52 min listen
Daniel Oberhaus, "Extraterrestrial Languages" (MIT Press, 2019)
Daniel Oberhaus, "Extraterrestrial Languages" (MIT Press, 2019)
ratings:
Length:
59 minutes
Released:
Jan 6, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
In Extraterrestrial Languages (MIT Press 2020), Daniel Oberhaus tells the history of human efforts to talk to aliens, but in doing so, the book reflects on the relationship between communication and cognition, the metaphysics of mathematics, about whether dolphins have a language, and more. The challenge of communicating with extraterrestrials forces scientists and linguists to consider a range of problems. Would these listeners recognize radio signals as linguistic? How would they decode and interpret them? Would ETs even have linguistic capacities to begin with? Oberhaus shares the stories of, and theoretical bases for, a range of attempts to communicate with ETs, along the way tackling fundamental questions in linguistics, philosophy, mathematics, science, and even art.
Malcolm Keating is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Yale-NUS College. His research focuses on Sanskrit philosophy of language and epistemology. He is the author of Language, Meaning, and Use in Indian Philosophy (Bloomsbury Press, 2019) and host of the podcast Sutras (and stuff).
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/language
Malcolm Keating is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Yale-NUS College. His research focuses on Sanskrit philosophy of language and epistemology. He is the author of Language, Meaning, and Use in Indian Philosophy (Bloomsbury Press, 2019) and host of the podcast Sutras (and stuff).
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/language
Released:
Jan 6, 2021
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Robert Lane Greene, “You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws and the Politics of Identity” (Delacorte Press, 2011): Isn’t it odd how the golden age of correct language always seems to be around the time that its speaker was in high school, and that language has been going to the dogs ever since? Such is the anguish of declinists the world over, by New Books in Language