Unshadowed Thought

“Unshadowed Thought presents a unifying, bold, and original account of occasion-sensitivity, a deep and important phenomenon that is unjustly neglected in contemporary philosophy of mind and language.”—Gary Ebbs, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

“The argument that Travis develops is systematic, meticulous, and highly specific. He manages to give a novel presentation of the anti-platonist and anti-psychologistic strands in Wittgenstein’s thought, without ever appearing merely to give an exposition of Wittgenstein’s views. By using our intuitions about what counts as expressing the same or different thoughts in particular cases, Travis works to show that the idea that thoughts are determinate representations whose individuation-conditions are occasion-independent cannot be sustained. The argument is lucid and persuasive, and the book should have considerable polemical impact.”—Marie McGinn, University of York