| Perhaps the best history of negation available in English. It is historical in that it identifies the way in which a given author questions some logical relation that all previous thinkers took for granted. It is, in the language of the field, pragmatic. It discusses the relation between logical relations and everyday discourse. Horn, an eminent figure in the field, will on occasion offer his own solution to a paradox that has puzzled logicians for centuries. He manages to be perfectly clear without sicrificing rigor. And he is a terribly witty writer. When it comes to combining logic with wit, he has no peer except V.O. Quine. I'm searching for a used copy, but apparentlv everyone who buys a new copy hangs on to it. |
This book offers a unique synthesis of past and current work on the structure, meaning, and use of negation and negative expressions, a topic that has engaged thinkers from Aristotle and the Buddha to Freud and Chomsky. Horn's masterful study melds a review of scholarship in philosophy, psychology, and linguistics with original research, providing a full picture of negation in natural language and thought; this new edition adds a comprehensive preface and bibliography, surveying research since the book's original publication. |
