Pictures, Quotations and Distinctions

"Pictures, quotations and distinctions" presents an anthology of the essays of Robert Sokolowski, a thinker who specialises in questions on conceptual analysis. The essays constitute Sokolowski's sustained project of critical phenomenological analysis of many different forms of presentation as well as many different forms of human experience. Aimed at the specialist in phenomenology and the generalist in the philosophical tradition, Sokolowski's work describes various ways in which things appear, as pictured, quoted, measured, distinguished, explained, meant, and referred to. Through the analysis of appearances, he probes the question of being and aims to clarify the human condition. The 14 essays are grouped into pairs or triplets. "Picturing" and "quotation" describe representation in image and speech. "Making distinctions" clarifies how we can isolate something as an issue for thought, and "explaining" discusses what we do after we have isolated it. "Timing" and "measurement" describe two ways in which wholes are articulated into parts, and "exact science and the world in which we live" further develops the theme of measurement.
"Exorcising concepts" and "referring" are a phenomenological attempt to treat sense and reference. "Grammar and thinking" and "Tsarskian harmonies in words and pictures" discuss the formal composition of sentences and images and their relationship to the way things are disclosed. The final three essays are studies in the phenomenology of ethical performance. By providing concrete analyses of human themes familiar to everyone, such as picturing and quotation, these examples of applied phenomenology take appearances seriously, while making philosophical distinctions among them.