Logic Without Metaphysics.

Inscribed to Carl Hempel

First edition, first printing, presentation copy, inscribed from the author to Carl Hempel on the front free endpaper: "To Peter, with affectionate regards, Ernest". An excellent association copy: Carl Gustav Hempel (1905-1997), known as "Peter" to his friends, was a German writer and philosopher, and a major figure in logical empiricism. Willard Van Orman Quine explained the nickname: Rudolf Carnap's second wife, Elizabeth Ina Stöger, "called Carnap Peterli for no apparent reason, and Eva Hempel's first wife called Hempel Peter on similar grounds; but Eva protested that she had been doing it first, and that the ambiguity was intolerable. Ina acceded, and called Carnap Carnap thenceforward. Hempel has been Peter to all of us ever since" (Quine in Dialogue, p. 144).

Both Nagel (1901-1985) and Hempel were central to the logical positivist movement, along with Popper and Kaplan, though Nagel supported Hempel's gradual turn towards logical empiricismduring the 1940s; their essays on functional analysis and explanation, in particular, are considered classics in their field (Nagel, The Structure of Science 1961; Hempel, "The Logic of Functional Analysis" 1965).

This is a collection of essays and reviews, all but one previously published, with an introduction by Nagel in which he provides a neat summary of his views and addresses the particular philosophical challenges presented during the inter-war years.