G. A. Cohen

G. A. Cohen was one of the towering political philosophers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. His intellectual career was unusually wide-ranging, and he was celebrated internationally not only for his penetrating ideas about liberty, justice and equality, but also for his method, a highly original and influential combination of analytical philosophy and Marxism.

Christine Sypnowich guides readers through the rich body of Cohen’s work. By identifying five paradoxes in his thought, she explores the origins of his interest in analytical philosophy, his engagement with the ideas of right-wing libertarianism, his critique of John Rawls’s work, his late-career turn to conservatism, and the tension between his preoccupation with individual responsibility and the idea of a socialist ethos. Sypnowich acknowledges the strengths of Cohen’s positions as well as their tensions and flaws, and presents him as a thinker of startling insight.

This compelling introduction is a go-to resource for students and scholars of modern political philosophy.

Preface

1 The Political is Personal: G. A. Cohen’s Philosophical Journey
2 No-Bullshit Marxism and the Fate of Historical Materialism
3 Rescuing Freedom from Nozick
4 Rescuing Justice from Rawls
5 Taking Responsibility for Egalitarianism
6 Rescuing Existing Value – for or Against Socialism?
7 Conclusion: Paradox and Legacy

Notes
Bibliography
Index

"Christine Sypnowich’s impressively well-informed presentation of Jerry Cohen’s exceptional personality and her insightful critical discussion of all key aspects of his work will make readers understand why his unusual combination of radical political views and meticulous prose keeps inspiring so many young philosophers, and not only them."
Philippe Van Parijs, University of Louvain

"Opening with an engaging biographical account of Cohen’s political and intellectual development, Sypnowich demonstrates how his rigorously analytical quest for the nature of a just society can be structured around a set of tensions – “paradoxes” – with which he so influentially wrestled throughout his life."
Hillel Steiner FBA, University of Manchester

Christine Sypnowich is Professor of Philosophy at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario.