Those who appreciate scrutinising someone else’s playful diary notes,
especially if written in an aphoristic Wittgensteinian numbering style and
containing no definite theory of language or mind, will like A Theory of
Language and Mind by Ermanno Bencivenga. I restrain myself from calling the
title a fraud. The publishers say that it “frustrates our expectations of a
proper theory of language and mind”, as if our expectations were improper. I
think the author lacks the courage to stick his neck out and say something,
which is a shame as he seems to have lots of imagination. Published by
University of California Press, £16.95/$22, ISBN 0520207912.
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