Literature and Art as Cognitive Objects

What makes literature and art the distinct kinds of entities they are? Previous attempts to prove that artworks and literary texts are formally and structurally distinguishable from other objects have been misinterpreted to mean that any distinction between art and non-art must be largely sociological. This book takes a radically new approach to this long-standing question. Shifting the focus from the artwork itself to art as a case of human agency, it sets out a groundbreaking theory of literature and art as a single cognitive and natural entity. It argues that literature and art is neither sociologically determined nor a body of artefacts, but a unique type of action enabled by art-specific processes in the mind-internal and body-internal reality of human agents. With wide implications for existing debates, this book is essential reading for researchers and students in linguistics, philosophy and the cognitive sciences.

• Sets out a ground-breaking theory of literature and art as a cognitive and natural kind, revolutionizing our view of the interplay between literature, art and mind
• Sketches new directions for the interdisciplinary interaction between literary/art study and the empirical and cognitive sciences in the 21st century
• Offers a concrete example of a novel paradigm-transforming investigative practice and genuinely interdisciplinary approach to literature and art, showing how linguistic and cognitive theories can not only influence but also be influenced by the study of literary and other art forms