This book began life as a series of lectures written for the third Sino-British summer school of philosophy, on philosophy of mind and cognitive science, held in Tianjin, China, between 27 July and 14 August 1992. I am grateful to the Chairman of the British Committee of the summer school, Dr Nicholas Bunnin, for extending me the invitation. This provided me with a valuable opportunity to develop, and commit to paper, my ideas on the interrelationships between language, thought, and consciousness. I am also grateful to our Chinese hosts from the Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, for making the experience such a pleasant and intellectually fruitful one. I hope that, partly as a result of my efforts, those who attended the summer school went away fired with enthusiasm for philosophical studies of the nature of human cognition.

Since then I have received help, of various sorts, from a great many people. I should especially like to thank my students at the University of Sheffield, both undergraduate and postgraduate, who have subjected my ideas to relentless and penetrating criticism over a number of years – mentioning particularly Chris Bowns, Gavin Boyce, Nick Creak, Duncan Cromarty, Kate Distin, Keith Frankish, Gillian Hind, Maxine Holdsworth, Tim Howe, James Kinch, Ewan McEachran, Stuart McWilliam, Simon Tomlinson, Mark Vale, and Clive Witcomb.