Oppenheimer's Choice
(July 2006)
Reflections from Moral Philosophy Richard Mason - Author
Studies J. Robert Oppenheimer’s choice to accept leadership of the Manhattan Project.
In 1942, J. Robert Oppenheimer accepted the leadership of the Manhattan Project at the Los Alamos Laboratory, which produced the first atomic bomb three years later. This book examines the ethics of Oppenheimer’s choice to take that job and our judgment of his acceptance, leading to the larger question of the meaning of...(Read More)
How is understanding to be understood? Are there limits to understanding? What of importance, if anything, could lie beyond understanding? And do we need to understand knowledge before we can know about understanding? Richard Mason's argument is that a critical theory of understanding, modeled on past theories of knowledge, cannot be workable.
Argues that there is an undeniable and essentially historical dimension to logic.
Must logic come first? Are philosophical problems really logical? Must we think logically to think at all? Richard Mason's case is that too much comes before logic--too many choices and too much history. Logic has been formed by choices made by philosophers, not just as a s...(Read More)
