User:KYPark/1930

William Empson[edit]

Seven Types of Ambiguity ushered forth New Criticism in the United States. The book is a guide to a style of literary criticism practiced by Empson. An ambiguity is represented as a puzzle to Empson. We have ambiguity when "alternative views might be taken without sheer misreading." Empson reads poetry as an exploration of conflicts within the author.

``It is one of the most important books of the modern evolutionary synthesis and is commonly cited in biology books.``

argues for 'legal realism' and emphasizes the psychological forces at work in legal matters.
Courts on Trial (1949)
stressed the uncertainties and fallibility of the judicial process.
``Jerome Frank is famously credited with the idea that a judicial decision might be determined by what the judge had for breakfast.``
interpretivism (legal), critical legal studies
contextualism as behaviorism plus mentalism (psychology) but not mentalism (philosophy) de dicto!
cf. Karl Llewellyn at Columbia Law School (1925-51) then University of Chicago
cf. Jerome Bruner at University of New York
cf. lived same as C. K. Ogden (1889-1957)

The concept gained its greatest publicity just after the World War II as a tool for world peace. Although it was not built into a program, similar simplifications were devised for various international uses. I. A. Richards was a forceful advocate of the use of Basic English, and lobbied the government of China to teach it in schools there. More recently, it has influenced the creation of Simplified English, a standardized version of English intended for the writing of technical manuals.

In the future history book The Shape of Things to Come, published in 1933, H. G. Wells depicted Basic English as the lingua franca of a new elite which after a prolonged struggle succeeds in uniting the world and establishing a world government. In the future world of Wells' vision, virtually all members of humanity know this language.

From 1942 until 1944 George Orwell was a proponent of Basic English, but in 1945 he became critical of universal language. The language later inspired his use of Newspeak in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Noted science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein used a form of Basic English in his story "Gulf" as a language appropriate for a race of genius supermen.

Practical Criticism: Rev. ed., Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, London (1st ed. 1929)