Language and Magic - Studies in the Magical Function of Speech

£13.00

  • Brand: Toshihiko Izutsu
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Toshihiko Izutsu
The power of language has come to hold the central position in our conception of human mentality. Today, the man in the street has realised with astonishment how easy it is to be deceived and misled by words. The 'magical' power of the word has caught the attention of those who explore the nature of the human mind and the structure of human knowledge. This work by the late Japanese scholar, first published in 1956, tackles this complex and difficult subject. He studies the worldwide belief in the magical power of language, and examines its influence on man's thought and action. The purpose of the author in this book is to study the world-wide and world-old belief in the magical power of language, to examine its influence on the ways of thinking and acting of man, and finally to carry out an inquiry, as systematically as may be, into the nature and origin of the intimate connection between magic and speech. About The Author Toshihiko Izutsu was Professor Emeritus at Keio University in Japan and an outstanding authority in the metaphysical and philosophical wisdom schools of Islamic Sufism, Hindu Advaita Vedanta, Mahayana Buddhism (particularly Zen), and Philosophical Taoism. Fluent in over 30 languages, including Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit, Pali, Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Greek, his peripatetic research in such places as the Middle East (especially Iran), India, Europe, North America, and Asia were undertaken with a view to developing a meta-philosophical approach to comparative religion based upon a rigorous linguistic study of traditional metaphysical texts. Izutsu often stated his belief that harmony could be fostered between peoples by demonstrating that many beliefs with which a community identified itself could be found, though perhaps masked in a different form, in the metaphysics of another, very different community.

(9789839541762/8888)

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