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Product Information

Little kwn outside his native Australia, David Stove was one of the most illuminating and brilliant philo-sophical essayists of the postwar era. A fearless at-tacker of intellectual and cultural orthodoxies, Stove left powerful critiques of scientific irrationalism, Dar-winian theories of human behavior, and philosophi-cal idealism. He was also an occasional essayist of considerable charm and polemical snap. Stove's writ-ing is both rigorous and immensely readable. It is, in the words of Roger Kimball, an invigorating blend of analytic lucidity, mordant humor, and an amount of common sense too great to be called 'common.' Against the Idols of the Age brings together a repre-sentative selection of Stove's writing and is an ideal introduction to his work. The book opens with some of Stove's most impor-tant attacks on irrationalism in the philosophy of sci-ence. He exposes the roots of this fashionable attitude, tracing it through writers like Paul Feyerabend andThomas Kuhn to Karl Popper. Stove was a born controversialist, so it is t surpris-ing that when he turned his attention to contemporary affairs he said things that are politically incorrect. The topical essays that make up the second part of the book show Stove at his most withering and combative. Whether the subject is race, feminism, the Enlightenment, or the demand for n-coercive philosophy, Stove is on the mark with a battery of impressive arguments expressed in sharp, uncompromis-ing prose. Against the Idols of the Age concludes with a generous sampling of his blistering attacks on Darwinism. David Stove's writings are an undiscovered treasure. Although readers may dis-agree with some of his opinions, they will find it difficult to dismiss his razor-sharp arguments. Against the Idols of the Age is the first book to make the full range of this important thinker available to the general reader.

Product Identifiers

PublisherTaylor & Francis Inc

ISBN-100765809109

ISBN-139780765809100

eBay Product ID (ePID)95171906

Product Key Features

SubjectPhilosophy

LanguageEnglish

AuthorDavid Stove

FormatTrade Paperback (Us), Paperback

Dimensions

Weight710g

Height234mm

Width156mm

Additional Product Features

Date of Publication31/07/2001

Place of PublicationSomerset

Spine20mm

Introduction byRoger Kimball

Content NoteBlack & White Illustrations

ImprintTransaction Publishers

Volume EditorRoger Kimball

Country of PublicationUnited Kingdom

GenrePhilosophy

Author BiographyDavid Stove (1927-1994) taught philosophy at the University of New South Wales and, until his retirement in 1988, at the University of Sydney. He was the author of numerous essays, articles, and several books including Anything Goes: Origins of the Cult of Scientific Irrationalism, The Plato Cult and Other Intellectual Follies, and two posthumously published volumes, Darwinian Fairytales and Cricket versus Republicanism. Roger Kimball is managing editor of the New Criterion and an art critic for the London Spectator. He is author of Tenured Radicals (newly revised and expanded) and co-editor with Hilton Kramer of Against the Grain: The New Criterion on Art and Intellect at the End of the Twentieth Century and The Future of the European Past: Essays from The New Criterion.