G. A. Cohen

G. A. Cohen was one of the towering political philosophers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. His intellectual career was unusually wide-ranging, and he was celebrated internationally not only for his penetrating ideas about liberty, justice and equality, but also for his method, a highly original and influential combination of analytical philosophy and Marxism. Christine Sypnowich guides readers through the rich body of Cohen s work. By identifying five paradoxes in his thought, she explores the origins of his interest in analytical philosophy, his engagement with the ideas of right-wing libertarianism, his critique of John Rawls s work, his late-career turn to conservatism, and the tension between his preoccupation with individual responsibility and the idea of a socialist ethos. Sypnowich acknowledges the strengths of Cohen s positions as well as their tensions and flaws, and presents him as a thinker of startling insight. This compelling introduction is a go-to resource for students and scholars of modern political philosophy.