NDPR has just published a review — written by Hans-Johann Glock (University of Zurich) — of Michael Dummet’s The Nature and Future of Philosophy (Columbia University Press). To access the review online, click here.

Here is how it begins:

Sir Michael Dummett, who died on 27 December 2011, was one of the most important analytic philosophers of the last 60 years. Indeed, he was one of the last great heroes of that movement. Although analytic philosophy is triumphing institutionally around the globe, its development has stagnated; and the last 20 years have not witnessed the rise of new luminaries of the same stature as Dummett, Davidson, Hempel, Strawson, Lewis, von Wright, Rawls, Hare and Hart, to say nothing of giants like Moore, Russell, Wittgenstein and Quine.

It is entirely fitting, therefore, that Dummett’s last book to appear in his lifetime is not just a reflection on the aims, methods and prospects of philosophy in general, but also a thoughtful defence of analytic philosophy, one which culminates in a plea for overcoming the chasms between analytic and so-called “continental philosophy”. The book also addresses a wider audience than Dummett’s previous philosophical writings, and it is written in a much more accessible and occasionally colloquial prose. Finally, in contrast to most of Dummett’s writings, it abounds with examples, many of them illuminating.