Words Without Objects

A picture of the world as chiefly one of discrete objects, distributed in space and time, has sometimes seemed compelling. It is however one of two main targets of Henry Laycock's book; for it is seriously incomplete. The picture, he argues, leaves no space for stuff like air and water. With discrete objects, we may always ask 'how many?', but with stuff the question has to be 'how much?' Within philosophy, stuff of certain basic kinds is central to the ancient pre-Socratic world-view; but it also constitutes the field of modern chemistry and is a major factor in ecology. Philosophers these days, in general, are unlikely to deny that stuff exists. But they are very likely to deny that it is ('ultimately') to be contrasted with things, and it is on this account that logic and semantics figure largely in the framework of the book. Elementary logic is a logic which takes values for its variables; and these values are precisely distinct individuals or things. Existence is then symbolized in just such terms; and this, it is proposed, creates a pressure for 'reducing' stuff to things. Non-singular expressions, which include words for stuff, 'mass' nouns, and also plural nouns, are 'explicated' as semantically singular. Here then is the second target of the book. The posit that both mass and plural nouns name special categories of objects (set-theoretical 'collections' of objects in the one case, mereological 'parcels' or 'portions' of stuff in the other) represents, so Laycock urges, the imposition of an alien logic upon both the many and the much.

A picture of the world as chiefly one of discrete objects, distributed in space and time, has sometimes seemed compelling. It is however one of two main targets of Henry Laycock's book; for it is seriously incomplete. The picture, he argues, leaves no space for stuff like air and water. With discrete objects, we may always ask 'how many?', but with stuff the question has to be 'how much?' Within philosophy, stuff of certain basic kinds is central to the ancient pre-Socraticworld-view; but it also constitutes the field of modern chemistry and is a major factor in ecology.Philosophers these days, in general, are unlikely to deny that stuff exists. But they are very likely to deny that it is ('ultimately') to be contrasted with things, and it is on this account that logic and semantics figure largely in the framework of the book. Elementary logic is a logic which takes values for its variables; and these values are precisely distinct individuals or things. Existence is then symbolized in just such terms; and this, it is proposed, creates a pressure for 'reducing'stuff to things. Non-singular expressions, which include words for stuff, 'mass' nouns, and also plural nouns, are 'explicated' as semantically singular.Here then is the second target of the book. The posit that both mass and plural nouns name special categories of objects (set-theoretical 'collections' of objects in the one case, mereological 'parcels' or 'portions' of stuff in the other) represents, so Laycock urges, the imposition of an alien logic upon both the many and the much.

Objects of Metaphor contains a philosophical account of the phenomenon of metaphor radically different from those currently on offer. Yet for all that it is different, the underlying rationale of the account is genuinely ecumenical. If one adopts its perspective, one should be able to see how substantially correct many other accounts are, whilst at the same time seeing why they are not in the end completely correct. The book opens with a transparent classification of types of account, and concludes with detailed discussions of three important recent contributions to the subject. The origins of the account lie in our conception of predication. Unreflectively thought of as a task accomplished by words, it is argued that predication, or something very much like it, can also be accomplished by objects. So understood, predication becomes the genuinely equal partner of reference - a function no one doubts can be as easily accomplished by objects as by words - and, liberated in this way, predication becomes one central element in the account of metaphor. The other element is the move from language to objects which, adapting an idea of Quine's, is thought of as semantic descent. Whilst Samuel Guttenplan's account allows us to see other accounts in a new light, its main importance lies in what it tells us about metaphor itself. Powerful and flexible enough to cope with the syntactic complexity typical of genuine metaphor, it offers novel conceptions of both the relationship between simile and metaphor and the notion of dead metaphor. Additionally, it allows us to see why metaphor is a robust theoretic kind, related to certain other tropes, but not to be confused with tropes generally, or with the figurative and non-literal. Metaphor has often been thought merely an ornament to language. Whilst acknowledging the truth in this thought, Guttenplan shows the fundamental importance of metaphor to language. Rather than being a specialist topic in philosophy and related disciplines, he thus suggests that the study of metaphor is central to the study of language.

Simon J. Evnine explores the view (which he calls amorphic hylomorphism) that some objects have matter from which they are distinct but that this distinctness is not due to the existence of anything like a form. He draws on Aristotle's insight that such objects must be understood in terms of an account that links what they are essentially with how they come to exist and what their functions are (the coincidence of formal, final, and efficient causes). Artifacts are the most prominent kind of objects where these three features coincide, and Evnine develops a detailed account of the existence and identity conditions of artifacts, and the origins of their functions, in terms of how they come into existence. This process is, in general terms, that they are made out of their initial matter by an agent acting with the intention to make an object of the given kind. Evnine extends the account to organisms, where evolution accomplishes what is effected by intentional making in the case of artifacts, and to actions, which are seen as artifactual events.

When Discovering Modernism was first published, it shed new and welcome light on the birth of Modernism. This reissue of Menand's classic intellectual history of T.S. Eliot and the singular role he played in the rise of literary modernism features an updated Afterword by the author, as well as a detailed critical appraisal of the progression of Eliot's career as a poet and critic. The new Afterword was adapted from Menand's critically lauded essay on Eliot in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, Volume Seven: Modernism and the New Criticism. Menand shows how Eliot's early views on literary value and authenticity, and his later repudiation of those views, reflect the profound changes regarding the understanding of literature and its significance that occurred in the early part of the twentieth century. It will prove an eye-opening study for readers with an interest in the writings of T.S. Eliot and other luminaries of the Modernist era.

Lynn Robertson has been studying how brain lesions affect spatial abilities for over 20 years, and her work has revealed some surprising facts about space and its role in visual perception. In this book she combines evidence collected in her laboratory with findings from others to explore the cognitive and neural basis of spatial representations and their contributions to spatial awareness, object formation, attention, and binding.