As this collection of essays demonstrates, over a long career Edward Goodwin Ballard has written on a wide range of topics of philosophical interest. Although the present volume can be enjoy ably browsed, it is not simply a sampling of his writings. Rather, herein Professor Ballard has chosen and organized essays which pertain to the major concerns of his philosophic life. He has long held that the function of philosophy, particularly in a time such as ours, is the discernment and analysis of basic principles (archai) and their consequences. Indeed, in Philosophy at the Crossroads. he...

Paul Ricoeur was one of the foremost interpreters and translators of Edmund Husserl's philosophy. These nine essays present Ricoeur's interpretation of the most important of Husserl's writings, with emphasis on his philosophy of consciousness rather than his work in logic. In Ricoeur's philosophy, phenomenology and existentialism came of age and these essays provide an introduction to the Husserlian elements which most heavily influenced his own philosophical position.

When Heidegger's influence was at its zenith in Gennany from the early fifties to the early sixties, most serious students of philosophy in that country were deeply steeped in his thought. His students or students of his students filled many if not most of the major chairs in philosophy. A cloud of reputedly Black Forest mysticism veiled the perspective of many of his critics and admirers at home and abroad. Droves of people flocked to hear lectures by him that most could not understand, even on careful reading, much less on one hearing. He loomed so large that Being and Time frequently could...

When Heidegger's influence was at its zenith in Germany from the early fifties to the early sixties, most serious students of philosophy in that country were deeply steeped in his thought. His students or students of his students filled many if not most of the major chairs in philosophy. A cloud of reputedly Black Forest mysticism veiled the perspective of many of his critics and admirers at home and abroad. Droves of people flocked to hear lectures by him that most could not understand, even on careful reading, much less on one hearing. He loomed so large that Being and Time frequently could...

Aesthetics, fledgling of the philosophic brood, is the most suspect of that family. It is suspected of all the philosophical sins: vagueness, disorder, dogmatism, emotionalism, reductionism, compartmentalization. Sometimes its youth is thought to be a sufficient excuse for these divagations. Sometimes the very nature of its content, involving the waywardness of genius, the remoteness of feeling from intellect, the surd of inspiration in even the mildest appreciation, are believed to condemn aes thetics irrevocably to the underside of the civilized man's domain. Some philosophers have gloried...

These nine essays present Ricoeur's interpretation of the most important of Husserl's writings, with emphasis on his philosophy of consciousness rather than his work in logic.