LETTER: Sins of omission
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.From Professor Ted Honderich
Sir: Ray Monk, having got into the habit of skating over things in his biography of Wittgenstein, now leaves things out in his review of The Oxford Companion to Philosophy ("In pursuit of truth", 16 September). In his report of the entry on Craig's Theorem, he leaves out exactly the lines that make the lines he quotes intelligible, and also leaves out the enlightening last bit of a line he does quote.
He makes a little meal of our having forgotten to put in one philosopher, John McTaggart, thereby leaving out the fact that we didn't forget. McTaggart is in the book, right there under "McTaggart". As for Michael Dummett's entries, of which he cannot find a single one, he could look up Gentzen, or Logical Harmony, or Natural Deduction, or Normalisation or Tarot.
I'm a little worried that he says the book is "the most far-reaching and the most authoritative single-volume reference work on philosophy yet published". Has he left something out? By my lights, but not his, he could have added the reason that the book reaches out to the English poets and has incisive and novel entries on their lines about philosophy, unrandomly chosen. He makes some strong points elsewhere in what he says.
Yours sincerely,
Ted Honderich
London, NW3
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments