How is it that false statements, such as “horses have eight legs”, can be just as meaningful as true statements, such as “horses have four legs”? Where does logical structure come from? We can ...

OF ALL THE innovations that sprang from the trenches of the first world war—the zip, the tea bag, the tank—the “Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus” must be among the most elegant and humane. When the ...

A brisk new portrait by Anthony Gottlieb emphasizes the philosopher’s restless, ambivalent mind and Viennese family background. By Nikhil Krishnan Nikhil Krishnan is the author of “A Terribly Serious ...

Philosophy has always had to defend itself against the charge that it is empty verbiage, unscientific speculation. Philosophers themselves are often the harshest and most astute critics of their own ...

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius was born in Rome around the year 475 C.E. A learned man, he served his nation faithfully as a senator and consul. But the early sixth century was a period of ...

The best class I took in college was on the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Until that point, I had avoided philosophy of language as simply being too esoteric and hermetic to be of use. David Pears, ...