Author Description

The most recent volume in Louis Pojman's highly successful Classics of Philosophy collection (OUP, 1998), Classics of Philosophy: Volume III, The Twentieth Century assembles definitive essays in twentieth-century Western philosophy. This work is considerably more comprehensive than the corresponding section of the single-volume edition of Classics of Philosophy. Its selections cover the whole spectrum of the field, representing the major movements of the century including British Realism, American Pragmatism, Logical Positivism, Existentialism, Phenomenology, Deconstructionism, and Ordinary Language Philosophy. Pojman includes fifty-four diverse and engaging selections by thirty-nine leading philosophers, featuring the work of Ayer, Carnap, Davidson, Dennett, Derrida, Foucault, Gettier, Goldman, Habermas, Harrison, Heidegger, Husserl, Kripke, McTaggart, Moore, Nagel, Nozick, Putnam, Quine, Rawls, Rorty, Russell, Ryle, Sartre, Searle, Strawson, and Wittgenstein. Seminal works in the philosophy of mind, free will/determinism, the debate over religious truth, and political and moral philosophy are included. Ideal for courses in twentieth-century and contemporary philosophy, the volume also includes an enlightening introduction, biographical sketches for each author, and abstracts and bibliographies for each selection.