I is perhaps the most important and the least understood of our everyday expressions. This is a constant source of philosophical confusion. Max de Gaynesford offers a remedy: he explains what this expression means. He thereby shows the way to an understanding of how we express first-personal thinking. The book thus not only resolves a key issue in philosophy of language, but promises to be of great use to people working on problems in other areas of philosophy.

John McDowell has set the philosophical world alight with a revolutionary approach to the subject, illuminating old problems with dazzling particularity. In this welcome introduction to his work, Maximilian de Gaynesford puts writing within comfortable reach of non-specialists.





The guiding argument of the book is that the variety of McDowell's interests disguises a core concern with a single basic goal: 'giving philosophy peace'. Since the dawn of the subject, philosophy has struggled with the question: can our experience of the world give rational...

John McDowell has set the philosophical world alight with a revolutionary approach to the subject, illuminating old problems with dazzling particularity. In this welcome introduction to his work, Maximilian de Gaynesford puts writing within comfortable reach of non-specialists.





The guiding argument of the book is that the variety of McDowell's interests disguises a core concern with a single basic goal: 'giving philosophy peace'. Since the dawn of the subject, philosophy has struggled with the question: can our experience of the world give rational...

While Hilary Putnam's work on theories of meaning, semantic content, the nature of mental phenomena, interpretations of quantum mechanics, theory-change, logic, and mathematics is crucial to recent and future developments in philosophy, the scope and volume of his writings and his radical re-thinking of concepts make it challenging to portray his philosophy accurately. Maximilian de Gaynesford analyses Putnman's complete works within their historical context. He argues that the work has a basic unity based on repeated engagement with a small set of hard problems and that understanding this...

Reflecting a recent flourishing of creative thinking in the field, Agents and Their Actions presents seven newly commissioned essays by leading international philosophers that highlight the most recent debates in the philosophy of action

• Features seven internationally significant authors, including new work by two of philosophy's 'super stars', John McDowell and Joseph Raz
• Presents the first clear indication of how John McDowell is extending his path-breaking work on intentionality and perceptual experience towards an account of action and agency
• Covers...

What is it for poetry to be serious and to be taken seriously? What is it to be open to poetry, exposed to its force, attuned to what it says and alive to what it does? These are important questions that call equally on poetry and philosophy. But poetry and philosophy, notoriously, have an ancient quarrel. Maximilian de Gaynesford sets out to understand and convert their mutual antipathy into something mutually enhancing, so that we can begin to answer these and other questions. The key to attuning poetry and philosophy lies in the fact that poetic utterances are best appreciated as doing...