The Importance of Language

In this collection of essays, Max Black has brought together discussions on the language of politics, religion, poetry, law, and even magic. The scholars represented include W. B. Gallie, Aldous Huxley, Gilbert Ryle, Friedrich Waismann, Alan S. C. Ross, Bronislaw Malinowski, Owen Barfield, Samuel Butler, and C. S. Lewis. The selected essays deal with the danger, the power, and the extraordinary versatility of language, and show how "all of us can get our thoughts entangled in metaphors."