Aboutness - (Carl G. Hempel Lecture) by Stephen Yablo (Paperback)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br><p>Aboutness has been studied from any number of angles. Brentano made it the defining feature of the mental. Phenomenologists try to pin down the aboutness-features of particular mental states. Materialists sometimes claim to have grounded aboutness in natural regularities. Attempts have even been made, in library science and information theory, to operationalize the notion. <p/> But it has played no real role in philosophical semantics. This is surprising; sentences have aboutness-properties if anything does. <i>Aboutness</i> is the first book to examine through a philosophical lens the role of subject matter in meaning. <p/> A long-standing tradition sees meaning as truth-conditions, to be specified by listing the scenarios in which a sentence is true. Nothing is said about the principle of selection--about what in a scenario gets it onto the list. Subject matter is the missing link here. A sentence is true because of how matters stand where its subject matter is concerned. <p/> Stephen Yablo maintains that this is not just a feature of subject matter, but its essence. One indicates what a sentence is about by mapping out logical space according to its changing ways of being true or false. The notion of content that results--directed content--is brought to bear on a range of philosophical topics, including ontology, verisimilitude, knowledge, loose talk, assertive content, and philosophical methodology. <p/> Written by one of today's leading philosophers, <i>Aboutness</i> represents a major advance in semantics and the philosophy of language.</p><p/><br></br><p><b> From the Back Cover </b></p></br></br><p>"This is an excellent book. <i>Aboutness</i> is highly original and represents a major contribution to metaphysics and the philosophy of language."<b>--Thomas Hofweber, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill</b></p><p>"<i>Aboutness</i> is a major achievement. Yablo is one of the most distinctive philosophical writers of our time. Every sentence of this landmark book is a joy, and the discussion is elegant throughout. In this part of philosophy, it doesn't get better than this."<b>--Gideon Rosen, Princeton University</b></p><p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>Stephen Yablo's <i>Aboutness</i> is something of a sensation. It instantiates two firsts: it is the first book ever published on aboutness in logic and language, on the question, therefore, what it is for a sentence to be about something, and it is the first book Yablo publishes.<b>---Naomi Osorio-Kupferblum, <i>Analysis Reviews</i></b><br><br>This is an important and far-reaching book that philosophers will be discussing for a long time. There are doctoral dissertations, articles, and books to write exploring the possibilities and limitations of [Yablo's] approach.<b>---Adam Morton, <i>Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews</i></b><br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br>Stephen Yablo is professor of linguistics and philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of "Things: Papers on Objects, Events, and Properties" and "Thoughts: Papers on Mind, Meaning, and Modality."
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