Kirjahaku

A distinguished professor of philosophy offers insight into how six of Shakespeare's major works reflect the bard's personal beliefs and were influenced by the essays of Montaigne, in a narrative that includes essays that evaluate Shakespeare's thematic uses of psychology, ethics, and tragedy. By the author of The Making of a Philosopher. Reprint. 35,000 first printing.

Part memoir, part study, The Making of a Philosopher is the self-portrait of a deeply intelligent mind as it develops over a life on both sides of the Atlantic. The Making of a Philosopher follows Colin McGinn from his early years in England reading Descartes and Anselm, to his years in the states, first in Los Angeles, then New York. McGinn presents a contemporary academic take on the great philosophical figures of the twentieth century, including Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Noam Chomsky, alongside stories of the teachers who informed his ideas and often became friends and mentors, especially the colorful A.J. Ayer at Oxford. McGinn's prose is always elegant and probing; students of contemporary philosophy and the general reader alike will absorb every page.

In Minds and Bodies, one of philosophy's most dynamic and versatile thinkers gathers nearly forty review essays written over the past twenty years for non-specialized publications. They cover biography, particularly of Russell and Wittgenstein; philosophy of mind, especially consciousness; and ethics, with an emphasis on applied ethics. Taken together these essays form a vivid picture of contemporary philosophy for the general reader, and will be welcomed by those within the philosophical community for their crisp critical insights and rigorous assessments.

Ethics, Evil, and Fiction brings together moral philosophy and literary analysis in a way that offers original new insights for both. Its central aim is to enrich the domain of moral reflection, by showing the value of literary texts as sources of moral illumination. Colin McGinn starts by setting out an uncompromisingly realist ethical theory, arguing that morality is an area of objective truth and genuine knowledge. He goes on to address such subjects as the nature of goodness, evil character, and the meaning of monstrosity, in the context of an aesthetic theory of virtue, which maintains that goodness of character is the same thing as beauty of soul. Works discussed include Billy Budd, Lolita, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Frankenstein; and McGinn draws upon examples from film and painting as well as literature. The originality of his approach, the clarity and forthrightness of his writing, and his conviction that fiction and philosophy have much enlightenment to offer each other, make this a compelling and fascinating book.

Knowledge and Reality brings together a selection of Colin McGinn's philosophical essays from the 1970s to the 1990s, whose unifying theme is the relation between the mind and the world. The essays range over a set of prominent topics in contemporary philosophy, including the analysis of knowledge, the a priori, necessity, possible worlds, realism, mental representation, appearance and reality, and colour. McGinn has written a new postscript to each essay, placing it in its philosophical context by sketching the background against which it was written, explaining its relations to other notable work, and offering his current reflections on the topic. The volume thus traces the development of McGinn's ideas and their role in some central philosophical debates. Seen together the essays offer a many-sided defence of realism, while emphasizing the epistemological price that realism exacts.

Ethics, Evil, and Fiction brings together moral philosophy and literary analysis in a way that offers original new insights for both. Its central aim is to enrich the domain of moral reflection, by showing the value of literary texts as sources of moral illumination. Colin McGinn starts by setting out an uncompromisingly realist ethical theory, arguing that morality is an area of objective truth and genuine knowledge. He goes on to address such subjects as the nature of goodness, evil character, and the meaning of monstrosity, in the context of an aesthetic theory of virtue, which maintains that goodness of character is the same thing as beauty of soul. Works discussed include Billy Budd, Lolita, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Frankenstein; and McGinn draws upon examples from film and painting as well as literature. The originality of his approach, the clarity and forthrightness of his writing, and his conviction that fiction and philosophy have much enlightenment to offer each other, make this a compelling and fascinating book. 'A book which I hope will start a new fashion . . .it has all the qualities modern philosophical writing tends to lack. I found it substantial, absorbing and relevant.' Times Higher Education Supplement

This book investigates subjective and objective representations of the world. Analogies between secondary qualities and indexical thoughts are developed, and subjective representations are argued to be ineliminable.

Of what nature is the mind? So Colin McGinn starts his first chapter, and this is his guiding question. He pursues the answer with a boldness and provocativeness rarely encountered in philosophical writing. As he explains, my aim has been to give the reader something definite and stimulating to think about, rather than to present a cautious and disinterested survey of the state of the subject. The Character of Mind provides a general introduction to the philosophy of mind, covering all the main topics: the mind-body problem, the nature of acquaintance, the relation between thought and language, agency, the self. In particular, Colin McGinn addresses the issue of consciousness, and the difficulty of combining the two very different perspectives on the mind that arise from introspection and from the observation of other people. His aim throughout is to identify the recalcitrant problems clearly, and to suggest fruitful approaches to their solutions, always avoiding facile answers. The second edition of this classic book adds three completely new chapters on consciousness, mental content, and cognitive science, bringing it abreast of current developments. A distinctive viewpoint is adopted, stressing consciousness, but the intention is still to come to grips with the underlying philosophical problems, accessibly articulating the deep difficulties we face in theorizing about the mind. From the reviews of the first edition: `a very good introduction to the philosophy of mind. . . . written with confidence and authority . . . a fine text for an undergraduate course.' Jonathan Lear, The Times Literary Supplement `a lucid and impressive discussion . . . to be recommended to students and professionals alike . . . brilliant book.' Brian O'Shaughnessy, London Review of Books `clear, stimulating and thought-provoking.' Bernard Harrison, Philosophy `an impressive piece of worktough, elegant, ingenious, argumentative and controversial.' Nicholas Everitt, Times Higher Educational Supplement

The concepts of identity, existence, predication, necessity, and truth are at the centre of philosophy and have rightly received sustained attention. Yet Colin McGinn believes that orthodox views of these topics are misguided in important ways. Philosophers and logicians have often distorted the nature of these concepts in an attempt to define them according to preconceived ideas. Logical Properties aims to respect the ordinary ways we talk and think when we employ these concepts, while at the same time showing that they are far more interesting and peculiar than some have supposed. There are real properties corresponding to these concepts - logical properties - that challenge naturalistic metaphysical views. These are not pseudo-properties or mere pieces of syntax. Logical Properties is written with the minimum of formal apparatus and deals with logico-linguistic issues as well as ontological ones. The focus is on trying to get to the essence of what the concept concerned stands for, and not merely finding some established notation for providing formal paraphrases.

Knowledge and Reality brings together a selection of Colin McGinn's philosophical essays from the 1970s to the 1990s, whose unifying theme is the relation between the mind and the world. The essays range over a set of prominent topics in contemporary philosophy, including the analysis of knowledge, the a priori, necessity, possible worlds, realism, mental representation, appearance and reality, and colour. McGinn has written a new postscript to each essay, placing it in its philosophical context by sketching the background against which it was written, explaining its relations to other notable work, and offering his current reflections on the topic. The volume thus traces the development of McGinn's ideas and their role in some central philosophical debates. Seen together the essays offer a many-sided defence of realism, while emphasizing the epistemological price that realism exacts.

The concepts of identity, existence, predication, necessity, and truth are at the centre of philosophy and have rightly received sustained attention. Yet Colin McGinn believes that orthodox views of these topics are misguided in important ways. Philosophers and logicians have often distorted the nature of these concepts in an attempt to define them according to preconceived ideas. Logical Properties aims to respect the ordinary ways we talk and think when we employ these concepts, while at the same time showing that they are far more interesting and peculiar than some have supposed. There are real properties corresponding to these concepts - logical properties - that challenge naturalistic metaphysical views. These are not pseudo-properties or mere pieces of syntax. Logical Properties is written with the minimum of formal apparatus and deals with logico-linguistic issues as well as ontological ones. The focus is on trying to get to the essence of what the concept concerned stands for, and not merely finding some established notation for providing formal paraphrases.

Colin McGinn presents his latest work on consciousness in ten interlinked essays, four of them previously unpublished. He extends and deepens his controversial solution to the mind-body problem, defending the view that consciousness is both ontologically unproblematic and epistemologically impenetrable. He also investigates the basis of our knowledge that there is a mind-body problem, and the bearing of this on attempted solutions. McGinn goes on to discuss the status of first-person authority, the possibility of atomism with respect to consciousness, extreme dualism, and the role of non-existent objects in constituting intentionality. He argues that traditional claims about our knowledge of our own mind and of the external world can be inverted; that atomism about the conscious mind might turn out to be true; that dualism is more credible the more extreme it is; and that all intentionality involves non-existent objects. These are all surprising positions, but he contends that what the philosophy of mind needs now is 'methodological radicalism' - a willingness to consider new and seemingly extravagant ideas.

Disgust has a strong claim to be a distinctively human emotion. But what is it to be disgusting? What unifies the class of disgusting things? Colin McGinn sets out to analyze the content of disgust, arguing that life and death are implicit in its meaning. Disgust is a kind of philosophical emotion, reflecting the human attitude to the biological world. Yet it is an emotion we strive to repress. It may have initially arisen as a method of curbing voracious human desire, which itself results from our powerful imagination. Because we feel disgust towards ourselves as a species, we are placed in a fraught emotional predicament: we admire ourselves for our achievements, but we also experience revulsion at our necessary organic nature. We are subject to an affective split. Death involves the disgusting, in the shape of the rotting corpse, and our complex attitudes towards death feed into our feelings of disgust. We are beings with a "disgust consciousness ", unlike animals and gods-and we cannot shake our self-ambivalence. Existentialism and psychoanalysis sought a general theory of human emotion; this book seeks to replace them with a theory in which our primary mode of feeling centers around disgust. The Meaning of Disgust is an original study of a fascinating but neglected subject, which attempts to tell the disturbing truth about the human condition.

In Basic Structures of Reality, Colin McGinn deals with questions of metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind from the vantage point of physics. Combining general philosophy with physics, he covers such topics as the definition of matter, the nature of space, motion, gravity, electromagnetic fields, the character of physical knowledge, and consciousness and meaning. Throughout, McGinn maintains an historical perspective and seeks to determine how much we really know of the world described by physics. He defends a version of "structuralism": the thesis that our knowledge is partial and merely abstract, leaving a large epistemological gap at the center of physics. McGinn then connects this element of mystery to parallel mysteries in relation to the mind. Consciousness emerges as just one more mystery of physics. A theory of matter and space is developed, according to which the impenetrability of matter is explained as the deletion of volumes of space. McGinn proposes a philosophy of science that distinguishes physics from both psychology and biology, explores the ontology of energy, and considers the relevance of physics to seemingly remote fields such as the theory of meaning. In the form of a series of aphorisms, the author presents a metaphysical system that takes laws of nature as fundamental. With its broad scope and deep study of the fundamental questions at the heart of philosophy of physics, this book is not intended primarily for specialists, but for the general philosophical reader interested in how physics and philosophy intersect.

What kind of subject is philosophy? Colin McGinn takes up this perennial question, defending the view that philosophy consists of conceptual analysis, construed broadly. Conceptual analysis is understood to involve the search for de re essences, but McGinn takes up various challenges to this meta-philosophy: that some concepts are merely family resemblance concepts with no definition in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions ("game", "language"); that it is impossible to provide sufficient conditions for some philosophically important concepts without circularity ("knowledge", "intentional action"); that there exists an unsolved paradox of analysis; that there is no well-defined analytic-synthetic distinction; that names have no definition; and that conceptual analysis is not properly naturalistic. Ultimately, McGinn finds none of these objections convincing: analysis emerges as both possible and fruitful. At the same time, he rejects the idea of the "linguistic turn", arguing that analysis is not directed to language as such, but at reality. Going on to distinguish several types of analysis, with an emphasis on classical decompositional analysis, he shows different philosophical traditions to be engaged in conceptual analysis when properly understood. Philosophical activity has the kind of value possessed by play, McGinn claims, which differs from the kind of value possessed by scientific activity. The book concludes with an analytic discussion of the prospects for traditional ontology and the nature of instantiation. McGinn's study of the nature of philosophy shows us how philosophy can maintain its connection to the past while looking forward to a bright future.

Pithy, direct, and bold: essays that propose new ways to think about old problems, spanning a range of philosophical topics.In Philosophical Provocations, Colin McGinn offers a series of short, sharp essays that take on philosophical problems ranging from the concept of mind to paradox, altruism, and the relation between God and the Devil. Avoiding the usual scholarly apparatus and embracing a blunt pithiness, McGinn aims to achieve as much as possible in as short a space as possible while covering as many topics as possible. Much academic philosophical writing today is long, leaden, citation heavy, dense with qualifications, and painful to read. The essays in Philosophical Provocations are short, direct, and engaging, often challenging philosophical orthodoxy as they consider issues in mind, language, knowledge, metaphysics, biology, ethics, and religion.McGinn is looking for new ways to think about old problems. Thus he writes, about consciousness, "I think we have been all wrong," and goes on to suggest that both consciousness and the unconscious are mysteries. Summing up his proposal on altruism, he remarks, "My suggestion can now be stated, somewhat brutally, as follows: human altruism is the result of parasitic manipulation." He takes a moment to reflect: "I really don't know why it is good to be alive, though I am convinced that the standard suggestions don't work." McGinn gets straight to the point and states his position with maximum clarity. These essays offer provocative invitations to think again.

An introduction to philosophy of language through systematic and accessible explanations of ten classic texts by such thinkers as Frege, Kripke, Russell, and Putnam.Many beginning students in philosophy of language find themselves grappling with dense and difficult texts not easily understood by someone new to the field. This book offers an introduction to philosophy of language by explaining ten classic, often anthologized, texts. Accessible and thorough, written with a unique combination of informality and careful formulation, the book addresses sense and reference, proper names, definite descriptions, indexicals, the definition of truth, truth and meaning, and the nature of speaker meaning, as addressed by Frege, Kripke, Russell, Donnellan, Kaplan, Evans, Putnam, Tarski, Davidson, and Grice. The explanations aim to be as simple as possible without sacrificing accuracy; critical assessments are included with the exposition in order to stimulate further thought and discussion.Philosophy of Language will be an essential resource for undergraduates in a typical philosophy of language course or for graduate students with no background in the field. It can be used in conjunction with an anthology of classic texts, sparing the instructor much arduous exegesis.ContentsFrege on Sense and Reference * Kripke on Names * Russell on Definite Descriptions * Donnellan's Distinction * Kaplan on Demonstratives * Evans on Understanding Demonstratives * Putnam on Semantic Externalism * Tarski's Theory of Truth * Davidson's Semantics for Natural Language * Grice's Theory of Speaker Meaning

In praise of the hand: A philosopher considers the crucial role of the hand in human evolution, particularly with respect to language. "McGinn is an ingenious philosopher who thinks like a laser and writes like a dream."-Steven PinkerThis book is a hymn to the hand. In Prehension, Colin McGinn links questions from science to philosophical concerns to consider something that we take for granted: the importance of the hand in everything we do. Drawing on evolutionary biology, anatomy, archaeology, linguistics, psychology, and philosophy, among other disciplines, McGinn examines the role of the hand in shaping human evolution. He finds that the development of our capacity to grasp, to grip, to take hold (also known as prehension) is crucial in the emergence of Homo sapiens.The human species possesses language, rational thought, culture, and a specific affective capacity; but there was a time when our ancestors had none of these. How did we become what we so distinctively are, given our early origins? McGinn, following Darwin and others, calls the hand the source of our biological success. When our remote ancestors descended from trees, they adopted a bipedal gait that left the hands free for other work; they began to make tools, which led to social cooperation and increased brain capacity. But McGinn goes further than others in arguing for the importance of the hand; he speculates that the hand played a major role in the development of language, and presents a theory of primitive reference as an outgrowth of prehension. McGinn sings the praises of the hand, and evolution, in a philosophical key. He mixes biology, anthropology, analytical philosophy, existential philosophy, sheer speculation, and utter amazement to celebrate humans' achievement of humanity.

In recent years the nature of consciousness,our immediately known experiences,has taken its place as the most profound problem that science faces. Now in this brilliant and thoroughly accessible new book Colin McGinn takes a provocative position on this perplexing problem. Arguing that we can never truly "know" consciousness,that the human intellect is simply not equipped to unravel this mystery,he demonstrates that accepting this limitation in fact opens up a whole new field of investigation. In elegant prose, McGinn explores the implications of this Mysterian position,such as the new value it gives to the power of dreams and introspection,and challenges the reader with intriguing questions about the very nature of our minds and brains.

A book examining and critically evaluating Ludwig Wittgenstein's views on meaning, understanding, and rules Wittgenstein on Meaning, ASM Volume 1, offers an in-depth interpretation of Wittgenstein's views regarding meaning, understanding and rules. Then, based upon this interpretation, the book shares a critical assessment of these views. The positions of the philosopher are discussed and evaluated, including his emphasis on rule-following behavior. The volume is part of the Aristotelian Society Series.