Abstract
The book Forms of Language: An Introduction to Logic and Its Philosophy is devoted to logic, primarily in its formal shape, covering traditional systems of propositional and predicate logic, syllogistic logic, modal logics and intuitionistic logic. Its aim, though, is not only introductory, i.e. to present the obligatory technical details against the relevant historical and philosophical background, but also to use these details and their context by way of example to demonstrate the original purpose of the science of logic.
This purpose amounts to a systematic reflexion of our language and its forms which are the forms of the ways the language is used, i.e. the general rules of this usage. The main thesis developed in the book is that these rules must be simple enough to be feasibly followed and, as such, are, by their nature, limited and prospectively replaceable by other sets of rules more suitable to the respective discursive needs.
The systems included in the book are thus not standing for themselves, but primarily for their mutual comparison from which their schematic nature as well as the role of schemata in our language directly emerge. Consequently, the book deals not only with formal logic but also with a more general, let us say dialectical, concept of logic which is not the books explicit subject and yet shows itself in the course of an active and sympathetic reading.