Results by title

The early papers collected here trace a trajectory through the work and thinking of Charles Fillmore over his long and distinguished career—reflecting his desire to make sense of the workings of language in a way that keeps in mind questions of language form, language use, and the conventions linking form, meaning, and practice.

This volume presents Charles Fillmore's view of the scope of linguistic description, insofar as the field of linguistics touches on questions of the meanings of sentences. Fillmore takes the subject matter of linguistics, in its grammatical, semantic, and pragmatic sub-divisions, to include the full catalog of knowledge that the speakers of a language can be said to possess about the structure of the sentences in their language, and their knowledge about the appropriate use of these sentences. The special explanatory task of linguistics, Fillmore argues, is to discover the principles that underlie such knowledge. He chooses to study the range of information which the speakers of a language possess about the sentences in their language by thoroughly examining one simple English sentence.

The Spiritual Journey of Charles Fillmore sheds new light on the life and work of an essential spiritual pioneer. In this landmark new biography, author Neal Vahle uses thorough new research, interviews with those who knew Fillmore, and his intimate familiarity with Fillmore's writings to introduce readers to the intriguing cofounder of the Unity movement. Beyond standard biography, Vahle's comprehensive treatment also extensively details Fillmore's era's philosophical and spiritual landscape. It gives readers an excellent overview of the metaphysical movement's evolution through time.