In a message dated 9/12/2015 6:03:55 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
rpaul@xxxxxxxx writes:
Pears' commentary is about as long as the sum of Russell's eight
lectures, but it's often more informative.
That's because David Francis Pears was a genius!
He was in the Royal Artillery during the war, and was seriously injured in
a practice gas attack. On demobilisation, he studied classics at Balliol
College, Oxford, and developed an interest in current philosophy thanks to a
lucky accident.
He co-authored with Strawson and Grice, "Metaphysics" in "The Nature of
Metaphysics", minutes of the Third Programme of the BBC.
And he would spend whole mornings (well, Austin called them "Sat. Mngs")
with Grice discussing intending and voliting and willing and desiring. He
considers the implicatures of 'if' versus 'iff' in connection with 'freewill'
and he is the most apt person, possibly, to comment on Russell's rather
obscure "Logical Atomism" lectures. (Grice mentions that he thrived best, if
that's the expression, in collaboration: his collaboration with Sir Peter
Strawson he ranks first -- "our conversations were so minimal that third
parties were left in the dark"), but goes on to mention further collaborations
with J. F. Thomson (also of Christ Church), J. Baker, J. F. Staal, and G.
Myro -- AND Pears, "in the philosophy of action".
Pears rather saw himself as engaged in 'philosophical psychology' or
philosophy of mind, as his Duckworth collection of essays reads.
Cheers,
Speranza
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