Quote:
Keith Larman wrote:
Oh, and in the interests of completeness and giving credit where credit is due, I can't believe I left out one of my most important influences -- W.V.O. Quine. It is very difficult to find anyone today somehow not influenced by his work. His insights ripple through everything right down to even more "popularly known" writers/philosophers like Dennett and Hofstadter.
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Hello Keith,
Well, I would take issue with you about Quine, but this would cause too much thread drift. I know nothing about Hofstadter, except that he has written bestselling books. As has Dennett. When I was at Harvard in the mid 1970s, I took a course from Daniel Dennett, which was really a discussion of his first book. During the course, it became clear that he was not amenable to reasoned argument, so my respect for him diminished somewhat. By comparison John Rawls (
A Theory of Justice) was an excellent teacher. His lectures and seminars were deathly, because he had a stutter. Harvard had 'pro-seminars', which in the case of Rawls meant three hours on Kant's ethical theory. But he supervised my thesis on Socrates and I found him a kind and caring teacher.
We will obviously have to discuss these and other issues when I come to the US.
Best wishes,
PAG