Acknowledgments
This book is dedicated to my wife, Linda Brown, whose deep care, loving encouragement, and philosophical acumen sustained me and the project. I have been most fortunate over the years in directing the work of graduate students with very considerable talent, some of whom honor me by showing how to employ various ideas of mine in new areas, others by arguing that such a task is for dreamers only.
In any case, I want here to thank two of my favorites who have a special association with this book: Victor DiFate and Richard Richards. I invited both, who know my work well, to suggest various essays they would like to see in the volume. The lists of the three of us matched pretty closely. In addition I owe a good deal of thanks to Victor for invaluable help with the page proofs.Two other individuals deserve special appreciation: Peter Ohlin, philosophy editor at Oxford University Press, for suggesting this entire project to me, and Morton Lowengrub, Provost at Yeshiva University, for moral and financial support for the volume. Many other individuals who have been helpful in particular ways are identified in the articles themselves.