Analytic Philosophy: An Anthology (Blackwell Philosophy Anthologies (Paper))

Rating:
Summary: Ideal for Anyone who Wants to Begin To Study Anal. Phil.
Review: This is an extraordinary anthology, not only in the sense that it includes the basic writings on philosophy of language (like Frege's "On Sense and Reference" and "The Thought", and the important reading of Bertrand Russell "On Denoting") but also contains readings on metaphysics which include portions of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, and Quine's "On What There Is". Contains also the readings of Quine's "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" and the reply of other philosophers to that reading, specially "In Defense of Dogma" by H. P. Grice and P. E. Strawson. Contains readings on Epistemology, Philosophy of Mind, and Ethics (which includes portions of G. E. Moore's Principia Ethica). It is the ideal anthology for anyone who wants to begin to study analytic philosophy.

I enthusiastically recomend it.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent.
Review: This, like all the Blackwell Anthologies, is probably the most complete anthology available -- and for an anthology, what else is important? Unlike the subject-specific anthologies, this volume focuses on surveying the volume of thought of a particular time period, and thus is divided into sections, providing a "mini-anthology" of the twentieth-century analytical debate on each topic, which include philosophy of mind, ethics, and of course, language. By the way, if you are, like me, annoyed by the particular brand of "linguistic philosophy" that the (quite legitimate) philosophy of language unleashed upon the world, you'll find this book frustrating. Nonetheless, every good philosophers knows that you haven't beaten the enemy until you understand his arguments -- and, looking past such stylistic pet peeves, there are mountains of amazing work to be found here.