and philosophical significance of pragmatics across linguistic and epistemic domains.