Customer Reviews

Critique of patriarchal reason

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The author is a competent logician up to a point. If you would like to see where this discussion reaches the point of its competence, read the discussion of the law of non-contradiction at the end. This book is mainly a discussion of the history of logic. At the end however, the author is discussing the law of noncontradiction as though it denied that independent propositions could both be true. The law only asserts that a statement and its denial cannot both be true. The discussion of Wittgenstein seems a lot like that of Andrea Nye, in 'Words of Power: A Feminist Reading of the History of Logic.' Both think that genetic fallacies about logic are interesting and profound. Nye even argued for that in the conclusion of her book. Evans does not entertain us with such hopelessly wrongheaded chatter. But he is not always getting his logic right. The prose is readable, and one can learn about the history of logic from this book, and see the presentation, and so on. But one should not trust all of the formulations that you find here, and beware the political and psychiatric talk. The presentation is that of a gay male, which is in some sense the sole reason for this book's existence.

Very well written book that provides a sweeping, fresh perspective on the whole history of philosophy including formal logic and the mythology of higher mathematics. Of particular note is his treatment of Wittgenstein, especially how his internalized homophobia might have colored his views.