Studies in the Way of Words

Grice was a miniaturist who changed the way other people paint big canvases. The question of correct scale is ultimately one of intellectual judgment, and in this his magisterial, fastidious prose rebukes those of us who want to move faster. [His] work culminated in the William James lectures delivered at Harvard in 1967, and philosophers will he grateful for having them finally available in one volume, Studies in the Way of Words, together with many other of Grice’s papers, and a retrospective epilogue, written within two years of his death. -- Simon Blackburn * Times Literary Supplement *
Some philosophers are important because they have produced an important article or an important theory; others are important because, in addition to producing articles and theories, they have minds that ‘scintillate’ in a certain way. Grice is a philosopher of this second and greater type… Grice’s intellect, power, and charm are all vehicles for conveying a vision of philosophy, a vision that has much to say to analytic philosophers today. -- Hilary Putnam, Harvard University
In interest and power this book far exceeds most publications of our time. -- P. F. Strawson * Synthèse *
[Paul Grice] is without peer as an example of how to do philosophy directly, simply and without idiosyncrasy. The special flavours of…our other leading philosophers are valuable, but they should not be copied. Grice is the only leader of whom it is true that the level of the discipline would be raised if most philosophers took him as a model of how to think and write. -- Jonathan Bennett * Times Literary Supplement *