Bradley Pearson, an unsuccessful novelist in his late fifties, has finally left his dull office job as an Inspector of Taxes. Bradley hopes to retire to the country, but predatory friends and relations dash his hopes of a peaceful retirement. He is tormented by his melancholic sister, who has decided to come live with him; his ex-wife, who has infuriating hopes of redeeming the past; her delinquent brother, who wants money and emotional confrontations; and Bradley's friend and rival, Arnold Baffin, a younger, deplorably more successful author of commercial fiction. The ever-mounting action includes marital cross-purposes, seduction, suicide, abduction, romantic idylls, murder, and due process of law. Bradley tries to escape from it all but fails, leading to a violent climax and a coda that casts shifting perspectives on all that has preceded. "Fertile invention is put to the service of an expansive sense of character; and since the book also has Miss Murdoch's usual narrative energy and intellectual weight, it is the best novel she has written in years." ("The New York Times Book Review")

有两种基本的框架可供选择，一是以哲学家为线索，一是以问题为线索。两种框架各有利弊，《语言哲学》做了混合式的安排：前面的四章谈论语言哲学的背景、简要介绍语言哲学的一些基本论题，中间从索绪尔到乔姆斯基共九章依次阐论20世纪一些最重要的语言哲学家。此后，第十四章先扼要介绍以往哲学家对专名问题的看法，进而探讨指称／意义这一语言哲学的基本问题，第十五章先扼要介绍语言哲学发展后期几位哲学家对隐喻的看法，进而探讨字面／隐含这个基本问题。第十六章从整体上探讨语言和现实的关系，概述了陈嘉映老师对语言哲学的一些主要问题的看法。

First published in 1966, this celebrated book--Sontag's first collection of essays--quickly became a modern classic, and has had an enormous influence in America and abroad on thinking about the arts and contemporary culture. As well as the title essay and the famous "Notes on Camp," "Against Interpretation" includes original and provocative discussions of Sartre, Simone Weil, Godard, Beckett, science-fiction movies, psychoanalysis, and contemporary religious thinking. This edition features a new afterword by Sontag.

傅佩荣先生的《哲学与人生》就是这样的一本教材。他开设的这门课程在台湾大学受到热烈欢迎，被学生评为“最佳通识课程”，我读了以后觉得是名实相符的。傅先生对于哲学真有心得，而且善于作简洁清晰的表达。比如在讲解哲学是“爱智”时，他把“爱智”定义为“保持好奇的天性，探询一切事物的真相”的生活态度，把“智慧”概括为“完整”和“根本”两个特征，又将“爱智”的“爱”解释为温和而理性的“友爱”，而与狂热的“情爱”、浮泛的“博爱”相区别，令人感到既准确又颇具新意。

4“篇”《不合时宜的沉思》发表于1873年（《施特劳斯――表白者和作家》）、1874年（《历史学对于生活的利与弊》、《作为教育者的叔本华》）和1876年（《瓦格纳在拜雷特》）。所有这几篇都篇幅接近相等，且都以数字标出章节划分（8－12），它们在口吻和结构以及在论证过程上都更与尼采的处女作《悲剧的诞生》（1872年）相应。 4篇在内容上的划分表面上看起来是简单的和易解的：两篇探讨消极的、亦即极令人忧虑的现象：“知识庸人”施特劳斯（Strauβ）和历史学；其余两篇是神圣的救世主形象叔本华（Schopenhauer）和瓦格纳（Wagner）的颂歌。