The Structural Evocation

Commentary on Chapter 8 of Language and Magic by Izutsu Toshihiko

Photo by Luke Ellis-Craven on Unsplash

It’s the time of the week again for our dive into the concepts of Magic and Language. Today, I will continue my commentary on Language and Magic by Izutsu Toshihiko by looking at chapter 8. You can read my previous commentary as well as a series introduction at the links below:

Language and Magic Series

Chapter 8

In Chapter 6, Izutsu proposed four aspects of connotation and focused on referential connotation.

1. Referential.

2. Intuitive.

3. Emotional.

4. Structural.

In chapter 8, Izutsu focuses on the final aspects, structural connotation.

Structural Connotation

He starts by making clear what he means by “structural’. To do this, he starts by considering a claim by John Stuart Mill (the philosopher famous for developing utilitarian ethics) that “the structure of every sentence is a lesson in logic.” This quote claims that forms of language (e.g. grammar and syntax) correspond to forms of thinking (e.g. logic).