Tag Archive Browsing Tag: Analytic philosophy

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philosophy

Ved Mehta

I have just learnt that the author of the minor post-War philosophical classic Fly and the Fly-Bottle: Encounters with British Intellectuals, has died: New York Times — The New Yorker. Analytic philosophyernst gellnerGilbert RyleIsaiah BerlinLudwig WittgensteinOxfordVed Mehta

bertrand russell

Bertrand Russell: Science and philosophy

My chum and Russell scholar par excellence has this piece in the TLS. As Wittgenstein sums up Russell’s insight, “Philosophy aims at the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a body of doctrine but an activity”. Something similar might be said of science as well. Analytic philosophyAndrew Irvinebertrand russellLiberalismphilosophical logicPhilosophyscience

philosophy

The State of German Philosophy

This very unusual piece on the state of German philosophy in the thoughtful Foreign Policy, still one of the better mags given how noticeably downhill The Economist and The Atlantic have gone. On the whole there is nothing wrong with popular philosophy so long as it is not peddling yet more reheated neo-Marxist Frankfurt School postmodern shite…

quine

The Web of Belief

While doing some work on Quine I came across Quine and Ullian’s minor classic The Web of Belief which has been made freely available online. (Another great portrait by Steve Pyke as with the previous post on Parfit). Analytic philosophyJ. S. Ullianphilosophical logicpragmatismquinesteve pykeweb of belief

bernard williams

Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline

Bernard Williams’ Annual Lecture, Royal Institute of Philosophy, 16 February 2000. I think Jonathan Haidt says as much (per Williams’ quote below) in his The Righteous Mind. It is not a reproach to these liberals that they cannot see beyond the outer limits of what they find acceptable: no-one can do that. But it is more of a…

quine

Willard Van Orman Quine

Died on this day. Here’s a terrific resource for all things Quine. I wonder what he’d think about current campus illiberal fuckery? The Guardian The Economist The Telegraph Analytic philosophyEpistemologylogicquine

bernard williams

Nagel reviews the posthumous Williams

Reprinted here in case paywall is reinstated. The View from Here and Now Thomas Nagel The Sense of the Past: Essays in the History of Philosophy by Bernard Williams, edited by Myles Burnyeat Princeton, 393 pp, £26.95, March 2006, ISBN 0 691 12477 9 In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political…

bernard williams

Bernard Williams: Why Philosophy Needs History

Bernard Williams’ piece originally from the LRB and reprinted in Essays and Reviews: 1959-2002 along with Colin Koopman’s commentary. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ‘Lack of a historical sense is the hereditary defect of philosophers . . . So what is needed from now on is historical philosophising, and with it the virtue of modesty.’ Nietzsche wrote this in 1878, but it…