djr

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  1. No doubt it would be cheap and easy, but that doesn't mean they'll do it. My claims about Veatch's work weren't meant as an evaluation (in fact I esteem them pretty highly), but as a sociological account of why we shouldn't expect to see them back in print or even in cheap and easy e-book format. The problems I identified are problems from the perspective of someone considering the prospect of putting the out-of-print works back into print in order to make money. I did in fact specify what those problems are, as you can see if you re-read my previous post. Any other works that have those same problems will, ceteris paribus, also be unlikely to be put back into print. You respond as if I were denigrating the contents of Veatch's books, but I don't think I said anything to give that impression. At any rate, let this be as clear as day: I'm not saying that they *shouldn't* be put back in print or made available in electronic format, I'm saying that I doubt anybody will do it.
  2. I wouldn't hold my breath on many of these works coming back into print or being made available in electronic format any time soon. Veatch was unfashionable when he was writing, and many of his more technical works are now outdated. So, for instance, For an Ontology of Morals, written in 1971, contains a nice critique of contemporary ethical theory, but ethical theory has changed a whole lot in the last 40 years, and his critiques of ethics from Moore to Searle have become somewhat standard. The book is still well worth reading for those who aren't already familiar with early-mid 20th century meta-ethics and naturalist critiques of it (or for those who are but want a concise but incisive treatment of the issues). But it wouldn't be a good sell for philosophers, who will be happier with more elaborated discussions of these issues, or for beginners to philosophy who won't be able to follow the argument very well and who will at any rate want something more up-to-date. So I can't imagine a publisher bringing it back out. Liberty Fund could bring out Rational Man despite some similar problems with it primarily because Rational Man is a less technical book and because Liberty Fund knows how to sell books to a specific group of people who don't care much about being fashionable. His book on Human Rights is still in print as well in part because it's a less technical presentation of the issues and, since it isn't primarily a critique, it doesn't suffer from the same problems of being out of date (it was also published in 1985). The situation would seem even more dire for his works on logic. It's not inconceivable that someone will bring these books back into print, but until the copyright runs out I doubt we'll see them available in electronic format.
  3. The essay mentioned but never cited is: 'A Non-Cartesian Meditation upon the Doctrine of Being in Aristotle's Metaphysics', in Lloyd P. Gerson (ed.), Graceful Reason: Essays in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy Presented to Joseph Owens, CSSR, Toronto 1983, p. 75-100. It is principally an attack on the linguistic turn and defense of realism that is largely familiar from Veatch's other works.