Ted Cohen was an original and captivating essayist known for his inquisitive intelligence, wit, charm, and a deeply humane feel for life. For Cohen, writing was a way of discovering, and also celebrating, the depth and complexity of things overlooked by most professional philosophers and aestheticians—but not by most people. Whether writing about the rules of baseball, of driving, or of Kant’s Third Critique; about Hitchcock, ceramics, or jokes, Cohen proved that if you study the world with a bemused but honest attentiveness, you can find something to philosophize about more or less anywhere.

Ted Cohen (1939-2014) was a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago from 1967 until his death. He was the auhor of Jokes: Philosophical Thoughts on Joking Matters and Thinking of Others: On the Talent for Metaphor and co-editor of Essays in Kant’s Aesthetics and Pursuits of Reason: Essays in Honor of Stanley Cavell.