A collection of unpublished papers by Rush Rhees, pupil and close friend of Wittgenstein.

This is Volume VIII of none in a studies in Ethics and the Philosophy of Religion. Originally published in 1969 and holds a collection of papers on talks to first year students not reading philosophy; science and questioning; and discussions on social engineering, politics and science as well as questions like 'where does the world come from?'

This book offers the rare opportunity to assess, within a single volume, the leading schools of thought in contemporary philosophy of religion. Their exponents seek to meet objections made to their point of view and to relate it to the other schools represented. Further discussions between adherents of the different schools make it an ideal text for assessing the deep proximities and divisions which characterize contemporary philosophy of religion. The schools of thought represented are: Philosophical Theism, Reformed Epistemology, Wittgensteinianism, Postmodernism, Critical Theory and Process Thought.

Ludwig Wittgenstein established a "cool" stance for philosophy, contemplating the world without meddling in it. D. Z. Phillips explores this position, focusing on its implications for philosophical authorship and the philosophical investigation of the nature of reality. Influenced by the views of Wittgenstein and his pupil Rush Rhees, Phillips—who is one of Rhees's own students—first contrasts Wittgenstein's methods with Kierkegaard's religiously oriented dialectic. He describes the difficulty in sustaining a contemplative view of philosophy and discusses efforts to go beyond it in the work of Richard Rorty, Stanley Cavell, Annette Baier, and Martha Nussbaum, who, in different ways, propose to make philosophy a guide to living. A provocative and challenging work, Philosophy's Cool Place is one of the few books that addresses the discipline as an enterprise and explores its relation to moral values, religious belief, and the nature of Reality. By advancing the cause of neutrality, it will stimulate debate and foster discussion of what philosophy is to become in the postmodern era.

Rush Rhees questions the viability of moral theories and the general claims they make in ethics. He shows how one can both be concerned with knowing what one ought to do while recognising that one's answer is a personal one. These insights, arrived at in a distinctive style, characteristic of Rhees, are then applied to issues of life and death, human sexuality and our relations to animals. To recognise why philosophy cannot answer such questions for us is an affirmation, not a denial, of their importance.

The first thing to be said about this book is that nothing contained herein was written by Wittgenstein himself. The notes published here are not Wittgenstein's own lecture notes, but notes taken down by students, which he neither saw nor checked. It is even doubtful if he would have approved of their publication, as least in their present form. Since, however, they deal with topics only briefly touched upon in his other published writings, and since for some time they have been circulating privately, it was thought best to publish them in a form approved by their authors.

An edited collection of Rush Rhees's previously unpublished writings on Wittgenstein's Investigations.