Abstract

The three books before us are consolingly conservative. They observe the pieties; they display an unusually acute sense of history; they try to find out what Plato said instead of being angry with him for neglecting to read J. S. Mill and Wittgenstein; and they say faithfully and sympathetically what can be said for him even when he tries them hard. This is true criticism: and it stands out sharply against the spleen of the "detractors," as Professor Levinson has happily called them.