Description
Noiré, Ludwig. The Origin and Philosophy of Language. (Chicago & London: The Open Court Publishing Co., 1917) 2nd Revised Edition
Octavo. 159 pages including index. Hardcover. Green cloth-covered boards stamped in blind and gilt on spine and front cover.
Condition: Near fine with a lightly bumped corner on top of rear cover. Light toning to paper, previous owner’s signature on first free endpaper.
“Noiré’s theory appears as one of the most eccentric in that Noiré linked language origins with collective labour. To him, the unique sociability of humans implies cooperation and in turn cooperation involves language. Remarkably, Noiré’s theory deeply influenced the debate on language origins until the 1950s. Noiré’s theory was also mentioned by scholars who did not directly deal with the question of language origins but needed a provisional theory of language origins which would be suitable for their theoretical aims. To give a few examples, Noiré’s theory was meticulously described by Steinthal ([1851] 1888), Plekhanov ([1907] 1976), Mauthner (19122), Bogdanov ([1923] 2015), Cassirer (198013), Jespersen (1922), Janet (1934) and others. Some traces of Noiré’s theory could be seen in no less than the theory of language origins suggested by the Vietnamese philosopher Trần Đức Thảo (1917-1993). Thảo’s theory, set out in his Phenomenology and Dialectical Materialism (1951), clearly reflected the influence of Noiré’s account. In this case, a philosopher who was interested in a dialectical-materialist theory of the human being argued for a theory of language origins somehow similar to Noiré’s one” – D’Alonzo -Ludwig Noiré and the Debate on Language Origins in the 19th Century (hiphilangsci.net)
