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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Philosophy and the Vision of Language (routledge Studies in Twentieth-century Philosophy) Acknowledgments Over the four-year process of writing this book, I have received help and support from many sources. One of my first debts is to those who read the manuscript, in part or as a whole.

Tim Schoettle read almost every page in draft and has provided immensely helpful suggestions and responses, especially for the first and last chapters, and I am deeply indebted to our conversations for much of the ultimate critical direction of the book. Jim Wetzel has also provided many helpful ideas and responses based on his reading of the entire manuscript.

Among those who have read and commented on parts, I would like especially to thank Brian Keith Axel, Jeffrey Barrett, Jake Berger, Walter Brogan, David Chalmers, Richard Eldridge, Wayne Martin, Alan Nelson, David Woodruff Smith, and Amie Thomasson. I would also like to thank two anonymous referees for the Journal of Philosophical Research who provided detailed and helpful comments on an earlier version of chapter 8.

Much of the material in the book was developed in graduate and advanced undergraduate seminars at Villanova over the past four years. I would like to thank all those who have participated; my debts to those discussions are multiple and deep. In particular, John Bova and Jeffrey Gower provided especially detailed readings and comments. Some of the material in the book originated even longer ago, while I was still a graduate student at the University of California, Irvine.

Chapter 7 originated in a graduate seminar I took with Leonardo Distaso, and I would like to thank him for the inspiration to begin thinking about the issues therein. Coursework and discussions with Bill Bristow, Wayne Martin, Alan Nelson, and David Woodruff Smith have also played a decisive role in inspiring many of the ideas in the book.

The last sections of the book were completed while I was an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation research fellow at the Karl-Ludwigs Universität in Freiburg im Breisgau, from March to August, 2007. I would like to thank the Humboldt Foundation for their gracious support. I would also like to thank my sponsor, Günter Figal, for his support of the project. Some of the material in chapter 7 appeared in an earlier version in Inquiry 46:3 (2003), pp. 324-45.

An earlier version of chapter 2 appeared in Philosophical Investigations 27:1 (2004), pp. 34-67.