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Gyorgy Tamas works in the philosophy of logic, that difficult interdisciplin ary region wherein the notion of categories is both basic and subtle. To understand ways of thinking, to understand patterns of whatever is real, to recognize what is possible and to reject the nonsensical and the impossible is to comprehend the categories. This was a in thought and in fact, recurring motive of European thought from the earliest self-aware beginnings, and Tamas knows that history well, as his critical respect demonstrates. Ancient, medieval, and modern thinkers appear in this book, set forth in their own words; and likewise we see that Tamas has built upon the historians and commentators, upon the pioneering historical investigation of the categories by Trendelenburg a century ago and by Bochenski in our days. Tamas has two principal goals here: to investigate the logic, which is to say the structure and the relations, of the philosophical categories; and to set forth the logic of thought which may then be based upon the critically established system of categories obtained by that investigation. Ancillary but of striking value is his style of historical relevance which enables the reader to engage in a discussion that is both analytically sharp and developmentally insightful. Furthermore, Tamas draws upon his contem porary colleagues with similar critical respect: Lukasiewicz, Quine, Patzig, Menne, Tavanets and others.
List of contents
One.- 1. Existential Terms and Propositions.- 2. The Truth Value of Terms and Propositions.- 3. The Quality of Terms and Propositions.- Two.- 4. Abstract and Concrete.- 5. The Extension of Terms.- 6. Extension and Intension of Terms.- Three.- 7. The Extension of Propositions.- 8. Immediate Inferences.- 9. The Categorical Syllogism.- Four.- 10. The Modality of Terms and Propositions.- 11. Modality and Quantification.- 12. The Logic of Time and Space.- Five.- 13. Relations of Terms and Propositions.- 14. Conditional Propositions and Inferences.- 15. Disjunction and Conjunction.- 16. Other Relations of Propositions.- Six.- 17. Some Problems of the Syllogism.- 18. The Interrelations of Mediate Inference.- 19. The Validity of Inference.- Seven.- 20. Categories of Ontology.- 21. Categories of State.- Conclusion.- Index of Symbols.- Index of Names.- List of Figures.
