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xanderman001's review against another edition
3.0
I might, under the laws of Goodreads, be cheating with this placement on my read shelf. There are 40 odd pages I've left unread here (from Wallace's modality essay and Taylor's Aristotle essay respectively). I count this, however, under the acknowledgment that I extracted all that my current self could extract from this extremely technical book. I would both recommend and not recommend this book to fans of Wallace's work. Recommend it for the introduction by James Ryerson that contrasts the writing and material of this essay to what would become the essential postmodern literature of 'Broom of the System'. Additionally, this book does a great job of formulating Wallace's references in the first part of the volume as a framework for the criticism of Taylor's semantic manipulation that is used to take logical and physical modalities to suggest a misleading correlation between the antecedent and consequent of Fatalism. Besides this groundwork in Wallace's postmodern sensibilities, the book is too reliant (and justifiably so) on its academic allusions to be anything besides the slight curiosity to Wallace-heads. I can see myself in the future picking this back up when I have the credentials to bask in such logical beauty. Until then, however, I must give this a light pat on the back and watch it ride into the sunset like some kind of allegorical horse.
sar4_ggg's review against another edition
too challenging/abstract/metaphysical for me personally ;(
mugren's review against another edition
3.0
This went right over my head.
I tried reading Richard Taylor’s original essay but got bored, so I skipped it along with the arguments from other people and went straight to Wallace’s thesis.
I tried reading Richard Taylor’s original essay but got bored, so I skipped it along with the arguments from other people and went straight to Wallace’s thesis.
piccoline's review against another edition
5.0
This is a well constructed book. One might be forgiven wondering whether the publication of DFW's undergrad philosophy thesis is anything other than an attempt to wring a bit of money out of the name. ("Think we can fool some people into buying a book on modal logic since it's got David Foster Wallace's name on it?") That's not what this is.
At first I was tempted, I'll admit, to simply skip straight to Wallace's work, but I was seduced by the inclusion of various papers that Wallace read in preparation for his project. They are rather readable, though there were definitely times I was glad had some familiarity with symbolic logic. Having read the background, I was able to enjoy Wallace's work much more deeply, and to shake my head with better considered amazement at his level even as an undergraduate. This was actual theoretical movement forward, helping to settle arguments that had been rattling around for years. And amidst the heavy modal logic going there are various recognizably clever and mischievous DFW touches.
Even if you don't end up too jazzed about the modal logic, the opening essay "A Head that Throbbed Heartlike" and the closing remembrance from DFW's advisor for that senior thesis make this book well worth the price.
After reading this, it is also true that I am both grateful that DFW chose to pursue his project in fiction and convinced that he was in fact continuing a philosophical project as he did so.
At first I was tempted, I'll admit, to simply skip straight to Wallace's work, but I was seduced by the inclusion of various papers that Wallace read in preparation for his project. They are rather readable, though there were definitely times I was glad had some familiarity with symbolic logic. Having read the background, I was able to enjoy Wallace's work much more deeply, and to shake my head with better considered amazement at his level even as an undergraduate. This was actual theoretical movement forward, helping to settle arguments that had been rattling around for years. And amidst the heavy modal logic going there are various recognizably clever and mischievous DFW touches.
Even if you don't end up too jazzed about the modal logic, the opening essay "A Head that Throbbed Heartlike" and the closing remembrance from DFW's advisor for that senior thesis make this book well worth the price.
After reading this, it is also true that I am both grateful that DFW chose to pursue his project in fiction and convinced that he was in fact continuing a philosophical project as he did so.
bibliocyclist's review against another edition
4.0
"A life is words and nothing else."
"The world is all that is the case."
"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."
"The only events which it is within one's power to produce are those which occur."
"What I do is necessary, what I do not do is impossible."
"Every truth is a necessity and every falsehood an impossibility."
"The world is all that is the case."
"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."
"The only events which it is within one's power to produce are those which occur."
"What I do is necessary, what I do not do is impossible."
"Every truth is a necessity and every falsehood an impossibility."
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