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Can you please why author used "there" instead of "this" or "these" in the second sentence( first word)? Thanks for the help :)

Dickie is here developing a direction pointed to in the other (and earlier) of the two most influential writings in institutional theory, “The art world” by Arthur Danto (1964) (to which I will return). There , what Danto calls “the atmosphere of theory,” and the historical relatedness or relational properties of the work of art, are identified as essential conditions for arthood.

Source- I got these lines from a textbook on art theories.

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  • "There" means the book just mentioned.
    – KarlG
    Commented Feb 8, 2018 at 22:03
  • Note the use of here in the first sentence. That corresponds to the same place as the there in the second sentence. Here is the paper; there is where it's identified. Commented Feb 8, 2018 at 22:19
  • You're welcome. Note that there is not a relative pronoun, btw. Relative pronouns normally start with wh, not th, and they occur in relative clauses, which is not the case here. Be very careful asking questions using terms you don't understand, because you may get what you ask for. Commented Feb 8, 2018 at 22:47

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First, this and these are neither relative nor pronouns.

Nevertheless, you are surprised to see there used instead of in this or in these (sc. book(s)). This use of a demonstrative adjective would have been perfectly sound.

However, researchers and scholars have for centuries regularly treated books as if they were abstract locations in which ideas, feelings, stories and other literary entities are ‘located’. In the same way, we can speak speak of a reader being distracted and losing her (or his) ‘place’. So Danto’s book is the place ‘where’ the ideas the writer cites are to be found.

I hope this is helpful.

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  • You're right, this and these are not relative pronouns. They are demonstrative pronouns, however; there are a lot of pronouns around, of various kinds. Commented Feb 9, 2018 at 0:58
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Speeches and written works are often referred to using language that treats them metaphorically as places or containers. So "there" means "in that paper", referring to the paper that Danto wrote in 1964.

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