The Making of a Philosopher: My Journey Through Twentieth-Century Philosophy - Hardcover

McGinn, Colin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060197927 ISBN 13: 9780060197926

Publisher: Harper, 2002

Synopsis

Part memoir, part study, The Making of a Philosopher is the self-portrait of a deeply intelligent mind as it develops over a life lived 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.

About this title

About the Author

Colin McGinn was educated at Oxford University. The author of sixteen previous books, including The Making of a Philosopher, he has written for the London Review of Books, The New Republic, the New York Times Book Review, and other publications. He has taught philosophy at University College of London, Oxford, and Rutgers University, and is a distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of Miami.

From the Back Cover

Part memoir, part study, The Making of a Philosopher is the self-portrait of a deeply intelligent mind as it develops over a life lived 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.

Reviews

"I had gone from underachieving jock-mod to pocket-sized intellectual in less than a year, and philosophy had to take a lot of the blame," writes Rutgers University philosophy professor Colin McGinn (The Mysterious Flame) in The Making of a Philosopher: My Journey Through Twentieth-Century Philosophy. Hoping to explain contemporary analytical philosophy without having his book "remind the reader of school," McGinn, renowned for his work on consciousness, gives a personal account of his encounters with philosophy, including his discovery of Descartes as a teenager in Blackpool, the revelation of reading Chomsky as a psychology undergraduate and his preoccupation with Wittgenstein while teaching at UCLA. He also discusses the work of mentors and colleagues like Jerry Fodor and Thomas Nagel.

Mr. Plato, please meet Mr. Jerry Lee Lewis. A writer who brings together the ancient thinker and the modern rocker promises to interest readers not normally attracted to philosophy. Indeed, the unexpected conjunctions in McGinn's memoirs will delight those with no appetite for Schopenhauer: Marilyn Monroe provides a piquant gloss on Frege's theory of propositional attitudes, and the parents of Elvis Presley pull off a cameo appearance to help explain Kripke's views on necessary truths. In recounting his career as an academic philosopher in England and the U.S., McGinn often ventures outside the lecture hall, recounting time spent cruising Sunset Boulevard, video gaming in Westwood Village, and hobnobbing with the glitterati at movie premiere parties. The liveliness of his narrative won't keep the uninitiated from being baffled when the topic turns to "truth conditions" in Davidsonian semantics or "indexicals" in Kaplarian reference theory, but even so, McGinn manages to restore a fundamental equality between the Oxford don and the California video gamer. Both will probably enjoy reading his book. Bryce Christensen
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Edition details

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060197927
• ISBN 13: 9780060197926
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256