Here are the most recent writings, some of them unpublished, of the preeminent philosopher of our time. Philosophical reflections on language are brought to bear upon metaphysical and epistemological questions such as these: What does it mean to assume objects, concrete and abstract? How do such assumptions serve science? What is the empirical content of a scientific theory? Further essays deal with meaning, moral values, analytical philosophy and its history, metaphor, the nature of mathematics; several are concerned with logic; and there are essays on individual philosophers. The volume concludes with some general reflections on the contemporary scene and two playful pieces on the Times Atlas and H. L. Mencken.
W. V. Quine is always, whatever his subject, an elegant writer, witty, precise, and forceful. Admirers of his earlier books will welcome this new volume.
Opposing a long-standing orthodoxy of the Western philosophical tradition running from ancient Greek thought until the late nineteenth century, Frege argued that psychological laws of thought—those that explicate how we in fact think—must be distinguished from logical laws of thought—those that formulate and impose rational requirements on thinking. Logic does not describe how we actually think, but only how we should. Yet by thus sundering the logical from the psychological, Frege was unable to explain certain fundamental logical truths, most notably the psychological version of the law of non-contradiction—that one cannot think a thought and its negation simultaneously.
Irad Kimhi’s Thinking and Being marks a radical break with Frege’s legacy in analytic philosophy, exposing the flaws of his approach and outlining a novel conception of judgment as a two-way capacity. In closing the gap that Frege opened, Kimhi shows that the two principles of non-contradiction—the ontological principle and the psychological principle—are in fact aspects of the very same capacity, differently manifested in thinking and being.
As his argument progresses, Kimhi draws on the insights of historical figures such as Aristotle, Kant, and Wittgenstein to develop highly original accounts of topics that are of central importance to logic and philosophy more generally. Self-consciousness, language, and logic are revealed to be but different sides of the same reality. Ultimately, Kimhi’s work elucidates the essential sameness of thinking and being that has exercised Western philosophy since its inception.
Thinking Your Way to Freedom is a critical-thinking textbook with a difference. Rather than focusing exclusively on improving college students’ academic achievement, Susan Gardner seeks to dramatically change how students think through issues that are important in their lives beyond school. Gardner created 66 original and entertaining comic strips—featuring her dogs, Diva and Ben—that add a light touch as they encourage intellectual and personal autonomy. Through a clear step-by-step method of practical reasoning, students are taught how to think impartially and how to neutralize invisible biases that limit their freedom of thought and action. With the help of Diva and Ben, readers learn to evaluate the strengths of arguments and to recognize fallacies, all the while avoiding the paralyzing effects of relativism.
Thinking Your Way to Freedom includes the writing of short essays so that students can improve their critical thinking and writing at the same time. A Teacher’s Manual for this book will be available online.
The Peloponnesian War (431–404 BCE) ostensibly arose because of the fear that a rising Athens would threaten Sparta’s power in the Mediterranean. The idea of Thucydides’ Trap warns that all rising powers threaten established powers. As China increases its power relative to the United States, the theory argues, the two nations are inevitably set on a collision course toward war. How enlightening is an analogy based on the ancient Greek world of 2,500 years ago for understanding contemporary international relations? How accurate is the depiction of the history of other large armed conflicts, such as the two world wars, as a challenge mounted by a rising power to displace an incumbent hegemon?Thucydides’s Trap?: Historical Interpretation, Logic of Inquiry, and the Future of Sino-American Relations offers a critique of the claims of Thucydides’s Trap and power-transition theory. It examines past instances of peaceful accommodation to uncover lessons that can ease the frictions in ongoing Sino-American relations.
This collection of Michael Dummett’s philosophical essays, spanning more than twenty years, ranges in topic from time to the philosophy of mathematics, but is unified by a steady philosophical outlook. The essays are, in one way or another, informed by Dummett’s concern with metaphysical questions and his belief that the correct approach to them is via the theory of meaning. Reflected here is Dummett’s conviction that the concept of truth is of central importance both for the theory of meaning and for metaphysics. As he sees it, an adequate elucidation of the concept of truth requires nothing less than the construction of a satisfactory theory of meaning. At the same time, resolution of the traditional problems of metaphysics turns critically upon the way in which the concept of truth applies to each of various large ranges of statements, and especially upon whether the statements in each such range satisfy the principle that every statement must be true or false.
The book includes all Dummett’s philosophical essays that were published or given as public lectures before August 1976, with the exception of a few he did not think it worthwhile to reprint and of the two entitled “What Is a Theory of Meaning?” One essay appears here for the first time in English and two have not been previously published. In an extensive preface, Dummett comments on the essays and seeks to relate them to the philosophical background against which they were written.
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