Reviews for Grice 2001

`Review from previous edition Deserves to be studied by anyone who is interested in the nature of reason.' Krister Bykvist, Times Literary Supplement

`In both the details and his grander visions, Grice presents us with many original ideas which will be of substantial interest independently of the use to which he puts them ... The issues it addresses are foundational to the philosophy of language and mind, and Grice's brilliance with ordinary language makes substantial advances towards the problems therein.' Kent Johnson, Australasian Journal of Philosophy

Reasons and reasoning were central to the work of Paul Grice, one of the most influential and admired philosophers of the late twentieth century. In the John Locke Lectures that Grice delivered in Oxford at the end of the 1970s, he set out his fundamental thoughts about these topics; Aspects of Reason is the long-awaited publication of those lectures. They focus on an investigation of practical necessity, as Grice contends that practical necessities are established by derivation; they are necessary because they are derivable. This work sets this claim in the context of an account of reasons and reasoning, allowing Grice to defend his treatment of necessity against obvious objections and revealing how the construction of explicit derivations can play a central role in explaining and justifying thought and action. Grice was still working on Aspects of Reason during the last years of his life, and although unpolished, the book provides an intimate glimpse into the workings of his mind and will refresh and illuminate many areas of contemporary philosophy.
About the Author

Paul Grice (1913-1988) was Fellow of St John's College, and, until his retirement in 1980, Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. Richard Warner is Professor of Philosophy at Chicago-Kent College of Law.