The concept of representation is an instructive case because its meaning is highly complex and, from very early in the history of this family of words, has been highly abstract. It is thus a useful corrective to our fantasies about explorers and chemists. Representation is very much a cultural and political, a human phenomenon. Accordingly the “semantic map” of the English words in the “represent” family does not correspond well to those of cognate terms in even closely related other languages. For example, German has three words – vertreten, darstellen, and reprasentirren- all of which are usually translated by the English “represent.” Darstellen means to depic or stand for; vertreten means to act for as an agent Reprasentieren is close to the latter, but more formal and elevated in its connotations. (German political theorists sometimes argue that mere selfish private interests can be vertreten, but the common good or the good of the state must be reprasentiert.) reprasentieren, however, is not at all close in meaning to darstellen. So, for anEnglish speaker, the way a painting or a painter or a stage actor represents is obviously part of the same concept as the way an agent or an elected legislator represents; for a German speaker it is not. The history of legal, artistic, political, and other representation among Ferman-speaking peoples of course also differs from the corresponding history among English-speaking peoples, but not in a way that correlates simply or neatly with such semantic differences.