Philosopher A Kind Of LifeThe story of Ted Honderich, philosopher, a story of a perilous philosophical life, marked by critical examination, and a compelling personal life full of human drama. This is the story of Ted Honderich's perilous progress from boyhood in Canada to the Grote Professorship of Mind and Logic at University College London, A. J. Ayer's chair. It is compelling, candid and revealing about the beginning and the goal, and everything in between: early work as a journalist on The Toronto Star, travels with Elvis Presley, arrival in Britain, loves and friendships, academic rivalries and battles, marriages and affairs, self-interest and empathy. It sets out resolutely to explain how and why it all happened. It is as much a narrative of Ted Honderich's philosophy. He makes hard problems real. Philosophy from consciousness and determinism to political violence and democracy comes into sharp focus. Along the way, questions keep coming up. Does the free marriage owe anything to the analytic philosophy? What are the costs of truth? Are the politics of England slowly making it an ever-better place? Is an action's rightness independent of the mixture of motives out of which it came? |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 75
... problem , the occupant who seized her moment and would succeed the tenant . Does my life have an adversary in it more often than others ? Do I just make more of my ordinary allotment of adversaries than others do ? Let me look away from ...
... problem . This is the problem of the consequences of determinism . If determinism is clear enough and true , what follows from it ? What is its consequence or import for our lives ? In my view not the heavy proposition that we are ...
... problem of the nature of consciousness that is also a quick solution of the problem of the mind - brain relation . The idea is in accord with naturalism all right . And it could not be more in accord with the fact of psychoneural ...
... problem of The Studio , getting my due . Nicotine is good , but work is wonderful . I have read hardly a word of Marx , having shared the orthodox condescension of my analytical colleagues for his lumbering meta- physics of history ...
... problem of induction , you can say , is the problem of explaining how a limited amount of evidence somehow does give rational support to the unlimited conclusion that all ordinary hen's eggs break when hit by heavy hammers , without the ...
Contents
1 | |
33 | |
City school Saturdays girls | 49 |
From university distracted First Love | 62 |
Awake in England | 90 |
Bracing life assigned to punishment married again | 112 |
A department joined moral and political utterances | 131 |
Nadir determinism again America | 150 |
Mind and brain etc anathema | 244 |
Professor psychoneural intimacy disarrays | 261 |
Mental and other events Johnny determinism done | 277 |
Lifehopes the Grote an idead girl | 301 |
Harmless drudge functionalism socialist landlord | 327 |
Ingrid court again | 353 |
Consciousness as existence farewells | 368 |
Coda | 386 |
Academic battles political violence an ending | 176 |
Effects a proud Scot justice 4 Keats Grove | 199 |
The higher social life Chancery Court much else | 221 |
Index | 427 |