Linguistic and philosophical implications. Pp. xxiv+611.

The harmonic mind is a two-volume collection of 23 chapters authored by Smolensky, Legendre and their collaborators. * Some of these are reprints or slight updates of previously published material, but approximately three-quarters of it has never appeared before. Every phonologist who takes at all seriously the notion that phonology is a branch of cognitive science should own a copy of this book. Smolensky & Legendre (vol. 1, p. 1) present a view of cognition that incorporates two distinct, but related levels of formal description: ‘the con-tinuous, numerical lower-level description of brain’, characterised in terms of a connectionist network, and ‘the discrete, structural, higher-level de-scription of mind’, characterised in terms of Optimality Theory (OT). The depth and breadth of the presentation are awe-inspiring, and quite likely in-timidating in some places for any single reader. In their preface, Smolensky & Legendre characterise the intended audience as interdisciplinary groups of researchers in cognitive science, and a joint reading of this book by suc