When did G. A. Cohen live?

G. A. Cohen was born in 1941 and died in 2009.

Where was G. A. Cohen from?

G. A. Cohen was a Canadian philosopher of the Contemporary era.

What philosophical movements is G. A. Cohen associated with?

G. A. Cohen was associated with Analytic Philosophy and Marxism.

How many quotes are attributed to G. A. Cohen?

There are 15 attributed quotations from G. A. Cohen in the 1001Philosophers collection, organized by topic.

G. A. Cohen 1941 – 2009

G. A. Cohen (1941 – 2009) was a Canadian philosopher of the Contemporary era, associated with Analytic Philosophy and Marxism.

Gerald Allan Cohen was a Canadian-British political philosopher and the leading figure of the school of analytical Marxism. Born to a Communist Jewish family in Montreal, he studied at McGill and Oxford and held the chair of social and political theory at All Souls College, Oxford. His Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence reconstructed Marx's historical materialism with the tools of analytic philosophy, while Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality engaged Robert Nozick's libertarianism, and Rescuing Justice and Equality and Why Not Socialism? developed his late egalitarian critique of Rawls. He was an exceptional lecturer admired for both rigor and warmth.

Gerald Allan Cohen was born in Montreal in April 1941 into a Communist Jewish working-class family. He took his bachelor's at McGill in 1961 and his BPhil at Oxford in 1963 under Isaiah Berlin and Gilbert Ryle. He taught at University College London from 1963 to 1985, then succeeded Charles Taylor as Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at All Souls College, Oxford, where he remained until his retirement in 2008.

His major books are Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence (1978), History, Labour, and Freedom (1988), Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality (1995), If You're an Egalitarian, How Come You're So Rich? (2000), Rescuing Justice and Equality (2008), Why Not Socialism? (2009), and the posthumous collection On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice (2011). He co-founded with Jon Elster, John Roemer, and others the September Group, the seminar that became known as Analytical Marxism.

Cohen's first book reconstructed historical materialism as a cogent functional theory; his middle work mounted a forensic critique of Robert Nozick's libertarianism through a careful analysis of self-ownership; his late work attacked Rawls's claim that the basic structure exhausts the subject of justice and argued that justice requires an egalitarian ethos governing personal as well as institutional choice. He died in Oxford in August 2009.

Key facts

Nationality: Canadian
Era: Contemporary
Movements: Analytic Philosophy, Marxism

Selected quotes

Attributed to G. A. Cohen:

“From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs is still the right ideal.”
Attributed to G. A. Cohen:

“Marx's theory of history can and should be defended in plain language.”
Attributed to G. A. Cohen:

“Equality requires the absence of unjust inequalities, not the absence of all difference.”
Attributed to G. A. Cohen:

“Capitalism is incompatible with the community we owe one another.”
Attributed to G. A. Cohen:

“The personal is political; the political is also personal.”

Read all G. A. Cohen quotes

G. A. Cohen by topic

Frequently asked about G. A. Cohen

When did G. A. Cohen live?: G. A. Cohen was born in 1941 and died in 2009.
Where was G. A. Cohen from?: G. A. Cohen was a Canadian philosopher of the Contemporary era.
What philosophical movements is G. A. Cohen associated with?: G. A. Cohen was associated with Analytic Philosophy and Marxism.
What was G. A. Cohen known for?: Gerald Allan Cohen was a Canadian-British political philosopher and the leading figure of the school of analytical Marxism.
How many quotes are attributed to G. A. Cohen?: There are 15 attributed quotations from G. A. Cohen in the 1001Philosophers collection, organized by topic.