This collection offers an in-depth look at Cora Diamond’s distinctive approach to ethics and its philosophical significance. It comprises a new essay by Cora Diamond on the policing of concepts, followed by ten original chapters by world-class scholars covering conceptual loss, moral theory, the category of the human, the moral consideration of animals, and the meaning of narcissism. Including comparisons to the work of other contemporary moral philosophers such as Martha Nussbaum, Jeff McMahan, Rai Gaita, Eva Kittay, Christine Korsgaard, and Edward Harcourt, the volume also creates interdisciplinary links between Diamond’s work and other fields of study, including psychoanalysis and contemporary ethology. Showcasing the vital importance of Diamond’s contribution to philosophy, this volume is essential reading for scholars working in ethics, philosophy of language and literature.

Essays by leading scholars that take as their point of departure Cora Diamond's work on the unity of Wittgenstein's thought and her writings on moral philosophy.

In Reading Wittgenstein with Anscombe, Going On to Ethics, Cora Diamond follows two major European philosophers as they think about thinking, as well as about our ability to respond to thinking that has miscarried or gone astray. Acting as both witness to and participant in the encounter, Diamond provides fresh perspective on the importance of the work of these philosophers and the value of doing philosophy in unexpected ways. Diamond begins with the Tractatus (1921), in which Ludwig Wittgenstein forges a link between thinking about thought and the capacity to respond to misunderstandings and confusions. She then considers G. E. M. Anscombe’s An Introduction to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (1959), in which Anscombe, through her engagement with Wittgenstein, further explores the limits of thinking and the ability to respond to thought that has gone wrong. Anscombe’s book is important, Diamond argues, in challenging contemporary assumptions about what philosophical problems are worth considering and about how they can be approached. Through her reading of the Tractatus, Anscombe exemplified an ethics of thinking through and against the grain of common preconceptions. The result drew attention to the questions that mattered most to Wittgenstein and conveyed with great power the nature of his achievement. Diamond herself, in turn, challenges Anscombe on certain points, thereby further carrying out just the kind of ethical work Wittgenstein and Anscombe each felt was crucial to getting things right. Through her textured engagement with her predecessors, Diamond demonstrates what genuinely independent thought is able to achieve.

This groundbreaking collection of contributions by leading philosophers offers a new way of thinking about animal rights, our obligation to animals, and the nature of philosophy itself.

The realistic spirit, a nonmetaphysical approach to philosophical thought concerned with the character of philosophy itself, informs all of the discussions in these essays by philosopher Cora Diamond. Diamond explains Wittgenstein's notoriously elusive later writings, explores the background to his thought in the work of Frege, and discusses ethics in a way that reflects his influence. Diamond's new reading of Wittgenstein challenges currently accepted interpretations and shows what it means to look without mythology at the coherence, commitments, and connections that are distinctive of the mind. Representation and Mind series

This book honours the pioneering work of Cora Diamond, one of the most important living moral philosophers. It develops and deepens a picture of moral philosophy by carrying out new work in what Diamond has called the realistic spirit.

Alice Crary offers a transformative account of moral thought about human beings and animals. Instead of assuming that the world places no demands on our moral imagination, she underscores the urgency of treating the exercise of moral imagination as necessary for arriving at an adequate world-guided understanding of human beings and animals.