Inventor of The Negative
While Burke struggles with using the word inventor for he feels that language has invented man, he points out that negatives do not exist in nature. He contends that negatives are purely a characteristic of symbol systems, which he has already determined belong uniquely to man. He further refers to morality as being particularly human and based largely on the idea of negatives; that is, there are things we should not do.
Intrinsic to this portion of Burke's Definition is the idea of paradox. Burke explains that the idea of negation is, by its nature, paradoxical. He explains that conditioning a statement with a negative draws a positive image of that very statement. This, he argues, defeats the purpose of negation, yet is an inescapable situation.
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Famous quotes containing the words inventor of, inventor and/or negative:
“Blessed be the inventor of photography! I set him above even the inventor of chloroform! It has given more positive pleasure to poor suffering humanity than anything else that has “cast up” in my time or is like to—this art by which even the “poor” can possess themselves of tolerable likenesses of their absent dear ones. And mustn’t it be acting favourably on the morality of the country?”
—Jane Welsh Carlyle (1801–1866)
“I have defeated them all.... I was left with some money to battle with the world when quite young, and at the present time have much to feel proud of.... The Lord gave me talent, and I know I have done good with it.... For my brains have made me quite independent and without the help of any man.”
—Harriet A. Brown, U.S. inventor and educator. As quoted in Feminine Ingenuity, ch. 8, by Anne L. MacDonald (1992)
“The negative always wins at last, but I like it none the better for that.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)