Wow! eBook
Literature and Art as Cognitive Objects: From a Poetics of Language to a Poetics of Action
Author(s): Patricia Kolaiti (Author)
- Publisher: Cambridge University Press
- Publication Date: September 18, 2025
- Language: English
- Print length: 258 pages
- ISBN-10: 131651708X
- ISBN-13: 9781316517086
Book Description
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.
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
Bringing together ideas from linguistics, philosophy and cognitive science, this book sets out a revolutionary theory of literature and art.
About the Author
Patricia Kolaiti is a lecturer at New York College, Athens. From 2018 to 2020, she was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellow, funded by the European Commission, leading the CogLit Project at the University of Brighton. In 2021, she was endorsed as ‘Global Talent – Emerging Leader’ by the British Academy. She is also a cutting-edge published poet.
