|
Showing 1 - 12 of
12 matches in All Departments
This is a concise and readable study of five intertwined themes at
the heart of Wittgenstein's thought, written by one of his most
eminent interpreters. David Pears offers penetrating investigations
and lucid explications of some of the most influential and yet
puzzling writings of twentieth-century philosophy. He focuses on
the idea of language as a picture of the world; the phenomenon of
linguistic regularity; the famous "private language argument";
logical necessity; and ego and the self.
A unique treatment of the key influences on the life of this
important Australian composer, consisting of oral histories by
people who knew Grainger, as well as reflections from his own
writings. Percy Grainger [1882-1961] was a pianist, composer,
ethnographer, essayist, and much more. The Australian-American
musician aspired to the condition of a polymath, with strong
interests in language, culture, ecology and technology. In an age
of increasing specialisation Grainger held to a breathless
all-roundedness. This book looks at the scrabbling diversity of
Grainger's life through the eyes of others. Family and friends,
pupils, musical associatesand chance acquaintances recall their
experiences of Percy Grainger from his boyhood in colonial
Australia, through his conservatorium years in Germany, on to his
early professional years in London, and further to the zenith of
his career and then years of decline in the United States. In the
final chapter, Grainger himself explains the driving passions of
his life. Fifty illustrations, including architectural drawings,
scores and machine plans, vividly depict the enthusiasms described
in over ninety recollections of Grainger. A composer of over four
hundred compositions and virtuoso performer in some three thousand
concerts, Grainger left a large legacy. He was an
importantinfluence upon the folk-song movement in Britain, and,
through such masterworks as Lincolnshire Posy, he was enduringly
popular with the band movement in America. On a personal level, his
development of the language of "blue-eyed English" was stillborn,
and his muscular style of pianism found few adherents among the
next generation of performers. His frankly expressed views on
sexual licence were also many decades ahead of their time. Today,
however, Grainger the musician is again in the ascendant. His more
innovative works are gaining a belated hearing, while his
standards, such as Country Gardens, remain firm favorites. Malcolm
Gillies and David Pear areco-editors of Grainger on Music and 'The
All-Round Man': Selected Letters of Percy Grainger, 1914-1961
An introduction to the work of the philosopher, Ludwig
Wittgenstein. It analyzes Wittgenstein's two major works, the
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and the Philosophical Investigation,
and sets his conclusions against the background of changes in the
nature of philosophy in the 20th century.
'Beautifully strange ... an icy, gnomic, compact work of mystical logic.' - Steven Poole, Guardian
Shortly before his death, Percy Grainger (1882-1961) lodged over
twenty unpublished sketches in his Australian Museum. Self-Portrait
of Percy Grainger draws exclusively from these sketches, revealing
for the first time an illuminating portrait of the composer's life.
With such titles as "The Aldridge-Grainger-Strom Saga," "Thunks,"
"Ere-I-Forget," "The Love-Life of Helen and Paris," and
"Anecdotes," these manuscripts were intended as precursors to
Grainger's autobiography, My Wretched Tone-Life, which he only
commenced in his final years. Expertly shaping these sketches, the
editors have created a "self-portrait" along the lines that
Grainger himself had intended.
The volume first introduces Grainger's forebears, parents,
friends, wife, and himself before moving on to his views on
composition, performance, and the musical world. In these sketches,
Grainger addresses such topics as racial and national identity, the
meaning of work, physical culture, language reform, sexual
practice, and artistic patronage. Grainger also probes the nature
of musical genius, discussing a broad range of composers including
Igor Stravinsky, Thomas Beecham, Frederick Delius, Edvard Grieg,
Charles Stanford, Cyril Scott, Fritz Kreisler, Donald Tovey,
Ferruccio Busoni, and Balfour Gardiner. Among the works of his own
that Grainger most featured are his The Warriors --Music for an
Imaginary Ballet, Colonial Song, the Lincolnshire Posy series of
band pieces, his greatest "hit" Country Gardens, and his many
settings of English folk-music.
Written in Grainger's own self-created "Nordic English" as well as
translated from Danish, the language of his most intimate
confessions, Self-Portrait of Percy Graingersheds light on some of
the most revealing details of the composer's life. The sketches
trace Grainger's changing self-perception, from the romantically
tinged, even lustful, views of his forties and fifties, through a
period of wistfulness in his sixties, to the bitterness and
self-loathing of his old age. The volume also includes several of
Grainger's own drawings as well as both public and private
photographs. A fascinating and revealing collection of vignettes,
this extraordinary book will appeal to instructors, students, and
enthusiasts in musicology, music history, cultural studies, and
Australian, British, and American history.
In this compelling analysis David Pears examines the foundations of
Hume's theory of the mind as presented in the first book of the
Treatise. Past studies have tended to take one of two extreme
views: that Hume relies exclusively on a theory of meaning, or that
he relies exclusively on a theory of truth and evidence. Steering a
middle course between these positions, Pears argues that Hume's
theory of ideas serves both functions. He examines in detail its
application to three difficult problems: causation, personal
identity, and sense perception. Hume's solutions, Pears argues, are
not theories that can be given a place in standard classification
of philosophical theories, but rather depend upon a subtle form of
naturalism not altogether unlike Wittgenstein's naturalism. A
clearly written and argued study, Hume's System will be of special
interest to students and scholars of the history of philosophy.
Paradox and Platitude in Wittgenstein's Philosophy is a concise and
readable study of five intertwined themes at the heart of
Wittgenstein's thought, written by one of his most eminent
interpreters. David Pears offers penetrating investigations and
lucid explications of some of the most influential and yet puzzling
writings of twentieth-century philosophy. He focuses on the idea of
language as a picture of the world; the phenomenon of linguistic
regularity; the famous "private language argument"; logical
necessity; and ego and the self.
Percy Grainger was one of the most colourful of this century's cultural figures. As a pianist and largely self-taught composer he was feted in the 1910s and 1920s, and is probably still best known for the work he `dished up' in many different guises, Country Gardens. But Grainger aspired to the role of `the all-round man' and nourished ideas, some brilliant, others ludicrous, across the full range of human endeavour: race, nationality, sex, language, life-style, food, clothes, technology, ecology. The All-Round Man depicts that scrambling diversity through seventy-six uninhibited letters from Grainger's `American' years, 1914-61. These letters are fascinating to read: they are cultivated `rambles' (as Grainger actually called several of his compositions), not dissimilar to today's telephone conversations. Often written in Grainger's crunchy `Blue-eyed English', they explore uninhibitedly every corner of his public and private life. They reflect the magnificent attempts of a great but flawed mind to encompass the world. From the letters: `Personally I do not feel like a modern person at all. I feel quite at home in South Sea Island music, in Maori legends, in the Icelandic Sagas, in the Anglo-Saxon `Battle of Brunnanburh', feel very close to Negroes in various countries, but hardly understand modern folk at all.' `Music seems almost to have a "surface", a smooth surface, a grained surface, a prickly surface to the ear. All these distinguishing characteristics (roughly hinted at in the above silly similes) are to me the "body of music" are to music what "looks", skin, hair are in a person, the actual stuff and manifestation whereby we know it and recognize it' `You said that too much such treatment annoyed, nerveteased you. Then let me thus tease you while you punish me for the annoyance I give you: Let me lay my weight upon, momi-ing at yr heavenbringing uma, while you thrash my bottom, back & legs in rising annoyance'
In this compelling analysis David Pears examines the foundations of
Hume's theory of the mind as presented in the first book of the
Treatise. Past studies have tended to take one of two extreme
views: that Hume relies exclusively on a theory of meaning, or that
he relies exclusively on a theory of truth and evidence. Steering a
middle course between these positions, Pears argues that Hume's
theory of ideas serves both functions. He examines in detail its
application to three difficult problems: causation, personal
identity, and sense perception. Hume's solutions, Pears argues, are
not theories that can be given a place in standard classification
of philosophical theories, but rather depend upon a subtle form of
naturalism not altogether unlike Wittgenstein's naturalism. A
clearly written and argued study, Hume's System will be of special
interest to students and scholars of the history of philosophy.
This is the second of two volumes which describe the development of
Wittgenstein's philosophy from the "Notebooks" and the "Tractatus"
to "Philosophical Investigations" and his other later writings.
This volume covers his later philosophy from 1929 onwards. It
traces two lines of thought, one starting from the treatment of
solipsism in the "Tractatus" and the other developing out of the
early theory of language proposed in that book. The work as a whole
is designed to fill a gap in the literature on Wittgenstein, and
the doctrines and ideas chosen for close discussion are those which
the author believes reveal the general structure of Wittgenstein's
thought. Pears aims to relate the general to the particular within
a clearly delineated framework, thereby hoping to make Wittgenstein
more accessible to students of philosophy and to non-specialists.
Volume I and II form a continuous study of Wittgenstein's
philosophy, but they are designed to be read independently of each
other.
This is the first of two volumes which describe the development of
Wittgenstein's philosophy from the Tracatus to his later writings.
Part I of this volume is a survey of the whole of his work; Part II
is a detailed examination of the central ideas for his early
system. The second volume will cover later philosophy. The book
fills a gap in the literature on Wittgenstein between brief
introductions and detailed commentaries. Although necessarily
selective, the doctrines and ideas chosen for detailed discussion
are those which reveal the general structure of Wittgenstein's
work. David Pears has taken full account of the origins of
Wittgenstein's philosophy and its relation to the philosophies of
his predecessors and contemporaries. But the author's main emphasis
is on the internal organization of Wittgenstein's thought.
Philosophy students concentrate on the details of his work but
often find it difficult to see their place in the general pattern.
This book presents the general and the particular within a
relatively constant framework, thereby making Wittgenstein's
thought more accessible to students of philosophy and to
non-specialists. This book is intended for students of philosop
|
|