David Holdcroft

Albert Menne and Niels Öffenberger, Zur modernen Deutung der aristotelischen Logik. Band I:Über den Folgerungsbegriff in der aristotelischen Logik. Hildesheim and New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1982. 220 pp. DM 48.Klaus Jacobi, Die Modalbegriffe in den logischen Schriften des Wilhelm von Shyreswood und in anderen Kompendien des 12. und 13. Jahrhunderts. Funktionsbestimmung und Gebrauch in der logischen Analyse. Leiden and KÖln: E.J. Brill, 1980. xiii + 528 pp. HFL 140.Nineteenth – Century ContrastsAnthony Manser, Bradley's Logic. Oxford; Basil Blackwell, 1983. x + 220 pp. £17.50.Gregory Currie, Frege. An introduction to his philosophy. Brighton: Harvester Press; Totowa, New Jersey: Barnes & Noble Books; 1982. xi + 212 pp. £18.95.Eike-Henner W. Kluge, The metaphysics of Gottlob Frege. An essay in ontological reconstruction. The Hague. Boston, and London: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1980. 296 pp, Dfl. 80/$35.00.Philosophy and LogicGeorg Henrik Von Wright, Practical reason. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983. x + 214 pp. £15.00.Patrick Shaw, Logic and its limits. London and Sydney: Pan Books, in association with Heinemann Educational Books, 1981. 255 pp. £2.95.William S. Hatcher, The logical foundations of mathematics. Oxford, Toronto, Sydney, Paris and Frankfurt: 1982. x + 320 pp. £19.00/$38.00.E.N. Zalta,objects. An introduction to axiomatic metaphysics Dordrecht, Boston and Lancaster: Keldei, 1983, xiil + 193 pp. $39.50.MiscellaneousR. Schacht, Nietzsche. London, Boston, Melbourne and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983. xxii + 546 pp. £18.50.V. Biryukov and A.G. Spirkina, Voprosy kibernetiki. Kibernetika i logicheskaya formalizatsiya. Aspekty istorii i metodologii. Moscow: Akademiya Nauk SSSR, ‘Kibernetika’1982. 191 pp. 2 rubles.

The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure has exerted a profound influence not only on twentieth century linguistics but on a whole range of disciplines within the humanities and social sciences. His central thesis was that the primary object in studying a language is the state of that language at a particular time – a so-called synchronic study. He went on to claim that a language state is a socially constituted system of signs that are quite arbitrary and that can only be defined in terms of their relationship within the system. This new perspective has changed the way people think about linguistics and has led to important attempts to apply structuralist ideas in anthropology, literary criticism, and philosophy. Professor Holdcroft's book expounds and elaborates Saussure's central ideas. It also offers a critical assessment of them, arguing that many of Saussure's claims are either questionable or have been misunderstood.

It is common in the history of science to try to extend an idea first demonstrated in one domain into others. Sometimes the extension is literal, and sometimes it is frankly metaphorical. Sometimes, however, when an extension is claimed to be literal, it is far from easy to see that it is. If an extension does not make use of entities and mechanisms involved in the original domain, and introduces novel entities and mechanisms, then it is not unreasonable to doubt the claim of its authors that it is a literal extension of a well-established theory. IT is, therefore, not surprising that many who accept that the cultural transmission of information is unique to out species nevertheless balk at Dawkins's and Dennett's contention that there are units of cultural evolution, called 'memes', which can be used to explain the development and diversity of human culture, and whose survival is explicable in terms of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. Our aim in this paper is to argue that scepticism about Dawkins's and Dennett's proposal is indeed justified; though it of course does not follow that there is not another way of explaining human culture in evolutionary terms.