Objects and Attitudes

Friederike Moltmann's Objects and Attitudes is a highly original work, presenting the results of over a decade of research at the intersection of linguistics and philosophy. It represents an important contribution to contemporary work on content and the ongoing hyperintensional revolution in semantics. Moltmann develops Kit Fine's truthmaker semanticsim in novel ways to provide fine-grained notions of content for satisfiables, like beliefs and desires. It is a challenging and highly rewarding read. * Mark Jago, University of Nottingham * This book purses a bold idea: that both root and embedded sentences are not what we thought. Instead of, say, abstract propositions, it argues that sentences are predicates of things—objects like claims and obligations. The implications for semantics and natural language ontology are clear. Friederike Moltmann is one of very few scholars who can engage with the philosophy of language and generative syntax in one breath. * Keir Moulton, University of Toronto * For all their familiarity, things like claims, needs, conjectures, and possibilities^ DDL'satisfiables,' Friederike Moltmann calls them—have not been accorded much theoretical respect. That changes now. Moltmann builds a semantics around them but with a crucial twist: Satisfiables have satisfiers, which puts the whole apparatus of truthmaker semantics at her disposal. Once froth on the waves, they become in Moltmann the wavemakers * Stephen Yablo, Massachusetts Institute of Technology *