MAN, NATURE AND GOD

by F.S.C. Northrop ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Yale's famed philosopher-professor Northrop in these random essays on related subjects, principally logic, linguistics and metaphysics, regards man as a paradox (""To know oneself is to realize that one is more than oneself"") and our means of communication as somewhat less than successful (""What any language cannot do, as Wittgenstein knew, is to say what it is trying to say""). Professor Northrop, committed to both intellect and intuition, i.e. the wisdom of the East as well as the wisdom of the West, in analyzing the bifurcation between appearance and reality, holds that the traditional subject-predicate grammar is now outdated; thus the ""commonsense"" materialists like the Marxist Communists or the pseudo-voluntarists like the Existentialists are led to false descriptions of the concrete facts of experience, for the human animal in neo-Kantian terms is much more symbolic rather than political, romantic or social. Brilliant discussions of Whitehead, Korzybski, Einstein etc. round out a highly individual, always illuminating work.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1962

Categories: NONFICTION