Some Pow'r did us the giftie grant/ To see oursels as others can't. With that play on Burns' famous line as a preface, Willard Van Orman Quine sets out to spin the yarn of his life so far. And it is a gift indeed to see one of the world's most famous philosophers as no one else has seen him before. To catch an intimate glimpse of his seminal and controversial theories of philosophy, logic, and language as they evolved, and to hear his warm and often amusing comments on famous contemporary philosophers. From his beginnings ...
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Some Pow'r did us the giftie grant/ To see oursels as others can't. With that play on Burns' famous line as a preface, Willard Van Orman Quine sets out to spin the yarn of his life so far. And it is a gift indeed to see one of the world's most famous philosophers as no one else has seen him before. To catch an intimate glimpse of his seminal and controversial theories of philosophy, logic, and language as they evolved, and to hear his warm and often amusing comments on famous contemporary philosophers. From his beginnings in Akron, Ohio in the early 1900s, Quine takes us on a tour of over 100 countries over three-quarters of a century, including close observations of the Depression and two world wars. Far from a philosophical tract, it is an ebullient, folksy account of a richly varied and rounded life. When he does dip into philosophy, it is generally of the armchair sort, and laced with a gentle good humor: There is that which one wants to do for the glory of having done it, and there is that which one wants to do for the joy of doing it. One can want to be a scientist because he wants to see himself as a Darwin or an Einstein, and one can want to be a scientist because he is curious about what makes things tick.... In normal cases the two kinds of motivation are in time brought to terms.... In me the glory motive lingered...... In this book, Quine approaches the details of his life the way he has always approached them with a sharp sense of interest, adventure and fun. And he has a skill for picking a word that is just off-center enough to pull an ordinary event out of the humdrum of daily life and evoke its personal meaning. The result is a book of memories that is utterly mesmerizing. Willard Van Orman Quine is the author of numerous books, including Word and Object, published by The MIT Press in 1960. A Bradford Book.
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Add this copy of The Time of My Life: an Autobiography to cart. $142.85, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2000 by Bradford Books.
Add this copy of The Time of My Life: an Autobiography to cart. $172.45, new condition, Sold by Just one more Chapter, ships from Miramar, FL, UNITED STATES, published 2000 by Bradford Books.
Add this copy of The Time of My Life: an Autobiography to cart. $1,200.00, good condition, Sold by Burnside Rare Books rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Portland, OR, UNITED STATES, published 1985 by MIT Press.
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Seller's Description:
First edition. Signed by W. VO. Quine on front flyleaf and inscribed to his friend distinguished mathematician Stephen C. Kleene, a co-creator of computability theory, "for Steve Kleene / in admiration and / warmest regard / Van [his nickname]." Kleene is mentioned numerous times in this autobiography. xii, (2), 499 pp. Purple cloth with white lettering. Near Fine in a Good somewhat worn, thoroughly spine-sunned, unclipped jacket with a tear in the back panel. Slight lean to spine. A very nice association between two major figures in mathematical logic.
