Essays and Reviews: 1959–2002 by Bernard Williams (PDF)

Description

The first collection of popular reviews and essays from distinguished philosopher Bernard WilliamsBernard Williams was one of the most important philosophers of the past fifty years, but he was also a distinguished critic and essayist with an elegant style and a rare ability to communicate complex ideas to a wide public. This is the first collection of Williams’s popular essays and reviews. Williams writes about a broad range of subjects, from philosophy to science, the humanities, economics, feminism, and pornography.Included are reviews of major books such as John Rawls’s Theory of Justice, Richard Rorty’s Consequences of Pragmatism, and Martha Nussbaum’s Therapy of Desire. But many of these essays extend beyond philosophy, providing an intellectual tour through the past half century, from C. S. Lewis to Noam Chomsky. No matter the subject, readers see a first-class mind grappling with landmark books in “real time,” before critical consensus had formed and ossified.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐This collection got a terrific review in the LRB by , Geoffrey Hawthorn, apparently a friend of Willliams’. The review offered a retrospective of his work and reminded me of how much I have learned from him over the years. Williams is a generation older than I and I have been reading his reviews as well as his books for a long time. These essays and reviews serve as wonderful history of philosophy over the last half century. And they keep you awake without making you think (as Williams says of a book he reviews on Russell). But don’t take offense, I mean “think” in the sense of an academic analysis for a colloquium. If we mean by “think” the contemplation of the big questions and the grand issues of the recent past, then you’ll get some nice exercise from this book. And I second the remark by another reviewer, laugh out loud funny, sometimes. I expected to read some and skip half, as is usual in such a collection. I read them all. I join the chorus of praise

⭐Some of these essays border on dated, but most not. He writes with a grace and wit on many contentious topics, and generally with a gentility that many of us might miss these days. When he does pull out a few stops, on targets he considers deserving, it stands out. You don’t have to read them all, but many you’d be sorry to miss. There is also at least a glimpse of an academic culture that’s probably on the wane, in England and here in the US.

⭐This collection facilitates easy access to reviews of many important books written between 1960and 2000. Williams is unmatched as a reviewer. Many of these reviews are not collected elsewhere. This book is invaluable.

⭐Bernard Williams beautiful style when applied to the academic essay makes the most complex concepts accessible and intriguing to all audiences.

⭐Excellent. Style enchanting. Straight speech, unquestionable expertise.

⭐Not a lot to say about this, since if you are thinking of buying it then you likely already know what you are going to get: 400 pages of unrelenting, ethically informed, in equal measures intimidating and seductive critical intelligence. There can surely have been no more frightening news delivered to any newly published author than that a copy of their book had been sent to Bernard Williams.Roger Scruton has just published a fairly widely circulated review in which he complains (he is otherwise generously positive – especially considering that Williams dismisses him at one point as ‘vapid’) that Williams tended to deploy his intelligence to identify the gaps in others’ thinking, but avoided setting out positive positions himself. This is at least sort of true, but misses the point about a man who wrote a book on ‘Ethics and the limits of Philosophy’. Williams didn’t mean that the philosophical tradition is useless, but that its utility is sometimes defined in terms of intellectual hygiene, not in in the setting out of positive positions.This is 400 pages of intellectual hygiene at its most educational and seductive. It is also, sometimes, laugh out loud funny.

⭐I loved this book, as I knew I should. Bernard Williams is as always stimulating and intriguing, but easy to read. I hope there will be more.

⭐Terrific

Keywords

Free Download Essays and Reviews: 1959–2002 in PDF format
Essays and Reviews: 1959–2002 PDF Free Download
Download Essays and Reviews: 1959–2002 2014 PDF Free
Essays and Reviews: 1959–2002 2014 PDF Free Download
Download Essays and Reviews: 1959–2002 PDF
Free Download Ebook Essays and Reviews: 1959–2002