The Edge of Meaning

Certain questions are basic to the human condition: how we imagine the world, and ourselves and others within it; how we confront the constraints of language and the limits of our own minds; and how we use imagination to give meaning to past experiences and to give shape to the future. These are the questions James Boyd White addresses in this book, exploring each through readings og great works of Western culture, Huckleberry Finn, the Odyssey, and the paintins of Vermeer among them. In doing so, White creates a deeply moving and insightful book and presents an inspiring conception of mind, language, and the essence of living.

Library Journal

While this study makes for interesting reading, it is in one sense a disappointment. White's writing is fluid and engaging, yet he doesn't bring into clear focus exactly what he is trying to accomplish. We come nearest, perhaps, in his preface, where he writes that he is trying to understand "what in English we call `meaning' in our experience." However, the question of the nature of meaning is very much a concern of contemporary linguistic philosophy (see, e.g., Robert Brandom's Articulating Reasons: An Introduction to Inferentialism, LJ 6/1/00), but White (law, English, and classical studies, Univ. of Michigan) shows no awareness of the work in this area. He instead examines a series of literary, philosophical, poetic, and legal texts from ancient times to the present, adding interesting comments about his own life experiences along the way. Because of the wide range of topics and ideas discussed here e.g., Thoughts from Walden Pond, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Odyssey, reading Greek, Phaedrus, rhetoric, love, and Vermeer this book will appeal to the generalist and is recommended on that basis. Leon H. Brody, U.S. Office of Personnel Management Lib., Washington, DC Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

James Boyd White is the Hart Wright Professor of Law, professor of English and adjunct professor of classical studies at the University of Michigan. His many books include The Legal Imagination, When Words Lose Their Meaning, and Acts of Hope, all published by the University of Chicago Press.