Subject and Predicate in Logic and Grammar

by Peter Frederick Strawson

P.F. Strawson has supplied a new introduction for this reissue of his modern classic originally published in 1974. Subject and Predicate in Logic and Grammar explores two conceptions of subject and predicate, one of which lies at the core of standard logic and the other more closely relates to surface forms of natural language. Strawson renders these two conceptions, and their divergences, intelligible by relating them both to the 'basic case' in which the subject-term designates a substantial spatio-temporal individual. Through his treatment of these conceptions, Strawson added to our understanding of both logic and general grammar, helping us trace formal characteristics of logic and its grammar to their roots in general features of thought and experience, and observing how the grammatical structure of a large group of non-formalized languages naturally develops in various ways, along other lines. This book, based originally on seminar material used at Oxford and Princeton and a series of lectures delivered at Irvine and University College London, has become an enduring landmark in the literature of logic and the philosophy of language.

Genres: Philosophy

Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Sir Peter Frederick Strawson FBA was an English philosopher. He was the Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at the University of Oxford (Magdalen College) from 1968 to 1987. Before that he was appointed as a college lecturer at University College, Oxford in 1947 and became a tutorial fellow the following year until 1968. On his retirement in 1987, he returned to the college and continued working there until shortly before his passing.