Comments on: John Rawls

By: zizka

zizka — Sun, 17 Aug 2003 00:40:32 +0000

Stace, best known for a book on mysticism. Kaufmann, stuck with trying to convince everyone that Nietzsche and Hegel weren’t Nazis or Commies. Surtprising, really.

By: PG

PG — Fri, 15 Aug 2003 15:52:01 +0000

:-) I always think of A Theory of Justice being the Old Testament (Political Liberalism the New), so I don’t expect it to have a snappy, clever title.

By: Walter

Walter — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 22:05:12 +0000

Eh, even A Theory of Justice is pretty blah. Rawls has nothing on Hobbes and Nietzsche.

By: Matthew Yglesias

Matthew Yglesias — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 20:19:56 +0000

Is it just me or is that a really bad title? He must have gotten some big time assistance before coming up with A Theory of Justice.

By: Brian Weatherson

Brian Weatherson — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 19:08:28 +0000

Much thanks for all the quick feedback!

By: David

David — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 19:05:13 +0000

I sent an e-mail inquiry to Ann Getson, a contact person at the Phil. Dept. Maybe she’ll send a reply. I’ll let you know.

By: micah

micah — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 19:04:31 +0000

Rawls’s dissertation supervisor was Walter Stace. At least, that’s what Thomas Pogge says in an essay called “A Brief Sketch of Rawls’s Life,” reprinted in Richardson and Weithman, The Philosophy of Rawls: Development and Main Outlines of Rawls’s Theory of Justice (Garland, 1999). Apparently, Rawls also worked with Norman Malcolm and Max Black (author of that wonderful book, The Prevelance of Humbug and other essays href=”http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0801493218/qid=1060884202/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-7663704-3920026?v=glance&s=books” rel=”nofollow”>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0801493218/qid=1060884202/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-7663704-3920026?v=glance&s=books).

By: Shai

Shai — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 19:00:54 +0000

Proquest digital dissertations only sells it in hardcopy. If all else fails you can ask J.B. Schneewind: “J.B. Schneewind, philosopher and historian, tells of arriving at Princeton as a student and observing Rawls defend his doctoral dissertation. Such an ordeal can be a friendly ceremony, a rite of passage, or a blood bath exacted by barbarous professors. The young Rawls turned it into an erudite lesson by citing to the professors passages from Kant—in German!”

By: David

David — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 18:51:08 +0000

Here’s something: “A Study in the Grounds of Ethical Knowledge: Considered with Reference to Judgments on the Moral Worth of Character.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Princeton University, 1950. Abstract in Disserta tion Abstracts (1955), 15(4):608-609. http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~scctr/philosophy/rawls.html

By: Matthew Yglesias

Matthew Yglesias — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 18:49:47 +0000

I dunno. I do know that he spent the summer after he got his PhD doing the index for Walter Kaufmann’s Nietzsche, so maybe it was Kaufmann. If you care to look it up somewhere, the title was “A Study In The Grounds of Ethical Knowledge: Considered With Reference to Judgments on the Moral Worth of Character” which is notable for having been transformed into a journal article that contains zero footnotes or other citations.

By: David Sucher

David Sucher — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 18:29:54 +0000

And to think that anyome might wonder if this is an academic blog!