1974 in philosophy

1974 in philosophy was a critical year for the publication of a number of important works, both scholarly and academic studies, and popular literature.

Events

• Last and final meeting of the London Positivist Society

Publications

Essays

• Fodor, Jerry, T. Bever and M. Garrett, The Psychology of Language, McGraw Hill.
• Karttunen, Lauri, "Presupposition and Linguistic Context," Theoretical Linguistics, 1, pp. 181–194. (Presented at the 1973 Winter Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America in San Diego)
• Montague, Richard, Formal Philosophy: Selected Papers of Richard Montague. ed. and introd. by Richmond H. Thomason. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press.
• Thomas Nagel, "What Is it Like to Be a Bat?", The Philosophical Review ^[1]
• Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State, and Utopia ^[2]
• Schleiermacher, Friedrich, Hermeneutik. Nach den Handschriften. Ed. Heinz Kimmerle. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.
• Turner, Victor. Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society
• Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (1974)

Philosophical fiction

• Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974) ^[3]

Births

• Lisa Bortolotti
• Rachel Cooper

Deaths

• Imre Lakatos of the London School of Economics suddenly died of a brain haemorrhage on February 2, aged 51. The Lakatos Award was set up by the school in his memory.

References

1. Nagel, Thomas (1974). "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?". The Philosophical Review. 83 (4): 435–450. doi:10.2307/2183914. JSTOR   2183914 . Retrieved November 14, 2025.
2. "The National Book Awards – 1975". National Book Foundation. 2007. Archived from the original on 9 September 2011. Retrieved November 14, 2025.
3. "A Successful Pirsig Rethinks Life of Zen and Science". The New York Times . May 15, 1974. Retrieved November 14, 2025.