Reason & Analysis (Paul Carus Lectures) [Paperback]

Brand Blanshard (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 504 pages
• Publisher: Open Court Publishing Company; Second Printing edition (December 19, 1964)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0875481124
• ISBN-13: 978-0875481128
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,715,536 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Blanshard's best known work in defense of reason, December 26, 1998

By 

John S. Ryan "Scott Ryan" (Cuyahoga Falls, OH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Reason & Analysis (Paul Carus Lectures) (Paperback)

In this his best-known work, rationalist philosopher Brand Blanshard mounts a thorough defense of reason against an onslaught of twentieth-century attacks.

Some of the positions he reviews -- e.g. logical positivism and linguistic analysis -- are no longer as strongly represented as when he wrote. But his positive account of reason is as fresh and important now as then.

In a nutshell, Blanshard's view is that reason is the power of grasping necessary connections; that the universe itself is a coherent logical and causal whole, shot through with threads of necessity and in which every specific "fact" is entailed by every other if we could but see it fully; that to understand something is to see it in the context of its necessary relations to that whole; and that this whole operates causally on our minds to lead us to truth through logic.

(It is this last point that prevents his determinism from being futile and self-undermining: to be determined by reason is, for Blanshard as for Spinoza, what the rational man means by freedom.)

This work also bristles with important insights about the limits of formal logic and offers a theory of universals that has not, to my knowledge, received the attention it deserves. It is, in short, a must-read for any serious student of philosophy.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant defense of the role of reason in philosophy., December 14, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Reason & Analysis (Paul Carus Lectures) (Paperback)

This is a truly remarkable book. The clearest and most accessible writer the field of philosophy has ever produced takes on what has come to be known as "post-modernism" (ore relativism) and virtually dismantles it in an extraordinarily fair, patient and thorough manner. Blanshard, writing in the sixties, made it is personal mission to champion the importance of reason in human affairs in a series of brilliant books. He succeeded to a remarkable degree. (The others in this series are "Reason and Goodness", arguably the best modern work on ethics, and "Reason and Belief", an antidote to dogmatism in theology.) "Reason and Analysis" would serve admirably as an introduction to 20th century analytical philosophy, and indeed as an introduction to philosophy itself, since the issues it deals with are fundamental to the discipline. In a lifetime of reading of Western philosophy, I have never encountered anything better than Blanshard's books, and "Reason and Analysis" may be the best of them all. If you are sick to death of the mindless assault on Western civilization and its intellectual underpinnings, Blanshard will be your oasis.

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible, stylish AND lucid scholarship, December 7, 2001

By 

Abolaji Ogunshola "Realism exponent" (CT) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Reason & Analysis (Paul Carus Lectures) (Paperback)

Brand Blanshard's work in defence of Reason is incredible. This book was published in 1962, and, given its length (especially at a time when there were no word processors), must have been in the works for some time before then.

Blanshard mostly takes on the philosophical schools of logical positivism and linguistic analysis in this volume, and is an opponent of any school of thought that denies or subverts the role of reason and logic in the acquisition of knowledge.

So what makes this book so good? It is a perfect example of scholarship (similar to George Reisman's "Capitalism"), given its topic. What do I mean by perfect?

1. The author gives a historical overview of the material to be presented. This allows a person to place ideas and positions in
thier historical context, and to understand the nature of the
debate that has preceded the material to be discussed.

2. The author explains the position of the viewpoint that he is in disagreement with. He cites references and quotes individuals.

3. The author demolishes the arguments of the opponents to the greatest extent he probably can, and in a systematic way. This ensures that all variants of the doctrine he is against are taken care of, and that any attempt to resurrect the doctrine in the future can be addressed with the arguments that he has already proposed. He totally refutes logical atomism and other aspects of logical positivism, and shows that linguistic analysis, as well as logical positivism, is self refuting.

4. The author then realizes that it is not enough to destroy - one must also replace the edifice that one has destroyed with a better one, or garbage might find its way onto the site where the old edifice once stood. The author outlines the his view of reason and aspects of it in the final chapters of the book.

A note for Objectivists: Brand Blanshard also rejected the Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy in this volume and was legendary enough to merit a place in the Library of Living Philosophers series.

It is very puzzling (and a statement about what is going on in the world today) that Blanshard's works are mostly out of print, while people who could not explain thier positions with the clarity and consistency that he did are worshipped as philosophical legends. He dissects and makes thorough mincemeat of Wittgenstein's writings, showing that they are anything BUT logical(ly consistent). However, I can't find Blanshard's books in any local bookstores, but I can find loads of Wittgenstein's writings.

You don't have to agree with everything in this book to gain from it. Nothing is swept under the rug, and it is quite possible to honestly disagree with some points of view. However, any flaws in the book are unlikely to be attributed to wilful dishonesty on the part of the author by the reader, but will definitely vary, depending on the view point of the reader on certain philosophical issues. However, anybody committed to rationality will find a lot that is good in this book.

It is a good volume and there is lot to be gained by anyone who wants to investigate the lines along which thinking is done.