Search results for ""Author Lewis Edwin Hahn""

This collection of writings by eminent philosophers explores the controversial career of Jurgen Habermas, whose adherence to the Enlightenment ideals of rationality, humanism, and respect for discourse has set him apart from most postmodernist thinkers.

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A.J. Ayer burst like a supernova upon the Anglo-American philosophical world in 1936, with "Language, truth and logic", an eloquent, uncompromising manifesto for logical positivism which transformed the thinking of a generation. Inside a few years, philosophers were retreating from the position set forth in "Language truth and logic" with Ayer himself leading the retreat. The ensuing vogue for "ordinary language" philosohpy was not admired by Ayer who became one of its most telling critics. In his subsequent writings he displayed a rare capacity for self-criticis, manifested in a readiness to admit that his earlier arguments had been inadequate. He modified his position on many issues, but remained to the end what he had been all along - an empiricist in the demanding tradition of Hume and Russell. Ayers's grace and clarity of style, his lack of pretentiousness, his logical rigor and his gift for penetrating to the heart of a problem are all exemplified in a succession of works, including "Thinking and meaning" (1947), "The problem of knowlegde" (1956), "Probability and evidence" (1973) and "Freedom and morality" (1985). This, the 21st volume in the "Library of living philosophy", is more than Sir Alfred Ayer's final word on the philosophical issues which preoccupied him for 60 years. The list of contributors is a roll-call of some of the greatest living figures in philosophy, each addressing a key problem arising from Ayer's work. Most of the critical papers are answered directly and in detail by Sir Alfred - he completed his replies to 20 of the 24 papers before his death.

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Born in 1901, Paul Weiss has made major contributions to several branches of philosophy, as well as to teaching and scholarly publishing. Alfred North Whitehead remarked: "The danger of philosophical teaching is that it may become dead-alive, but in Paul Weiss's presence that is impossible". Weiss is widely believed to be America's greatest living speculative metaphysician, but he has also made notable philosophical contributions to the discussion of sports, the arts, religion, logic, and politics. Professor Weiss has been highly productive: his Being and Other Realities (1995) was hailed as one of his most exciting books, and as this volume goes to press he is hard at work on yet another major treatise.

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For over 50 years, Sir Michael Dummett has been a major philosophical voice in a wide range of fields, including epistemology, ontology, and the philosophy of language. This comprehensive volume treats all of these subjects and more in detail. It contains Dummett’s intellectual autobiography, 27 previously unpublished critical and descriptive essays by famous scholars, a reply to each essay by Dummett, and a complete bibliography of his published works.

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Arthur Danto is the Johnsonian Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia University and the most influential philosopher of art in the last half century. As an art critic for The Nation for 25 years and frequent contributor to other widely read outlets such as the New York Review of Books, Danto also has become one of the most respected public intellectuals of his generation. He is the author of some two dozen important books, along with hundreds of articles and reviews which have been the center of both controversy and discussion. In this volume Danto offers his intellectual autobiography and responds to essays by 27 of the keenest critics of his thought from the worlds of philosophy and the arts. The book includes 16 pages of color art reproductions. Danto is the author dozens of books on art, philosophy, the philosophy of art, and art criticism. He is a rare philosopher who is also a public intellectual.

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