By demonstrating the uniformity and universality of the principles of valid interpretation of verbal texts of any sort, this closely reasoned examination provides a theoretical foundation for a discipline that is fundamental to virtually all humanistic studies. It defines the grounds on which textual interpretation can claim to establish objective knowledge, defends that claim against such skeptical attitudes as historicism and psychologism, and shows that many confusions can be avoided if the distinctions between meaning and significance, interpretation and criticism are (...) correctly understood. It provides perhaps the first genuinely comprehensive account of hermeneutic theory to appear in English and the first systematic presentation of the principles of valid interpretation in any language. Mr. Hirsch, associate professor of English at the University of Virginia, is the author of _Wordsworth and Schelling _and _Innocence and Experience: An Introduction to Blake._ “Here is a book that brings logic to the most unruly of disciplines, literary interpretation. Viewing this subject within the tradition of hermeneutics, Mr. Hirsch is able to trace its origins and development with brilliant insight. The result is a lucidly systemic and authoritative account of the premises and procedures applicable to the interpretation of a literary text. Mr. Hirsch has performed a monumental service thereby that of reinstating the credentials of objectivism and defining the limits of the aesthetics of truth. This study is a necessary took for anyone who wants to talk sense about literature.”—_Virginia Quarterly Review_ “Professor Hirsch demonstrates convincingly that objectivity is attainable in humane studies, and that it is not identified with the subject but with the evidence. A valid interpretation is not necessarily a correct one, but one which is more probably than any other on the basis of existing evidence. He makes a subtle and important distinction between a text’s ‘meaning’ and its ‘significance’, and brilliantly relates meaning to understanding and interpretation to explanation…” In short, this is a work which future students of literary theory cannot afford to neglect.”—_Notes and Queries_ E.D. Hirsch, Jr., is professor of English at the University of Virginia. (shrink)

"Those who think they know George Dickie's views should be sure to read this book. They are in for some interesting surprises. Of course, those unfamiliar with Dickie's views will also learn a lot." --Anita Silvers, San Francisco State University In this book George Dickie presents a theory about how to judge a work of art--as opposed to a theory that explains why a particular work is defined as art. Focusing mainly on the writings of (...) Monroe Beardsley and critically examining the views of seven other philosophers and art critics--Paul Ziff, Frank Sibley, Nelson Goodman, Nicholas Wolterstorff, David Hume, Bruce Vermazen, and J. O. Urmson--Dickie synthesizes their insights to discover what can be derived from their theories. On this basis, he attempts to work out a theory of art evaluation--the first such book on this topic by a contemporary philosopher. Initially, the author outlines all possible theories of art evaluation, assuming that traditional evaluative notions are used. He identifies seven theory-types that fall under four general headings: imitation value theory, objective intrinsic value theories, subjective intrinsic value theory, and instrumental value theories. Dickie then discusses the historical development of the theory of art evaluation, examining the ways in which eighteenth- and nineteenth-century philosophers treated representation and other cognitive dimensions of art as artistic values. His thorough analysis of the work of other contemporary theorists argues for a theory of art evaluation derived from various strands of thought. (shrink)

This book is an introduction to aesthetics, from the perspective of analytic philosophy. It traces aesthetics from its ancient beginnings through the changes it underwent in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and the first half of the twentieth century. The responses in the 1960s of the cultural theories to these earlier developments are discussed in detail. Five traditional art evaluational theories, Beardsley's and Goodman's evaluational theories, and the author's own evaluational theory are presented. Four miscellaneous topics are discussed - internationalist criticism, symbolism, (...) metaphor, and expression. (shrink)

George Dickie's The Century of Taste is a readable and informative guide to the family of eighteenth-century aesthetic theories that sought to explain our judgments of taste. Dickie treats the five theories he discusses out of chronological order so that he can give pride of place to his favorite view, that of David Hume. Dickie's grand narrative claims Hume "all but perfected" the theory of taste, while the associationists, on the one hand, and Kant, on the (...) other, led it down a pair of blind alleys. (shrink)

Most authors who discuss willpower assume that everyone knows what it is, but our assumptions differ to such an extent that we talk past each other. We agree that willpower is the psychological function that resists temptations – variously known as impulses, addictions, or bad habits; that it operates simultaneously with temptations, without prior commitment; and that use of it is limited by its cost, commonly called effort, as well as by the person's skill at executive functioning. However, accounts are (...) usually not clear about how motivation functions during the application of willpower, or how motivation is related to effort. Some accounts depict willpower as the perceiving or formation of motivational contingencies that outweigh the temptation, and some depict it as a continuous use of mechanisms that interfere with re-weighing the temptation. Some others now suggest that impulse control can bypass motivation altogether, although they refer to this route as habit rather than willpower.It is argued here that willpower should be recognized as either or both of two distinct functions, which can be calledresolveandsuppression. Resolve is based on interpretation of a current choice as a test case for a broader set of future choices, which puts at stake more than the outcome of the current choice. Suppression is inhibiting valuation of (modulating) and/or keeping attention from (filtering) immediate alternatives to a current intention. Perception of current choices as test cases for broader outcomes may result in reliable preference for these outcomes, which is experienced as an effortlesshabit– a successful result of resolve, not an alternative method of self-control. Some possible brain imaging correlates are reviewed. (shrink)

Scientists of many countries in which English is not the primary language routinely use a variety of manuscript preparation, correction or editing services, a practice that is openly endorsed by many journals and scientific institutions. These services vary tremendously in their scope; at one end there is simple proof-reading, and at the other extreme there is in-depth and extensive peer-reviewing, proposal preparation, statistical analyses, re-writing and co-writing. In this paper, the various types of service are reviewed, along with authorship guidelines, (...) and the question is raised of whether the high-end services surpass most guidelines’ criteria for authorship. Three other factors are considered. First, the ease of collaboration possible in the internet era allows multiple iterations between the author(s) and the “editing service”, so essentially, papers can be co-written. Second, “editing services” often offer subject-specific experts who comment not only on the language, but interpret and improve scientific content. Third, the trend towards heavily multi-authored papers implies that the threshold necessary to earn authorship is declining. The inevitable conclusion is that at some point the contributions by “editing services” should be deemed sufficient to warrant authorship. Trying to enforce any guidelines would likely be futile, but nevertheless, it might be time to revisit the ethics of using some of the high-end “editing services”. In an increasingly international job market, awareness of this problem might prove increasingly important in authorship disputes, the allocation of research grants, and hiring decisions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Carnap’s Construction of the World. The Aufbau and the Emergence of Logical Empiricism by Alan W. RichardsonRolf GeorgeAlan W. Richardson. Carnap’s Construction of the World. The Aufbau and the Emergence of Logical Empiricism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. x + 242. Cloth, $49.95.According to the author, the “received view” of Carnap’s Kantian treatise of 1928, Der Logische Aufbau der Welt, promulgated mostly by Quine (10), takes it (...) to be a continuation of Russell’s “external world program,” an attempt at “providing a systematic reduction of empirical discourse generally to discourse involving only sense data” (21). One of Richardson’s aims is to show that this is wrong: while Carnap holds that our knowledge begins in sensation, our “elementary experiences” are not conscious and thus do not obey Russell’s “principle of acquaintance.” While we have no conscious access to the first elements of cognition, logical constructions based on them lead to sense qualities, phenomenal items, and eventually to physical and even cultural objects.These constructions are also meant to solve the problem of objectivity. According to Carnap, individual streams of experience are not comparable at all, but “certain structural properties agree for all streams of experience” (Aufbau §66, 32), a point that Kant had also made: “In the relation between sensations lies something that is generally valid, even though each sensation has only private validity” (Reflection 653).Richardson describes Carnap’s constructions in a couple of well written and accessible chapters (31–91), one of them an overview, the other a discussion of the problem of objectivity. Then comes the “Kantian Problematic,” (92–116), centered on the synthetic a priori. He repeats Michael Friedman’s now familiar but mistaken point that, due to the limitations of Aristotelian logic, Kant could not have formulated simple statements about order structures: “between any two points there lies another” could not be formulated in any logic he knew, and he therefore had to call in pure intuition to handle mathematical constructions. But he could, and in fact did, make just such claims in the vernacular, which was the sole vehicle for the pellucid formulations of the classical theory of the continuum, from Bolzano to Weyerstrass.The next chapter brings us the heart of Richardson’s concerns, which is to establish neo-Kantian antecedents of the Aufbau. There are some biographical details of doubtful merit. The neo-Kantian Bauch is identified as Carnap’s “dissertation director,” and, in a perhaps unconscious slight to Carnap’s intelligence, as “the philosopher from whom Carnap learned what he knew about Kant” (116). Ten years before Carnap had indeed taken a seminar in the Critique of Pure Reason from Bauch, but perusal of the latter’s work does not encourage the thought that he had much to do with the thesis “Der Raum” (1922). In the event, a German ordinarius did not usually have a hand in the construction of a thesis, and often did not even read it. His job was to accept it on behalf of the university. We now know, for example, that Bauch’s teacher Rickert had an assistant evaluate Heidegger’s Habilitationsschrift never reading it himself. (It passed.)Richardson’s reflection on the neo-Kantian project relies mostly on Cassirer. This points to another problem with the Bauch connection. Bauch was a zealous anti-Semite, and did not think much of Cassirer and the Marburg school in general. He gave up the editorship of Kantstudien in 1916 because of the Jewish presence in the Kant Society, and [End Page 179] founded his own group and journal. Carnap nonetheless chose Kantstudien to publish his dissertation, perhaps to put more distance between himself and Bauch. Space does not permit me to cite Bauch’s vicious remarks about Einstein; he could not have guided Carnap through the discussion of physical space in “Der Raum.”I return to Richardson’s reconstruction. According to the neo-Kantian, objective knowledge is found in mathematical physics, not in uninformed experience. He acknowledges that theoretical physics relies on conventions, and that these conventions go beyond mere experience to provide the mathematical structure necessary for objectivity (131). The responses to the problem this poses... (shrink)

Contemporary debates on the nature and scope of practical reason are often framed in terms of the viewpoints of a few major figures in the history of philosophy. Whereas advocates of skeptical or procedural approaches to practical reason generally seek historical support from Hume, defenders of more substantive conceptions of practical rationality tend to draw inspiration from Aristotle or Kant. This paper argues that it is in fact the work of Aquinas which offers the best material for a defense of (...) a substantive conception of practical rationality. After outlining the distinction between procedural and substantive conceptions, the author turns to Christine M. Korsgaard’s rearticulation of a Kantian viewpoint on practical reason. The advocate of a Kantian framework, he argues, is less well equipped than the defender of the Thomistic conception to meet necessary constraints on a substantive account. The paper closes with a discussion of the way contemporary versions of natural law theory can meet these constraints. (shrink)

Besides the book under review here, the “30-Second” series of books includes numerous titles such as those on anatomy, architecture, astronomy, the Bible, brain, economics, maths, mythology, philosophies, politics, psychology, religion, and theories.Together with eight contributors, each a leading authority with a proven track record for successfully explaining science to a general audience, Eric Scerri, Lecturer in Chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles; founder and editor of this journal; and the undisputed world authority on the history and (...) philosophy of the periodic table, has edited this most attractive addition to the series.The chemical elements, the separate building blocks of our physical universe, lend themselves ideally to this 30-second approach. In his introduction to the volume Scerri briefly sketches the plan of the book and discusses the evolution of the periodic table from Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev’s original proposal to the latest developments in the .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:96 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY the other hand, he tried like Ramsay to distinguish the "all being" of God from nature; he emphasized the doctrine of final causes and of God's "excellence" as man's chief end. It is possible that Edwards's enigmatic sermon on the Trinity may have been stimulated by Ramsay's speculation on this subject, though this is a mere guess. In any case, Ramsay must have made Edwards (...) aware of Berkeley, without converting him to the kind of pluralistic metaphysics which both Ramsay and Berkeley represent. Quite apart from the historical questions of influence and contacts among philosophers, Ramsay's work is a significant event in the history of ideas; it brings to direct collision the two extremes of the Enlightenment. It brings to life in the imagination of a reader today the basic philosophical issues of the eighteenth century and it makes them relevant to those aspects of the old problems that are central issues today. HERBERTW. SCHNEIDER Claremont, Cali/ornia THE ORIGINS OF MARXISM Interest in the philosophical origins of Marxism is currently so widespread as to constitute something of an intellectual phenomenon in its own right. That it denotes a shift of attention away from Marx's own emphasis on human prax~ as the cure for useless metaphysical agonies, the authors here under review would not deny. A tendency to see Marxism as an historicalphenomenon--thus applying to it the criterion of judgment inherent in Marx's own critique of his predecessors -is common to them all.Such an approach is proper to a postrevolutionary age, though this description may seem oddly chosen in view of the continuing turmoil that surrounds us. To describe the present age as postrevolutionary is after all to say no more than was implied by those nineteenth-century writers who looked back upon the French Revolution. If our situation today is similar, it does not follow that we are about to enter calmer waters, though for all one knows the East-West antagonism may gradually come to resemble the rather undramatic tension which characterized Anglo-French relations during the earlier part of the Victorian era. The Russian Revolution might then at last appear as a closed chapter, and Marx himself as its Rousseau: the philosopher of one particular historic upheaval whose consequences have now been absorbed. Such an attitude presupposes that one is not unduly concerned with the intellectual claims of Soviet Marxism but treats it as the ideology of a society which has not yet acquired a self-critical understanding of its own myths. This would be quite in tune with Marx's own approach, though hardly with the Leninist belief that the Russian Revolution represents the start of a new epoch: that of consciousness raised to the level of global reconstruction. For to say that the Bolsheviks, like the Jacobins before them, unwittingly prepared the way for a new exploitative society is to say that the enterprise was a failure. At the same time, recognition of this fact validates the Marxian insight into the peculiar NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 97 mechanism whereby history has hitherto managed to accomplish its real aims. Thus the critical, or "revisionist," Marxist is able to have it both ways. What prevents the writers under review from taking this easy way out is their concern with the philosophical origins of Marxism. If Marx had been content, like Weber and Pareto, to analyze the mechanism whereby society renews itself from time to time, his position would be unassailable, but by the same token he would simply be another scholar. The perennial interest of Marxism springs from that "union of theory and practice" of which Marx himself was the first and greatest exemplar. No one who has felt the spell of the Theses on Feuerbach or the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts can fail to inquire whether these writings may not outlast the dissolution of the scholastic system constructed by Engels and the epigoni. To say this is not to range oneself on the side of romanticism in its current quasi-anarchist form, which plainly corresponds to a loss of interest in politics. It is simply to acknowledge that thinking people will go on asking... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Book Reviews 133 Beyond the Outer Shores: The Untold Odyssey of Ed Ricketts, the Pioneering Ecologist Who Inspired John Steinbeck and Joseph Campbell BY ERIC ENNO TAMM New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2004 REVIEWED BY GEORGE MEADOWS How do you write a biography of someone who is best known as a fictional character? This is the challenge Erik Tamm has taken on in his recent biography of Edward (...) Ricketts, Beyond the Outer Shores. While some may know Ricketts as a pioneering ecologist and the author of the classic marine biology text, Between Pacific Tides, most know him as the model for “Doc” in the popular John Steinbeck novel Cannery Row, and the eponymous film adaptation. Much of the challenge arises from the fact that the fictional Doc as portrayed in Cannery Row is one of the most endearing characters in Steinbeck’s works. And according to all sources, Ed Ricketts shared many of Doc’s best qualities, and many of the incidents, people, and places in the novel are based on things Ed did and the people he knew. I would guess that many would be satisfied with knowing Ed Ricketts as Doc. It’s very tempting to do just that. The Monterey Peninsula, the location for the novel, is a beautiful place and it’s hard not to sense the presence of both Doc and Ed there. You might see them in Rickett’s restored laboratory/home, just a few feet from the entrance to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, or in the bronze statue of Ricketts placed near the site of his untimely death at the age of fifty-­ one. There’s also a Steinbeck monument in Steinbeck Plaza depicting the writer, Ed Ricketts, and several figures who play important roles in Cannery Row. The tide pools, which play such an important role in both Ed and Doc’s work are nearby and easily accessible. As a reader (and re-­reader) of Cannery Row and a frequent visitor to the Monterey Peninsula, I find it tempting to let Ed be Doc. To do so though would largely ignore the role he played in the development of ecology. Tamm’s book does focus on these achievements, and it does so in a way that would make sense to an ecologist: examining place and the ENVIRONMENT, SPACE, PLACE / VOLUME 13 / ISSUE 2 / 2021 134 relationships among individuals as they are influenced by that place. Thus, we have chapters titled “The Lab,” “The Great Tide Pool,” and “Clayoquot, Stubbs Island.” Other chapters deal with collecting trips to the Gulf of California and Juneau, Alaska. Each of these chapters provides a great deal of information about Ricketts’s ecological work in the area but also discuss his personal relationships as they developed in that space. This makes for interesting reading when we consider that these relationships involved such people as John Steinbeck, Henry Miller, and Joseph Campbell. The best example of this comes during the description of Ricketts’s 1932 collecting trip to Juneau with a young Campbell. The pair spent three months observing and collecting samples of marine life from the coastal areas. They also engaged in a number of discussions integrating ecology, biology, mythology, and religion. The discussion would continue for some time after, largely by mail, and their relationship takes up again in the final chapters of the book. While this approach does provide much of value, it can also make for a challenging read. The linear sequence that we might expect in a biography is somewhat absent in this book, to the degree that other reviewers describe the book as “nonlinear and disorganized,” or “confusing in sequence.” The focus on place and relationships, central to ecology, is difficult to mesh with the focus on an individual that we expect in biography, and this can be a difficult conflict to resolve. Individual organisms might be interesting, but that interest arises from the organism’s physical and social place. Ed Ricketts as an individual is not all that important. Our understanding of Ed should derive from his presence in certain locations and the relationships he had in those places. Or, as Michael Lannoo notes in Leopold’s Shack and Ricketts... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Sextus Empiricus: Against the Grammarians (Adversus Mathematicos I)George A. KennedyD[avid] L. Blank, trans. Sextus Empiricus: Against the Grammarians (Adversus Mathematicos I). With an introduction and commentary. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. lvi + 436 pp. Cloth, $105. (Clarendon Later Ancient Philosophers).Sextus was a Greek physician whose "empirical" medical studies seem to have led him to an enthusiastic commitment to what he calls "Pyrrhonian" skepticism, though it perhaps has (...) rather little debt to Pyrrho, who lived in the fourth century B.C. When and where Sextus himself lived and worked is unknown: certainly during the time of the Roman Empire, probably in the second, possibly in the third century, maybe in Alexandria, or Rome, or elsewhere. His extensive writings are a major source for the skeptical tradition in ancient philosophy--a kind of anti-foundationalism that has some appeal in our own age--but their importance goes beyond that, since Sextus explicates in detail the dogmas and theories he seeks to counteract. Against the Grammarians, as Blank notes, is second only to the textbook attributed to Dionysius Thrax for information on the teaching of grammar and is important for knowledge of Epicureanism as well.Blank's introduction, translation (the Greek text is not included), and line-by-line commentary (the first ever published) is a work of great learning and, I would think, of great patience. The volume as a whole greatly facilitates understanding of Sextus, his sources, and the traditions to which he subscribed or which he resisted. Blank has adopted "expertise" as a translation for the somewhat troublesome word techne, and "expert" for technites. This seems a reasonable rendering of Sextus' usage. What he attacks is not grammar (or, in subsequent books, rhetoric and the other arts) as practiced in ordinary life, but the claims to expert, scientific knowledge on the part of doctrinaire teachers of the arts, as well as some physicians and philosophers.This leads us, however, to a general problem in Sextus' writings. At the beginning of Against the Grammarians (chapters 5-7) (and elsewhere) he claims to have discovered difficult problems in the claims of specialists in philosophy and the arts which lead him to suspension of judgment. He will attempt "without any spirit of competitiveness to select and put the effective arguments against the liberal studies." Implicitly, an equal amount might be said in their defense. In what follows, however, he repeatedly claims to have "demolished" dogmas, leading to what has been called "negative dogmatism," the dogmatic denial of dogma. Blank devotes a section of his introduction to this problem, concluding that Sextus' intent throughout is in fact "equipollence." That is probably what Sextus himself would claim. Assuming it is, Sextus must, however, be charged with the fault of expressing himself poorly, for he repeatedly exults at his conclusive refutations of the claims of others.Throughout the work Blank strives, often with considerable success, to provide a sympathetic explanation and logical justification for Sextus' arguments, [End Page 166] many of which may initially strike a reader as blatant sophistries. Sextus was no fool, but he had blind spots and obsessions--infinite regress being one--and he often fails to take into account lines of argument obvious to a modern reader. Blank's objectivity does not extend to blanket approval of all of Sextus' arguments; indeed, he criticizes and even rejects the validity of arguments on a number of occasions. His treatment can be described as generally even-handed, but giving his author the benefit of the doubt more often than I would be inclined to do.Blank's extended introduction considers what is known about Sextus' life and works; the history of attacks on the arts, which go back to the fifth century b.c.; evidence for empiricist attacks on grammar; Against the Grammarians in relation to the other writings of Sextus; and negative dogmatism; then a few concluding remarks on the translation. Both here and in the commentary he convincingly demonstrates that Sextus' primary source is a lost Epicurean treatise--something like the writings of Zeno of Sidon, the teacher of Philodemus, though Blank stops short of claiming Zeno as the source. This Epicurean work contained a detailed attack... (shrink)

In this review, Hegel responds to criticisms leveled against his philosophy by the anonymous author of Ueber die Hegelsche Lehre, oder: absolutes Wissen und moderner Pantheismus (1829). Frustrated by his interlocutor’s apparent inability to coherently interpret his work, Hegel scathingly attempts to discredit the character of the text in focus and its author’s critical capacity. He does so by showcasing examples of misrepresentation and misunderstanding in the author’s writing. Hegel contests the increasingly common charge of “pantheism” being leveled against (...) him at that time, wielded here by the anonymous author in a fairly unoriginal comparison between Hegel’s “doctrine” and Spinoza’s system. This review gives insight into the character of early theological responses to Hegel, and highlights Hegel’s polemical tendencies. (shrink)

In response to Evelyn Pluhar'sWho Can Be Morally Obligated to Be a Vegetarian? in this journal issue, the author has read all of Pluhar's citations for the accuracy of her claims and had these read by an independent nutritionist. Detailed analysis of Pluhar's argument shows that she attempts to make her case by consistent misappropriation of the findings and conclusions of the studies she cites. Pluhar makes sweeping generalizations from scanty data, ignores causal explanations given by scientists, equates hypothesis with (...) fact, draws false cause conclusions from studies, and in one case claims a conclusion opposite of what the scientist published. Such poor reasoning cannot be the basis of an argument for moral vegetarianism. A broader search of the literature and attention to reviews and textbooks in nutrition shows that each of Pluhar's claims is suspect or incorrect. Pluhar has not undermined my central claims: even if animals have certain rights and well-planned vegetarian diets are safe in complex industrialized societies, these diets cannot be so regarded if the presuppositions of high levels of wealth, education, and medical care do not exist; and, women, children, the aged and some ill persons are at greater risk on restrictive vegan diets. Thus, any duty of moral vegetarianism is not categorical but provisional in nature. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.4 (2001) 589-590 [Access article in PDF] Luc Foisneau. Hobbes et la toute-puissance de Dieu. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2000. Pp. 424. Paper, FF 174. As a recent conference in London confirmed, Hobbes scholarship remains sharply divided, even precarious, with several plausible and diametrically opposed interpretations en jeu. This is especially true as to the question of Hobbes's religion in relation to (...) his political thinking. The famous "Strauss thesis" appeals to many, and, not long ago (Journal of the History of Philosophy 34, no. 2, 1996), this journal printed an exchange between Edwin Curley and A. P. Martinich that canvassed the old arguments and introduced many new ones. The issue seems to be whether Hobbes was sincere in making his theological arguments, prompting us to include them in his thought, or ironic, allowing us to pass them by.French philosopher Luc Foisneau has produced a carefully written, brilliantly crafted account of Hobbes's theory of political obligation that includes the theological elements and makes them central, but without resort to the difficult concept of authorial sincerity. Foisneau, who teaches at the Institut d'Études Politiques, Paris, finds his interpretive key in Hobbes's description of divine omnipotence. The concept, he claims, figures centrally in Hobbes's theory of knowledge. It grounds the theory of political obligation and provides a principal justification for sovereignty itself. Moreover, Foisneau draws a starkly moving picture of human mortality vis-à-vis God's "irresistible power," asserting that the secular or lay temper of modern moral and political theory stems less from a rejection of theology (certainly not in Hobbes's case) than from a sharpened awareness of human limitations. Foisneau gives an impressive and convincing answer to the abiding question: "Hobbes's theology: What does it matter?" Namely, Hobbes's theology is the core of Hobbes's politics.Before briefly considering one strand in the tissue of Foisneau's argument, let us consider two features of his work and the context of its production.The first is that the author's focus is securely on the text itself, recalling the French explication du texte tradition. According to its strictures, working in detail, the analyst of the text carefully unfolds its meaning, precisely contained in and coextensive with the text's form. Hobbes the man and his contemporaries recede as limiting cases or frames of reference, though they and the other Hobbesian texts do figure as material illustrative [End Page 589] of points made through textual interpretation. Indeed, the history of ideas serves to illuminate the text; see the potentia absoluta/ordinata distinction, below. This steady, ample focus on the text's possible coherence and the concern not to leave the four corners of the document bear comparison with the contextualism of Lucien Lefebvre and Quentin Skinner.The second feature is linked to the first, and it is Foisneau's association with the Centre Thomas Hobbes (CTH), at the Centre National des Recherches Scientifiques, Paris, headed by Prof. Yves Charles Zarka. The foremost academic institution devoted solely to the study of Thomas Hobbes, the CTH annually holds extended, international seminars, explicating two or three chapters of Leviathan. Several books and articles have appeared under CTH sponsorship, dealing with specific aspects of Hobbes's work, for example, detailed analyses of his philosophic vocabulary. The CTH's highly focused, on-going program of study gives promise that the rough places in Hobbes scholarship may one day be a bit plainer. Foisneau's book is a major contribution toward that end.Let us consider one particular, viz., Hobbes's modeling of the sovereign's power upon God's absolute power. Hobbes's long-time interlocutor, John Bramhall, is quick to detect and criticize this in De Cive, moving him to reprove both the theological and political deficiencies of Hobbes's conceptual translatio. Bramhall denies one can consider God's absolute power independently of His ordained power, expressed in the eternal laws He has ordained. Nor may one place the power of the sovereign beyond the reach of the law. Impressed... (shrink)

In what must be ranked as a foremost classic of twentieth-century political philosophy, George Santayana, in the preface to his last major work prior to his death, makes plain the limits as well as the aims of Dominations and Powers: "All that it professes to contain is glimpses of tragedy and comedy played unawares by governments; and a continual intuitive reduction of political maxims and institutions to the intimate spiritual fruits that they are capable of bearing." Completed at midpoint (...) in the century, but serving as his final masterpiece, Santayana's volume offers an ominous account of the weakness of the West, and its similarities in substance if not always in form with totalitarian systems of the East. Few analyses of concepts, such as government by the people; the price of peace and the suppression of warfare; the nature of elites and limits of egalitarianism; and the nature of authority in free societies, are more comprehensive or compelling. This is a carefully rendered statement on tasks of leadership for free societies that takes on added meaning after the fall of communism. (shrink)

This article provides a Foucauldian analysis of whiteness as a philosophical, political, anthropological and epistemological regime, undergirded by a power/knowledge nexus, which shapes what it meansto embody whiteness vis-a-vis the Black body/self. As a specific historically constructed standpoint, one that takes itselfas a “universal” value, and through a genealogical reading, whiteness is revealed as akind of emergence (Entstehung), a reactive value-creating power which shapes how the Black body/self is disciplined and how the Black body/selfcomes to introject a self-denigrating episteme. This (...) introjected episteme is explored as being fueled by white ressentiment. Coming under normalizing disciplinary techniques of whiteness, which is historically demonstrated, it is argued that Blacks carne to intemalize a form of self-ressentiment. Through the existentially rich narrative text of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, the author shows that Pecola Breedlove, though a fictional character, is the racially distorted (and racially self-hating) product of certain contingent interpersonal and historical practices that once genealogically revealed create the possibility of radically dismantling their impact. (shrink)

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1972.

This early work by Robin G. Collingwood was originally published in 1939 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'An Autobiography' is the story of Collingwood's personal and academic life. Robin George Collingwood was born on 22nd February 1889, in Cartmel, England. He was the son of author, artist, and academic, W. G. Collingwood. He was greatly influenced by the Italian Idealists Croce, Gentile, and Guido de Ruggiero. Another important influence was his father, a (...) professor of fine art and a student of Ruskin. He published many works of philosophy, such as Speculum Mentis (1924), An Essay on Philosophic Method (1933), and An Essay on Metaphysics (1940). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:366 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY In harmony with Glaucon or Kant, but unlike Thrasymachus, Ballard is unconvinced by Socrates' virtual identification of virtue with art (T~xpv)or expert knowledge (cf. 24f., 50-79). For the "tragic" intellectualism embraced by both Socrates and Thrasymachus precludes the "existential loyalty" prized by Ballard's Plato and Plato's Glaucon. Against "existential loyalty," Socrates' philosopher-kings, if left to themselves, would commit crimes of omission perhaps more heinous than (...) the crimes of commission perpetrated by Thrasymachus' paragon of wisdom, the perfect tyrant. Although aware that only their leadership can prevent the greatest evils in states, philosophers nevertheless refuse to rule, even in the ideal state, unless compelled (cf. Republic, 519B7-520A4). Thus neither Thrasymachus' tyrant nor Socrates' philosopher would willingly sacrifice their own pleasure and happiness for the common good. Their "epicurean" taste contrasts sharply with Ballard's more Kantian or Biblical call for "existential loyalty." No compulsion would be necessary to obtain the return of Ballard's philosophers to the political responsibilities of the "cave." For his subordination of reason to myth precludes escape from the "cave" either in the satanic direction of Thrasymachus or the divine direction of Socrates (cf. 120). However one may evaluate Ballard's solution to the central problem of Platonism, his book surely encourages the dialectic which, in spite of his intentions, may lead to the knowledge cherished by the Republic's Thrasymachus and Socrates. Against their "tragic" intellectualism, neither Ballard nor anyone else can prove more than what the Republic's Socrates admitted: The fact of infallible knowledge is incontestable only for those experiencing it within themselves, while the claim to possess it necessarily seems mere pretense or, at worst, tragic hubris to men whose introspection reveals no rational instrument (~p~,~ov) capable of apprehending the absolute good (Republic, 527D5--528A1; cf. Protagoras, 352A8-353B3; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, l177B27-11791A3; Metaphysics, 982B28-98385). The following minor errors were noted: Page 6, note 1: read "Bury" for "Bary"; page 24 (line 7 from bottom): read "Prot. 358C for "Prot. 385C" ; page 28, line 4: read "Nicias" for "Nisias" ; page 66 (line 8 from bottom): read "Republic IX" for "Republic IV." HARRY NEUMANN Scripps College Plato on Immortality. By Robert Leet Patterson. (University Park, Pa.: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1965. Pp. 141. $5.00.) In this sympathetic account of Plato's arguments for the immortality of the soul (as presented in the Phaedo and the Phaedrus) Professor Patterson has attempted to argue that Plato believed that his arguments were complete 'demonstrations' of the immortality of the soul. The author is concerned to indicate the intention, the background, and the structure of the various arguments which Socrates presents in defense of the view that the soul is immortal. In the course of his discussions Patterson seems to involve himself in a number of large issues (e.g, the problem of psycho-physical dualism, the concept of substance, the critique of materialism and epiphenomenalism, and the meaning of Plato's doctrine of Forms) which are not dealt with comprehensively and which transcend the primary concern of his book. The digressions which lead Patterson into exceedingly difficult philosophical problems and, in some cases, into the realm of exotic analogies (e.g., he at one point compares Plato's dualism to the views of Jainism, Hinayana, Samkhya, Nyaya-Vaiseshik, and Mimamsa metaphysics I) detract from the value of the book and tend to divert him from his basic intention. His defences of Plato's arguments are, on the other hand, interesting, if debatable. The basic teaching of the Phaedo is, it is said, that the soul in essence does not belong to the realm of becoming, but is a sempiternal entity. The first argument which Socrates prepublic : Utopia or Dystopia? " (The Modern Schoolman, May, 1967). On the relation of sophistry to the problem of the xwp~qp~,see Diotim~ts Concept of Love," American Journal of Philology, 86 (1965), 47-50. BOOK REVIEWS 367 sents is said to have a "Heraclitean" structure (p. 22) presumably because it appeals to a conception of "opposites." On this basis, the argument could just as well be described as Pythagorean. At any rate, the argument assumes... (shrink)

The article analyzes volume 19, 1793, of Neueste Critische Nachrichten, in which an anonymous review of Kant’s Religion within the boundaries of mere reason was published. Evidence is presented to establish that the review was authored by Samuel Bernhard Wilcke, a young lecturer at the University of Greifswald, who passed away the following year. After examining Wilcke’s Essay of invitation to his lectures on Kantian philosophy, the review itself is commented upon. Finally, the reviewer’s critique is related (...) to Kant’s reply in the Preface to the second edition of the Religion. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Søren Kierkegaard and the Word(s): Essays on Hermeneutics and CommunicationGeorge ConnellPoul Houe and Gordon D. Marino. editors. Søren Kierkegaard and the Word(s): Essays on Hermeneutics and Communication. Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzel, 2003. Pp. 299. Paper, kr. 375,–Though many associate Kierkegaard with isolated individuality, Kierkegaard scholars are rather gregarious. Four times since 1985, Kierkegaard devotees from all the inhabited continents have gathered at St. Olaf College for several days (...) of intense paper reading. Since it is difficult to keep a handle on so much material presented orally and because many were not able to attend, it is a commendable service that Houe and Marino have edited and published many of the papers delivered at the 2001 conference, just as they had previously published essays from 1998 conference and C. Stephen Evans and I had published essays from the 1989 conference.This volume reflects its origins in several ways. First, the essays are unusually brief compared to most journal articles (around ten pages each). While this is an agreeable format when listening to many papers in a single day, I do think that many of these essays are rather rushed and less than fully developed. Accordingly, the reader of these essays may well feel stimulated by interpretive suggestions rather than satisfied by thoroughly worked out treatments.Second, the essays are quite diverse, as conference papers tend to be, even when, as in this case, a preferred theme—hermeneutics and communication—was stated in advance. Since, as Alastair Hannay notes in the opening keynote essay, "hermeneutics" is used in a wide variety of ways, this theme really did not limit participants to any significant degree. Essays in this volume look variously at Kierkegaard's practice of hermeneutics (especially in reference to the Bible), at our predicament of interpreting Kierkegaard's notoriously elusive and cryptic pseudonymous works, at hermeneutics as our existential disposition as sense-making creature thrust into an ambiguous world, at hermeneutics as a quasi-Hegelian project of engulfing particularity without remainder in a totalizing whole, and, in contrast, at radical hermeneutics (a term coined by John Caputo and applied to Kierkegaard) as an interpretive approach that refuses the consolations and consonances of its Gadamerian cousin. As the use of "hermeneutics" varies, we hear that Kierkegaard is both an exemplary hermeneuticist and "the ultimate non-hermeneuticist." And in a number of essays, the issue of hermeneutics only seems to come up in the vacuous sense that the author offers a reading of some Kierkegaardian text or texts.The wide variety of essays included here reflects itself in the unsatisfactory final article in which Poul Houe makes a thoroughly desultory attempt at pulling the various articles together. I've tried my hand at writing such a piece, so I feel empathy for Houe's plight. But the paragraph per essay tour of the book is so hurried and so perfunctory that I wonder what purpose it really serves in this case.Though widely varying in topic and approach, most of the essays in the volume are quite good, if tantalizingly short. Given that there are twenty-five essays in the volume, it is not possible to summarize them here. But several observations are in order. First, it is especially nice to see five essays by Danish scholars included in this book. The community of Kierkegaard scholars has increasingly come to appreciate that viewing him in terms of his local context can be quite illuminating. American scholars have done excellent work along these lines, but clearly Danes have a crucial role to play in this interpretive task. Second, there have been heated disagreements in Kierkegaard circles over how to place Kierkegaard in reference to philosophical postmodernism. That polemic is in evidence in this volume as well. Several essays, most notably that of David Goicoechea, affiliate [End Page 502] Kierkegaard with postmodernist refusals of the totalizing understandings. In contrast, Sylvia Walsh juxtaposes Kierkegaard's "erotic hermeneutics," which treats its phenomenon with amorous tenderness, with Derrida's deconstructive approach to interpretation, which Walsh sees as a violent expression of the will to power. Christopher Simpson tries to reconcile these divisions by reading Kierkegaardian faith as an attractive... (shrink)

"Professor B. Petrov" is actually the nom de plume of Boris Petrovich Vysheslavtsev, a professor of philosophy in the Faculty of Law at Moscow University from 1917 to 1922, well known in Russian émigré circles as the author of a number of technically competent and stylistically brilliant studies in philosophy and psychology. His last published work, The Crisis of Industrial Civilization: Marxism, Neo-Socialism, Neo-Liberalism, is a significant contribution to social philosophy. Vysheslavtsev is distinguished by a scholar's intimacy with the philosophic (...) doctrines of Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, and Lenin, together with an imaginative and disciplined command of at least the major contemporary developments in sociology, psychology, economics, and jurisprudence. (shrink)

This essay deals with Kant’s Doctrine of Right, but in a rather unusual way by being at the same time a review of a book on that doctrine. It was, indeed, that book which brought me, by trying to review it, to reformulate my own view on the issue To sum up the main mistakes of the author of that book: he takes the Doctrine of Right as a direct application of the doctrine of freedom, as developed in (...) the Analytic of the Critique of Practical Reason, to external acting of humans. That leads him on a crooked path to the thesis that provisional right is not „real“ right in the state of nature, but a conceptual assumption, which can be only thought of. With his idea that real right can only exist in a civil state, the author ends up in a position of legal positivism. The essay tries to expose the decisive steps which made the author go astray so that he eventually failed to grasp Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals altogether. Accordingly, apart from the mentioned mistakes, some connected problem areas, which are completely muddled up in the book, will be subjected to a closer investigation: freedom of the will versus freedom of action; free will versus general will; freedom in the doctrine of right versus freedom in ethics; validity of right versus effectiveness of right. Towards the end, some pages are dedicated to a critical statement on the author’s thesis that Kant’s Doctrine of Right is absolutely unsuited as basis for any claim to distributive justice. (shrink)

Kodalle, a professor of philosophy of religion and social ethics at the University of Hamburg, has gathered together about fifty reviews and short essays in this work through which runs a common thread: the existential adventure of "the overcoming of the useless." Responding to a bewildering variety of philosophers, theologians, and social theorists, the author endeavors to defend existential Christianity in general and Kierkegaard's thought in particular from a virtual army of critics.

The second volume of Father Copleston's History of Philosophy covers the period from Augustine through Duns Scotus. Of its 51 chapters Aquinas has eleven, Augustine and Duns Scotus six each, Bonaventura five, Erigena two, and Dionysius, Anselm, William of Auvergne, and Albertus one each, while other philosophers are treated more briefly. The author's point of view is strictly and explicitly Thomist, and the book is intended primarily as a textbook for use in Catholic seminaries. But it is written with such (...) scholarship, integrity, and clarity that it should interest a much wider circle of readers. Apparently the book is based on a thorough study of the original sources. The documentation, while not detailed, is as complete as one expects in a general work of this sort. Since the Thomist concept of philosophy is accepted, little is said about mysticism or dogmatic theology. But the various rationalistic philosophies are analyzed with a critical sympathy which endeavors to appreciate their various insights into the nature of reality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:348 BOOK REVIEWS to God's commandments is "the way and condition of salvation" (VS # 12). Now obedience to the commandments entails, in addition to a good motivation or a willingness to strive, the conformity of an action's object to the specifying content of the commandment. What is the significance of a commandment to honor one's father and mother, if it does not specify actions? The commandments of God (...) specify what kinds of action are, or are not, in conformity with the true good of man. In his analysis of the moral act, the Pope holds that the object of the act is "the primary and decisive element for moral judgment" (VS # 79). Actions which by the nature of their object are unable to be ordered to man's true end can never be "good" actions. Further, he notes that acts, even individual acts, are determinative of the goodness or badness of the person. These points are summarized nicely in the following passage: Activity is morally good when it attests to and expresses the voluntary ordering of the person to his ultimate end and the conformity of a concrete action with the human good as it is acknowledged in its truth by reason. If the object of the concrete action is not in harmony with the true good of the person, the choice of that action makes our will and ourselves morally evil, thus putting us in conflict with our ultimate end, the supreme good, God himself (VS # 72). I believe that Keenan's study commendably highlights the freedom of the will in the order of exercise, and its power to exercise dominion over the intellect in the order of specification. Keenan also insightfully emphasizes the central role of the love of God as the root of our striving to live well. Yet any willing can only be consequent to some knowing. Further, the willingness to strive and be determined, if it is good, is a willingness to be determined, or specified, by the true good known by reason and faith. This willingness, which is a crucial element in moral goodness, must be completed by actions in conformity with the true good. Human goodness is in freely, and lovingly, living out the truth of human nature and its end. The Catholic University of America Washington, D.C. JOHN A. D. CUDDEBACK Moral Absolutes: Tradition, Revision, and Truth. By JOHN FINNIS. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1991. Pp. 113. $24.95 (cloth), $9.95 (paper). Not long after his conversion to Roman Catholicism, Alasdair MacIntyre told a group of Catholic bishops: " As a matter of autobio- BOOK REVIEWS 349 graphical fact, I came to the conclusion that there were exceptionless and binding [moral] norms prior to and quite independently of any faith in Divine Revelation." Within the Church Macintyre entered, however, there existed, and exists, widespread doubt and confusion about "moral absolutes" or " exceptionless moral norms." Certain eminent Catholic moral theologians today dissent from Pope John Paul's teaching that " there exist acts which per se and in themselves, independently of circumstances, are always seriously wrong by reason of their object." In the face of this dissent, John Finnis has produced a powerful philosophical and theological defense of the papal teaching. Moral Absolutes presents the 1988 Michael J. McGivney Lectures which Finnis delivered at the John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family. The hook consists of four chapters: "Foundations," "Clarifications," "Christian Witness," and "Challenge and Response." Like Macintyre, Finnis maintains that the authority of scripture and tradition supplement reason's grasp of certain specific types of act as intrinsically wicked and, therefore, never to he performed. Although his goal is to vindicate the proposition that there are moral absolutes, rather than to say which, or even how many, moral norms qualify as " exceptionless " (and therefore as, in the relevant sense of the term, " absolute "), his examples include norms against abortion (and, more generally, the direct killing of innocent human beings), adultery, fornication, contraception, homosexual sex, blasphemy, and disclaimer of the faith. As Finnis observes, the Church's tradition of proclaiming these norms and their absoluteness is "massively solid." Against certain neoscholastic... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Characterization of Hanno in Plautus’ PoenulusGeorge Fredric FrankoPoenulus commands our attention because it is the one specimen of Roman New Comedy in which the main characters are not Greeks. Although the action takes place in the Aetolian city of Calydon, the young lover Agorastocles, his beloved Adelphasium, her sister Anterastilis, and the title character Hanno are all natives of Carthage. While the first three are represented as if (...) they were typical Greeks in Roman comedy, Hanno is represented as patently Punic in his physiognomy, dress, speech, and behavior, making him the earliest extant portrayal of a Carthaginian in Latin literature. Since the Carthaginians were the most formidable and vilified enemies of the Romans, any Roman portrayal of a Carthaginian figure holds our interest. Yet the portrayal of Hanno rouses special interest because he is not a villain. Modern readers familiar with the anti-Punic discourse prevalent throughout Latin literature are continually struck by the “sympathetic” portrayal of this Carthaginian, especially since Poenulus was composed when the Second Punic War was in recent memory. A. S. Gratwick, in his masterly chapter on Roman drama in the Cambridge History of Classical Literature (vol. 2, 94) observed that Hanno’s “portrayal is wholly (if disparately) sympathetic, and there is no trace of xenophobia, although the play was certainly produced within Hannibal’s lifetime.... that Plautus should even have envisaged its successful production tells us something of his authority in the theatre and of the openmindedness of his audience.” Others have seen more than mere sympathy and openmindedness. For example, a review of a recent performance of Poenulus observed that “the play is timely in light of the American university’s recent preoccupation with multiculturalism” and proceeded to make much ado about the sympathetic portrayal of the Carthaginian title character and the magnanimity that such sympathy reveals. The review even saw proof of “Plautus as humanitarian and social commentator” (Frauenfelder, “Plautus non manu”). Certainly the fact that an amiable Carthaginian is portrayed as neither villain nor scapegoat deserves our close attention; however, Poenulus must not be appropriated as an example of benevolent Roman multiculturalism without reflection because while there are indeed cosmopolitan elements in the play there are also powerful images of xenophobia and ethnocentrism. We must not allow our present-day preoccupations with magnanimous pluralism to influence our interpretation of [End Page 425] how the play was understood by a Roman audience. This analysis of Hanno’s characterization will reveal that the attractive aspects of his portrayal are offset by some unsavory ethnic stereotyping.We should not dismiss Hanno’s portrayal as “sympathetic” (whatever one takes that word to mean) without further comment, for his portrayal is far more complex than that, containing strongly positive and strongly negative elements which do not permit encapsulation by such a simple adjective. In fact, there are at least four distinct components or layers of Hanno’s characterization and these components constantly play off of each other. 1) Hanno is first and foremost a senex filling traditional roles in the palliata. He is primarily the father who recovers his lost children, a pater pius like Hegio in Captivi or Daemones in Rudens. He also assumes the role of senex lepidus, like Periplectomenus in Miles, and thus at times he behaves like a servus callidus (Gratwick, “Drama” 110). He is indeed the “master of many roles” (Slater, “Plautine Negotiations” 143). 2) But Hanno is unique because he is our only extant Carthaginian senex and the Roman audience must have viewed him differently from other senes because of his Punic ethnicity. The speaker of the prologue, the slave Milphio, and the soldier Antamoenides draw the audience’s attention to negative stereotypes of Punics and attribute perceived vices in Hanno’s behavior to his non-Greek ethnicity. 3) Although Hanno does display some stereotyped Punic vices, he also manages to display two peculiarly Roman virtues, namely, exemplary pietas and a mastery of Roman law. This is not a mere sidelight but a central issue of the play: Hanno uses Roman strengths, not the expected Punic or servile trickery, to recover his family and achieve a happy ending. 4) Yet Hanno also uses these Roman strengths for frivolous... (shrink)

The DSM-IV, like its predecessors, will be a major influence on American psychiatry. As a consequence, continuing analysis of its assumptions is essential. Review of the manuals as well as conceptually-oriented literature on DSM-III, DSM-III-R, and DSM-IV reveals that the authors of these classifications have paid little attention to the explicit and implicit value commitments made by the classifications. The response to DSM criticisms and controversy has often been to incorporate more scientific diversity into the classification, instead of careful (...) inquiry and assessment of the principal values that drive the nosologic process. Implications for psychiatric science and future DSM classifications are discussed. Keywords: DSM-III, DSM-III-R, DSM-IV, Psychiatric Classification, values CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

One of this century’s most important philosophers here focuses on Plato’s _Protagoras, Phaedo, Republic, _and _Philebus_ and on Aristotle’s three moral treatises to show the essential continuity of Platonic and Aristotelian reflection on the nature of the good. “Well translated and usefully annotated by P. Christopher Smith…. Gadamer’s book exhibits a broad and grand vision as well as a great love for the Greek thinkers.”—Alexander Nehemas, _New York__ Times Book Review_ “The translation is highly readable. The translator’s introduction and frequent (...) annotation provide special elucidation on points of doctrinal complexity, giving ample references to other works and rival interpretations.”—_Choice_ “This book is an important addition to the steadily growing number of Gadamer’s works available in English. In it, we see Gadamer at his best, that is, engaged in the practice of interpreting important texts from the philosophical tradition, and also at his most controversial…. I enthusiastically recommend this…challenging book as one that rewards all efforts to understand the important claims it makes on its readers.”—Francis J. Ambrosio, _International Philosophy Quarterly_ Hans-Georg Gadamer is professor of philosophy emeritus at the University of Heidelberg. He is the author of numerous books, including two others translated by Smith: _Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato _and _Hegel’s Dialectic: Five Hermeneutical Studies._. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 253 Histoire de la Philosophic. Tome IV. Par Albert Rivaud. Philosophic Franqaise et Philosophic Anglaise de 1700 ~ 1830. (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1962. Coll. "Logos." Pp. xxiii + 594. NF 22.) It is a disservice to the memory of a scholar to publish his unfinished writings, though one can understand how friendship induces his colleagues and pupils to do so. In the case of the fourth volume (...) of Rivaud's Histoire de la Philosophic, the disservice is all the greater, since several chapters and parts of chapters have been written not by him but by his associates: Messrs. Rochot on Vauvenargues, Daumas on the Philosophic chimique, Leroy on British and American philosophy, while the chapter on biology after Lamarck has been left in its unfinished and fragmentary state. What Rivaud would have done with these topics cannot be determined now, but surely he would not have thought that 124 pages out of 574 would suffice for a treatment of British and American philosophy, when even such figures as Hyacinthe Bougeant, Jean-Franqois H6nault, Mercier de la Rivi~re, Paul Thiry, Marmontel, and Hemsterhuis are given at least a few paragraphs each. As far as British and American students are concerned, Book II which treats of their intellectual predecessors might well have been omitted. Not only is the treatment skimpy, but there occur from time to time errors of fact which, though perhaps trivial in themselves, shake one's faith in the historian's accuracy. To refer to but one or two examples, we are surprised to learn that the Island of Rhode Island is one of the Bermudas (p. 484), that Berkeley's two children were born in Bermuda (ibid.), that Hume never once mentioned the poems of Shakespeare or Milton (p. 512), which would seem to indicate that the author had never read Hume's History of England, and that (p. 557) John Galsworthy was a grand romancier du XIXe si~cle. Such errors are made by the best of us nor should I cast the first stone, were it not that this is the type of history of philosophy which goes in heavily for biographical detail. Each man mentioned is given a full biography, sometimes running on for pages in small print and including details which are diverting enough in themselves and which are perhaps important if they illuminate the ideas of the men whose lives they depict. But Rivaud gives one no indication of how, for instance, Rousseau's musical interests affected his philosophy, of why Grimm (p. 197) who ne s'intdresse gu~re gzla philosophic should be given even a paragraph, of what influence the various mistresses and wives of the philosophers mentioned actually had upon their lovers' ideas. A biographical history of philosophy, if done by a psychologist, might be extremely revealing of the procedures of the intellect. But these sketches which precede the expositions of philosophical theses seem irrelevant except insofar as they give us dates and education. One can understand 254 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY that Descartes' having studied with the Jesuits at LaFl~che is a useful bit of information, for it may in part explain why he refused to accept any doctrine which contradicted the teachings of the Church. But would Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion have been different if he had not had his quarrel with Rousseau? If so, to what extent? In spite of these criticisms, the book has the value of a good reference book. Not only are there copious references to the leading intellectuals of eighteenth -century France, but among them are included natural scientists who normally do not figure in histories of philosophy. Such men as Lavoisier, Buffon, Lamarck, Geoff-roy Saint-HiIaire and Cuvier were philosophical in their aims and their philosophical ideas modified their scientific investigations just as their scientific discoveries reacted upon their philosophical thinking. For that we can congratulate ourselves. It would be absurd, for instance, to omit men like Clerk Maxwell, Willard Gibbs, Einstein, Darwin, and Agassiz, Freud and Jung, L. H. Morgan, Franz Boas, and Lester Ward in an account of the role of philosophy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. To the extent that Rivaud has coupled men... (shrink)

Sontag has tried to produce a very simplified, clear exposition of Kierkegaard's thought in terms of brief discussions of key concepts. Although he manages to present the kaleidoscopic perspectives of Kierkegaard's indirect writings and his direct communications, the outcome, ironically, is not the lucidity that is intended. Without charging Sontag with not writing a book he did not, on this occasion, intend to write, one may question both his method and some omissions. Following a brief outline of Kierkegaard's life, a (...) number of short sections are devoted to such dichotomies as "Aesthetic/ethical," "Certainty/change," "Individual/the Mass," "Necessity/possibility," etc. Throughout these sections Sontag introduces references to various works in an unobtrusive way and conveys a sense of what Kierkegaard was up to. There is a long section on The Book on Adler that calls attention to Kierkegaard's reversal of standpoint in relation to his previous writings that would surely leave a beginning reader in a state of confusion. In an excellent summary of Kierkegaard's ideas in "Repetition/freedom" the importance of "willed repetition" for the becoming of the self and for religious existence is lucidly presented. The repetitious nature of the themes in Kierkegaard's writings is mentioned and the boredom that results from "aesthetic" repetition is shown. Even here, however, the intimate relation between repetition and "Possibility/actuality" is not emphasized even though Kierkegaard links them in his Journals and Papers. Surprisingly, Sontag does not appeal to the Papers in his exposition even though they contain some of Kierkegaard's most dramatic and pithy statements about his thought, his intentions and what it means to "become a Christian." The method of explication that Sontag uses is sometimes misused. In "Truth/ Authority" we are told about the importance of Kierkegaard's unusual idea of "lived truth," but there is no mention of the central notion of "subjective truth" in a place which cries out for a discussion of it. In "Inwardness/communication" subjective truth is alluded to but not treated in any detail. In the section entitled "Individual/ The Mass" Sontag misses a good opportunity to reach those approaching Kierkegaard for the first time by not referring to the many shot-gun blasts against "communism," against "the crowd" and the leveling of values and communications in what Kierkegaard first called "the mass" in the Papers and Journals. Despite these quibbles, Sontag does certainly convey the meaning of Kierkegaard's existentialism and is very faithful to "what Kierkegaard said." Although A Kierkegaard Handbook is not the best "introduction" to the ironic Dane, it is clearly a useful one which makes many attempts to state Kierkegaard's views in the plainest language.--George J. Stack, SUNY at Brockport. (shrink)

Rooted in a desire to conduct ethical research with Indigenous People rather than on them, this autoethnographic document-based case study relies on anti-colonial praxis and places the Navajo and non-Navajo perspectives of two researchers navigating the Navajo Nation Human Research Review Board’s (NNHRRB) processes for conducting human subjects research within Kirkness and Barnhardt’s (1991) “Four Rs” framework of respect, relevance, reciprocity, and responsibility. This case analyzes and presents thematic assertions drawn from entries of both authors’ reflective journals they kept (...) while working through the NNHRRB’s process for conducting research. Research findings promise to help other researchers develop research ethics and promote sovereignty for Tribes and Indigenous communities. (shrink)

Tertium Organum, published in Russian in 1912, is the most interesting and important of these works. The title is explained as meaning that the book is about "the third canon of thought," namely the mystical, which has always existed, although for us moderns it appears as a third method after the deductive and inductive methods described by Aristotle and Bacon. The English translation by Nicholas Bessaraboff and Claude Bragdon was published by Manas Press in 1920, and again, revised, by Knopf (...) in 1922. The simplicity of the literary style, the short sentences and paragraphs, and the clarity with which subtle arguments are developed show the influence of the author's training as a journalist. In content Tertium Organum is a systematic treatise on epistemology. The first seven chapters are an objective survey of the physical world. The author considers that the most basic problem of physics is why space has just three dimensions, and he concludes that it is impossible to find any answer to this question in an objective study of the world of space and time. Consequently, taking as a clue Kant's thesis that space and time are forms of intuition, and inferring from this that "we bear within ourselves the conditions of our space," he approaches the problem subjectively. In the following chapters he endeavors to show how our mode of consciousness makes space three-dimensional, how other modes of consciousness would, and for other beings do, make it of fewer or more dimensions, and how these different spaces are related to each other. The next to last chapter is a collection of selections from mystical literature, with comments, and the concluding chapter considers the "cosmic consciousness" with has for its object a world of four dimensions. An appendix gives a table showing the space and time sense, psychology, logic, mathematics, forms of action, morals, forms of consciousness, forms of knowledge, and forms of science characteristic of, as well as the different beings characterized by, four "forms of the manifestation of consciousness.". (shrink)

In this economically expressed study of Sartre, attention is focused on one of the central themes that runs through Sartre's variegated perspectives on the human condition. Busch is concerned with tracing--from The Transcendence of the Ego to the voluminous The Idiot of the Family--the apparent "turn" in Sartre's thought from a radical theory of the absolute freedom of consciousness to the admission of the power and the various forms of la force des choses. Although it would have added some weapons (...) to his armamentaria, the author prescinds any appeal to the second volume of Critique de la raison dialectique. (shrink)

Following upon his Soundings in St. Augustine's Imagination, O'Connell is sensitive to the "image-clusters"--images moving on and into each other--found in the discursive language of St. Augustine's classic work. In the Confessions, the overarching image of conversion he finds to be wayfaring, departure, being in the wrong direction or upside down, and return. It is the image of the prodigal rising up and returning to his father. Along the way, the author teases out the meaning of many a controverted passage (...) from the rhetor's terse Latin style. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.1 (2004) 101-103 [Access article in PDF] Cees Leijenhorst. The Mechanization of Aristotelianism: The Late Aristotelian Setting of Thomas Hobbes' Natural Philosophy. Leiden: Brill, 2002. Pp. xv + 242. Cloth, $97.00. Cees Leijenhorst, the young Dutch scholar and student of the late Karl Schuhmann, has written the most important book on Thomas Hobbes's natural science since Frithiof Brandt's Thomas Hobbes's Mechanical Conception of (...) Nature of 1928. This is true despite the undoubted brilliance and success of Leviathan and the Air Pump, published in 1985 by Simon Schaffer and Steven Shapin. Why this is so, it will be the burden of this review to clarify.Writing in the modern historiographical tradition known as contextualism, long associated with John Pocock, Quentin Skinner and Richard Tuck, Leijenhorst seeks to locate Hobbes within the horizon of that current of natural thought that began with Aristotle, led through antiquity and then flourished and came to predominate with the West's recovery of the Stagirite in the late Middle Ages. The course of so long a filiation of ideas cannot be the subject of a book whose length is under 250 pages, though a companion collection of essays on Aristotle and his long progeny, edited by Leijenhorst and others, has also appeared [End Page 101] (to be reviewed in the Journal). Instead, Leijenhorst focuses on the last, self-avowed inheritors and developers of that tradition, known as late Aristotelianism, though precisely how to define that tradition is itself problematized.Classically trained, Hobbes was well equipped to study Aristotle directly in Greek, without intermediaries; he early on published a translation of Thucydides. Still, Leijenhorst's concern is less to draw Hobbes closer to Aristotle than to relate him both to his immediate intellectual predecessors and to his own contemporaries, though, in each case, for different reasons. In the former, Leijenhorst convincingly argues that, as Gilson showed for Descartes, Hobbes assumed, drew upon, adopted and modified prevailing Aristotelian doctrines, even as he famously condemned their ancient author. And, Hobbes's sources, as they themselves interpreted, rejected and modified the views of their forebear, were rather various, including such writers of manuals as Bartholomaeus Anglicus and John Case, as well as others whose interests and directions were more varied and less conservative, including Scaliger, Rudolph Goclenius and Otto Casmann.A common source for both these strains of late Aristotelianism was the great stream of commentaries produced largely by members of the Jesuit Order from the middle of the sixteenth century onward, including Franciscus Toletus, Antonio Rubio, Petrus Fonseca, as well as Franciscus Suarez and members of other orders.This stream of thought also fed into the confessional strife of post-Reformation Europe, so that both Lutherans and Calvinists developed their own Aristotelianisms. One of the most striking conclusions of Leijenhorst's work is that, in characterizing both Aristotle's and his own metaphysics (or philosophia prima) as a universal science rather than as a particular theological science, Hobbes is an heir of this "Protestant ontology."Finally, Hobbes looked to the great names of natural-scientific thinking in sixteenth-century Italy, Zabarella, Pomponazzi, Fracastoro, Telesio and Campanella. Like Hobbes, these latter authors, "though vehemently anti-Aristotelian," nonetheless "exploited kinematic, empiricist and materialist tendencies found within the Aristotelian tradition itself, particularly in the School of Padua" (11).Such investigations into sources and lines of argument illuminate relations with predecessors and contemporaries in ways that social-constructivist accounts, like those of Schaeffer and Shapin and of the Edinburgh sociologist of knowledge David Bloor, may not accomplish. The author gives one instance of direct conflict between the results of that school and his own contextualism which illustrates this larger point.In his fight with Boyle, Hobbes is at pains to deny the existence of the void. Though he came to reject it rather late in his scientific thinking, the void, Schaffer and Shapin suggest, served to give space to the "incorporeal substances," similar to the scholastics' "abstract essences," upon which the latter erected the "kingdom of darkness" that... (shrink)

Objectives Medical futility at the end of life is a growing challenge to medicine. The goals of the authors were to elucidate how clinicians define futility, when they perceive life-sustaining treatment (LST) to be futile, how they communicate this situation and why LST is sometimes continued despite being recognised as futile. Methods The authors reviewed ethics case consultation protocols and conducted semi-structured interviews with 18 physicians and 11 nurses from adult intensive and palliative care units at a tertiary hospital in (...) Germany. The transcripts were subjected to qualitative content analysis. Results Futility was identified in the majority of case consultations. Interviewees associated futility with the failure to achieve goals of care that offer a benefit to the patient's quality of life and are proportionate to the risks, harms and costs. Prototypic examples mentioned are situations of irreversible dependence on LST, advanced metastatic malignancies and extensive brain injury. Participants agreed that futility should be assessed by physicians after consultation with the care team. Intensivists favoured an indirect and stepwise disclosure of the prognosis. Palliative care clinicians focused on a candid and empathetic information strategy. The reasons for continuing futile LST are primarily emotional, such as guilt, grief, fear of legal consequences and concerns about the family's reaction. Other obstacles are organisational routines, insufficient legal and palliative knowledge and treatment requests by patients or families. Conclusion Managing futility could be improved by communication training, knowledge transfer, organisational improvements and emotional and ethical support systems. The authors propose an algorithm for end-of-life decision making focusing on goals of treatment. (shrink)

During the past few years, Smart has published a series of provocative articles in which he has argued for a "tough-Minded" scientific materialism. In this book, Which makes use of the articles and combines them with new material, He boldly defends the possibility of a synthetic philosophy which attempts to think clearly and comprehensively about the nature of the universe and the principles of conduct. Starting with a critique of phenomenalism, He argues that the physicist's picture of the world is (...) truer than that of the language of ordinary common sense. Continuing with a discussion of biology, Secondary qualities, And consciousness, He stoutly maintains that man can be understood as a physical mechanism in a nonanthropocentric space-Time world. (rm). (shrink)

The Century of Taste offers an exposition and critical account of the central figures in the early development of the modern philosophy of art. Dickie traces the modern theory of taste from its first formulation by Francis Hutcheson, to blind alleys followed by Alexander Gerard and Archibald Allison, its refinement and complete expression by Hume, and finally to its decline in the hands of Kant. In a clear and straightforward style, Dickie offers sympathetic discussions of the theoretical aims (...) of these philosophers, but does not shy from controversy--pointing out, for instance, the obscurities and inconsistencies in Kant's aesthetic writings, and arguing that they have been overrated. (shrink)

George Dickie; Symposium: Monroe Beardsley's Legacy in Aesthetics EDITED BY MICHAEL WREEN AND DONALD CALLEN: The Origin of Beardsley's Aesthetics, The Journal o.

Intellectual contribution in the form of authorship is a fundamental component of the academic career. While research has addressed questionable and harmful authorship practices, there has largely been no discussion of how U.S. academic institutions interpret and potentially mitigate such practices through the use of institution-level authorship policies. To gain a better understanding of the role of U.S. academic institutions in authorship practices, we conducted a systematic review of publicly available authorship policies for U.S. doctoral institutions, focusing on components (...) such as specification of authorship criteria, recommendations for discussing authorship, dispute resolution processes, and guidance for faculty-student collaborations. We found that only 24% of the 266 Carnegie R1 and R2 Universities had publicly available authorship policies. Within these policies, the majority specified criteria for authorship, but provided less guidance about actual processes for applying such criteria, handling authorship disputes, and managing faculty-student author teams. Further, we found that any discussion of dispute resolution practices typically lacked specificity. Recommendations grounded in these findings are offered for institutions to leverage their ability to guide the authorship process by adopting an authorship policy that acknowledges disciplinary diversity while still offering substantive guidance. (shrink)

_ _ _Art and Value_ focuses on the questions of history, methods, and nature of art theories, and on the value and evaluation of art. It serves as a valuable primer to aesthetics, as well as a summary and extension of Dickie's contribution to the field.