INSCRIBED BY PHILOSOPHER WILLARD VAN ORMAN QUINE TO PROFESSOR AND RENOWNED PHOTOGRAPHER KELLY WISE

QUINE, Willard Van Orman. The Time of My Life. An Autobiography. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Bradford, (1985). Octavo, original purple cloth, original dust jacket. $900.

First edition, presentation copy, inscribed: "For Kelly Wise, with thanks for the proverbial equivalent of two thousand words. Willard Quine."

The Edgar Pierce professor of philosophy at Harvard, Quine "came to be regarded as a general philosopher: initially, as a philosopher of logic and language, but eventually as a metaphysician, whose radical thoughts about ontology, epistemology, and communication had repercussions within all major areas of philosophy… Quine's writing style is lively, often playful, and always sparklingly clear… Quine is among the most often quoted philosophers of the 20th century" (ANB). "Quine's status as a philosopher has never depended upon the number of people who have agreed with him. On the contrary, the sign of his achievement is the valuable discussion he has provoked… by his unfashionable conviction that philosophers want to discover what reality is like" (Encyclopedia of Philosophy VII:55). The recipient of this copy, Kelly Wise, was a professor of English at Andover who went on to become a famous photographer. Evidently, Quine gave this copy to Wise to thank him for two photographs.

Book fine, dust jacket near-fine.