The Deepest Problem

Language and the Pursuit of Truth, by John Wilson. 105 pp. New York; Cambridge University Press. $1.75

John Wilson, Housemaster at the King’s School, Canterbury, declares in his preface: “This book is an attempt to do something new: to present semantics, which is the study of linguistic communication, to the general public.” The attempt is hardly as novel as Mr. Wilson would seem to think, but his small volume is a lucid introduction to a subject that has commanded increasing attention in recent years. It will give its readers an inkling of what Wilbur Marshall Urban meant when, with only slight exaggeration, he said that “Language is the last and deepest problem of the philosophical mind.”