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OverviewIn 1962, the philosopher Richard Taylor used six commonly accepted presuppositions to imply that human beings have no control over the future. David Foster Wallace not only took issue with Taylor's method, which, according to him, scrambled the relations of logic, language, and the physical world, but also noted a semantic trick at the heart of Taylor's argument. Fate, Time, and Language presents Wallace's brilliant critique of Taylor's work. Written long before the publication of his fiction and essays, Wallace's thesis reveals his great skepticism of abstract thinking made to function as a negation of something more genuine and real. He was especially suspicious of certain paradigms of thought-the cerebral aestheticism of modernism, the clever gimmickry of postmodernism-that abandoned ""the very old traditional human verities that have to do with spirituality and emotion and community."" As Wallace rises to meet the challenge to free will presented by Taylor, we witness the developing perspective of this major novelist, along with his struggle to establish solid logical ground for his convictions. This volume, edited by Steven M. Cahn and Maureen Eckert, reproduces Taylor's original article and other works on fatalism cited by Wallace. James Ryerson's introduction connects Wallace's early philosophical work to the themes and explorations of his later fiction, and Jay Garfield supplies a critical biographical epilogue. Full Product DetailsAuthor: David Wallace , Steven Cahn , Maureen Eckert (University of Massachusetts Dartmouth) , James RyersonPublisher: Columbia University Press Imprint: Columbia University Press Dimensions: Width: 14.00cm , Height: 1.80cm , Length: 21.00cm Weight: 0.383kg ISBN: 9780231151566ISBN 10: 023115156 Pages: 264 Publication Date: 10 December 2010 Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Manufactured on demand  We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier. Language: English Table of ContentsPreface, by Steven M. Cahn and Maureen Eckert Introduction: A Head That Throbbed Heartlike: The Philosophical Mind of David Foster Wallace, by James Ryerson Part I: The Background Introduction, by Steven M. Cahn 1. Fatalism, by Richard Taylor 2. Professor Taylor on Fatalism, by John Turk Saunders 3. Fatalism and Ability, by Richard Taylor 4. Fatalism and Ability II, by Peter Makepeace 5. Fatalism and Linguistic Reform, by John Turk Saunders 6. Fatalism and Professor Taylor, by Bruce Aune 7. Taylor's Fatal Fallacy, by Raziel Abelson 8. A Note on Fatalism, by Richard Taylor 9. Tautology and Fatalism, by Richard Sharvy 10. Fatalistic Arguments, by Steven Cahn 11. Comment, by Richard Taylor 12. Fatalism and Ordinary Language, by John Turk Saunders 13. Fallacies in Taylor's Fatalism, by Charles D. Brown Part II: The Essay 14. Renewing the Fatalist Conversation, by Maureen Eckert 15. Richard Taylor's Fatalism and the Semantics of Physical Modality, by David Foster Wallace Part III: Epilogue 16. David Foster Wallace as Student: A Memoir, by Jay Garfield Appendix: The Problem of Future Contingencies, by Richard TaylorReviewsFatalism, the sorrowful erasure of possibilities, is the philosophical problem at the heart of this book. To witness the intellectual exuberance and bravado with which the young David Foster Wallace attacks this problem, the ambition and elegance of the solution he works out so that possibility might be resurrected, is to mourn, once again, the possibilities that have been lost. -- Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, Author of 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction Fatalism, the sorrowful erasure of possibilities, is the philosophical problem at the heart of this book. To witness the intellectual exuberance and bravado with which the young Wallace attacks this problem, the ambition and elegance of the solution he works out so that possibility might be resurrected, is to mourn, once again, the possibilities that have been lost. -- Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of Thirty-six Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction Author InformationDavid Foster Wallace (1962-2008) wrote the acclaimed novels Infinite Jest and The Broom of the System and the story collections Oblivion, Brief Interviews with Hideous Men, and Girl with Curious Hair. His nonfiction includes the essay collections Consider the Lobster and A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again and the full-length work Everything and More. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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