Book excerpt: Sperber gives a cognitive account of symbolism by which symbols represent knowledge, but knowledge which is distinct from 'encyclopaedic' knowledge. Symbolic knowledge is knowledge not of things or of words, but of the memory of things and words, of conceptual representations. It depends on processes of displacement of attention, and of evocation; it is an improvisation which rests upon implicit knowledge and obeys unconsciuos rules."--Back cover.