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Title: Truth and Other Enigmas by Michael Dummett ISBN: 0-674-91076-1 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: March, 1981 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.8 (5 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Struggle and learn
Comment: As is clear from other reviewers, this is a selection of papers by a brilliant philosopher, most of them difficult for a non-specialist. If you want to start reading Dummett, The Seas of Language might be an easier place to start. Within this book, some papers are easier than others; the final essay is a clear presentation of Dummett's ambitiout project, which is to solve metaphysical problems by looking at the nature of language. This project makes sense if Dummett is correct in thinking that the great insight of analytical philosophy was that it is only by understanding the nature of language that we can understand the limits of thought. The papers on backward causation, while difficult, can be read and understood without much previous knowledge of Dummett's works. It was after reading one of these papers, and struggling to make sense of it, that I decided to study Dummett's work in more detail, a decision that I do not regret. Hard work is required, but its worth it!
Rating: 5
Summary: A further corrective review
Comment: It always presents a particular problem when books like Dummett's _Truth and Other Enigmas_ get reviewed by someone who is not involved in the field to which the work belongs. In a sense, the earlier reviewer who so despised Dummett's book is right; the average person who picks it up will find it incomprehensible, narrow in its concerns and full of arcane terminology. Of course, the same would be true of some set of texts in any field of study that are geared towards its most devoted and well-read practitioners. Philosophy texts come in for greater scrutiny on this count because many people expect to be part of any philosophical discussion in a way they would not be part of every discussion about fluid dynamics, cytology or Galois theory.
That being said, measuring Dummett's book against the field to which it contributes at the level it is intended, one cannot deny it is a collection of some of the most important works of this half of the century. Dummett is still a difficult read even for those folks, but you'd better have a copy of it if you think about analytic philosophy.
That and it just bugged me to see it have only 3 stars.
Rating: 4
Summary: a classic, but not for everyone
Comment: I agree with the reviewer who places Dummett among the top philosophers of the century; but, if you don't have a hefty background in Anglo-American analytic philosophy (not to mention the works of Gottlob Frege), I recommend that you take a pass on this one. However, if you _are_ an analytic philosopher, and don't own this yet -- then what are you waiting for?
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Title: Essays on Actions and Events by Donald Davidson ISBN: 0199246270 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: January, 2002 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Frege: Philosophy of Language by Michael Dummett ISBN: 0674319311 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: March, 1993 List Price(USD): $32.00 |
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Title: Sense and Sensibilia by John L. Austin, Geoffrey J. Warnock ISBN: 0195003071 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: December, 1964 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Ontological Relativity by W. V. Quine ISBN: 0231083572 Publisher: Columbia University Press Pub. Date: 15 April, 1977 List Price(USD): $24.50 |
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Title: Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation by Donald Davidson ISBN: 0199246297 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: December, 2001 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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