My Stuff

https://umass-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/rwolff_umass_edu/EkxJV79tnlBDol82i7bXs7gBAUHadkylrmLgWbXv2nYq_A?e=UcbbW0

Coming Soon:

The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for "Robert Paul Wolff Kant." There they will be.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for Robert Paul Wolff Marx."





Total Pageviews

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

AVE ATQUE VALE

Jim Westrich tells me that Kenneth Arrow passed away yesterday.  Arrow was 95.  Kenneth Arrow was one of the giants of modern economic theory.  I never met Arrow, so I will leave it to others to talk about him as a man, as a teacher, and as a scholar.  For me, he is and will always be the author of Social Choice and Individual Values, a 1951 monograph that was, I believe, his doctoral dissertation.  It contains his elegant proof of the so-called General Possibility [or Impossibility] Theorem, a generalization of the Paradox of Majority Rule.  Those who are interested can find a statement of the proof on my second blog, Formal Methods in Political Philosophy.  Arrow was an old New York socialist who retained, throughout his life, an unshakable progressive orientation.  I found his work to be genuinely beautiful.  It was expanded and developed by another admirable and brilliant economist, Amartya Sen, in Collective Choice and Social Welfare [1970.]


4 comments:

s. wallerstein said...

Did you study Latin and do you just know a few choice phrases in Latin?

A bit more than 45 years ago when I entered graduate school I passed a reading exam in Latin, but now I have to google your Latin phrases.

I do notice that you have an exceptional memory, not quite as good as Chomsky's, but very impressive in comparison with most of ours.

Robert Paul Wolff said...

I know no Latin, my German is awful, and my French is not much better. I am, however, fluent in English. :) Sixty-seven years studying philosophy leaves you with a few choice phrases.

Marinus said...

Professor, you may remember me as corresponding to you through your blog at various points, especially a few years ago, but my readership has been constant. It was your discussion of Arrow's work that put me onto his work, and social choice theory in particular, quite a few years ago. I remember sitting in the university library reading your blog posts in between essay assignments. Now I'm about to hand in my PhD which involves a substantial dollop of social choice theory, and I join you in remembrance of Kenneth Arrow and his accomplishments.

Charles Pigden said...

Sen's book is just out in Penguin in a new edition.