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.
