"One of the greatest works in philosophical aesthetics of this century, Languages of Art presents 'a systematic study of symbols and symbol systems and the way they function in our perceptions and actions and arts and sciences, and thus in the creation and comprehension of our worlds'. This enquiry, ranging across psychology, linguistics, the theory of mind, technology, and the sciences, furnishes a deeper understanding of art in its many forms--music, dance, literature, and the visual arts."--

Here, in a new edition, is Nelson Goodman’s provocative philosophical classic—a book that, according to Science , “raised a storm of controversy” when it was first published in 1954, and one that remains on the front lines of philosophical debate. How is it that we feel confident in generalizing from experience in some ways but not in others? How are generalizations that are warranted to be distinguished from those that are not? Goodman shows that these questions resist formal solution and his demonstration has been taken by nativists like Chomsky and Fodor as proof that neither scientific induction nor ordinary learning can proceed without an a priori , or innate, ordering of hypotheses. In his new foreword to this edition, Hilary Putnam forcefully rejects these nativist claims. The controversy surrounding these unsolved problems is as relevant to the psychology of cognitive development as it is to the philosophy of science. No serious student of either discipline can afford to misunderstand Goodman’s classic argument.

"The authors argue against certain philosophical distinctions between art and science; between verbal and nonverbal meaning; and between the affective and the cognitive. The book continues Goodman's argument against one traditional mode of philosophizing which privileges the notions of 'truth' and 'knowledge'. Hence, the book is in a broadly pragmatic tradition. It also deals in detail with such topics as meaning in architecture and the concept of 'variation' in art, and contains a superb critique of some important views in contemporary epistemology. This work will be savored even by those who will not accept all aspects of Goodman and Elgin's approach. Essential for all undergraduate philosophy collections." --Stanley Bates, Choice

Of Mind and Other Matters displays perhaps more vividly than any one of Nelson Goodman's previous books both the remarkable diversity of his concerns and the essential unity of his thought. Many new studies are incorporated in the book, along with material, often now augmented or significantly revised, that he has published during the last decade. As a whole the volume will serve as a concise introduction to Goodman's thought for general readers, and will develop its more recent unfoldings for those philosophers and others who have grown wiser with his books over the years. Goodman transcends the narrow “scientism and humanism that set the sciences and the arts in opposition”; his insights derive from both formal philosophy and cognitive psychology. As Hilary Putnam has noted, Goodman “prefers concrete and partial progress to grand and ultimately empty visions”; and here are illuminating studies of topics ranging from science policy and museum administration and art education to narrative in literature and painting and the analysis of elusive aspects of literal and metaphorical reference. All these are ramifications of Goodman’s profound and often revolutionary philosophical work on the ways we understand and even make the worlds we live in.