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May 07, 2008
Shazeen Samad
My first ever book has just come out, and is now available world-wide. Here's what it looks like:
It's called Truth in Virtue of Meaning and it's basically a new account of the analytic-synthetic distinction (one which is designed to fit better with phenomena like contextualism and semantic externalism than pre-Quine conceptions of the distinction did), and a defence of that distinction against about 7-zillion arguments (ok, maybe more like 15 arguments) against analyticity.
I'm going to post a bit more about the content of the book later in the week, but what I thought I'd do right now is tell you a bit about the photograph on the cover. The photo is by a Maldivian photographer called Shazeen Samad. He has a beautiful website and some of my favourite images of his are here, here, here and here. If you are looking to procrastinate while you should be grading/writing that final paper, and you won't be depressed by images of incredibly beautiful people hanging out in what appears to be the most beautiful place on earth, then the site comes highly recommended.
The photo that Shazeen very kindly let me use is called "Maldavian Reflection" and it is an image of the ocean at sunset, when the water is so still that the entire sky (which has lots of cool clouds) is reflected in it. A couple of people have remarked that the picture is beautiful, but doesn't have much to do with the topic of the book. But to those people I say two things: first, off, what did you want? pictures of bachelors? of one concept containing another? and second: not so! when you first look at the photograph it can seem pretty chaotic and hard to work out what it is a picture of. But then you look harder, and you realise that it is in two halves, with the horizon down the middle and that everything below the horizon is water, and everything above it is sky. What could be more appropriate?
Posted by logican at May 7, 2008 04:15 PM
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Comments
Congratulations! The book looks good. I'm sure it won't provide a counterexample to the inference “x looks good” to “x is good”. I'll buy you the beverage of your choice and drink to your honour next time our paths cross.
Posted by: Greg Restall ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.logicandlanguage.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at May 7, 2008 07:46 PM
Cool! I'll be in Melbourne for July and August, so you'll definitely be held to that one...
Posted by: Gillian Russell at May 8, 2008 12:39 PM
Wow - my spam filter is completely and utterly dreadful. I get several emails a day asking me if I want to approve some completely obscene spam email, but MY OWN comments get relegated to the spam pile with out so much as a by your leave...
Posted by: Gillian Russell at May 8, 2008 12:44 PM
Congrats, Gillian! I look forward to reading the book, and I'm pleased to see you fighting the good fight on the a/s distinction. (Also, been enjoying your blog.) -Robert
Posted by: Robert Howell at May 30, 2008 11:53 AM