Robbins Library Notes

Good morning, readers!

The September 2009 book reviews from Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews are available.

The reviewed books cover Hannah Arendt, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Ernst Cassirer, David Kaplan, Rene Descartes, David Hume, Socrates, Stephen Stich, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Topics covered include aesthetics, Asian philosophy, ancient philosophy, moral & political philosophy, and time, among others.

Are any worth considering for the Robbins collection?

Good morning, readers!

For your reading pleasure this week:

The new May 2009 reviews from Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews are now available.   There’s quite a variety of philosophers and topics covered this month — Hegel, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, al-Kindi, Simplicius, Epictetus, the liar paradox, the will, aesthetics, and more.  Are any of these worth considering for the Robbins collection?

I came across this article, “The Case for Working With Your Hands,” by Matthew Crawford, several days ago, via Brian Leiter and a few friends posting it on Facebook.  It’s a very thoughtful and profound essay, on work, education, and where our culture places its priorities.

Next week, we’re back to our regular Friday posting schedule.  See you then!

Good morning, readers!

Here is the list of some upcoming colloquia and a conference:

• Catherine Wilson (The Graduate Center, CUNY) will be presenting “Epicureanism and Early Modern Philosophy” as part of the Harvard Workshop in Early Modern Philosophy on 1 May 2009

• John Campbell (UC Berkeley) will deliver the 2009 Whitehead Lectures on 7 & 8 May 2009. The first talk will be “Causation in the Mind 1:  Interventions on the Mind” and will be held in Emerson 105; the second will be “Causation in the Mind 2:  Control Variables,” and will be held in Emerson 210

• The 2009 New England Conference in Early Modern Philosophy will be held on 29-31 May 2009.  A program for the conference is now available.

Good morning, readers!

Here are the March 2009 Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews:

Moral & Political Philosophy

• Wendell Wallach, Colin Allen, Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong, Reviewed by Peter Danielson, University of British Columbia
• Louis M. Guenin, The Morality of Embryo Use, Reviewed by Alfonso Gómez-Lobo, Georgetown University/Catholic University of Chile
• Joseph Heath, Following the Rules: Practical Reasoning and Deontic Constraint, Reviewed by Joseph Mendola, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• Ishtiyaque Haji, Incompatibilism’s Allure: Principal Arguments for Incompatibilism, Reviewed by Matt King, Carleton College
• Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (ed.), Moral Psychology, Volume 1: The Evolution of Morality: Adaptations and Innateness, Reviewed by Jon Tresan, University of Florida
• Eric Gregory, Politics and the Order of Love: An Augustinian Ethic of Democratic Citizenship, Reviewed by John von Heyking, University of Lethbridge
• Eckhart Arnold, Explaining Altruism: A Simulation-Based Approach and its Limits, Reviewed by Kevin J.S. Zollman, Carnegie Mellon University
• John Deigh, Emotions, Values, and the Law, Reviewed by Bryce Huebner, Tufts University

Metaphysics

• Michael J. Almeida, The Metaphysics of Perfect Beings, Reviewed by Joshua Hoffman, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
• Francis A. Grabowski III, Plato, Metaphysics and the Forms, Reviewed by Andrew Mason, University of Edinburgh
• Robert Sokolowski, Phenomenology of the Human Person, Reviewed by Lilian Alweiss, Trinity College Dublin
• Kevin Timpe, Free Will: Sourcehood and Its Alternatives, Reviewed by C. P. Ragland, Saint Louis University

Epistemology

• Søren Overgaard, Wittgenstein and Other Minds: Rethinking Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity with Wittgenstein, Levinas, and Husserl, Reviewed by Bettina Bergo, Université de Montréal
• Shaun Gallagher, Brainstorming: Views and Interviews on the Mind, Reviewed by Mark Okrent, Bates College
• Georg Brun, Ulvi Doguoglu, Dominique Kuenzle (eds.), Epistemology and Emotions, Reviewed by Craig DeLancey, State University of New York at Oswego

Aesthetics

• Cynthia Willett, Irony in the Age of Empire: Comic Perspectives on Democracy and Freedom, Reviewed by Bernard G. Prusak, Villanova University
• Charles O. Nussbaum, The Musical Representation: Meaning, Ontology, and Emotion, Reviewed by Jenefer Robinson, University of Cincinnati
• Dan Flory, Philosophy, Black Film, Film Noir, Reviewed by Angela Curran, Carleton College

Philosophers & History of Philosophy

• Anthony Kenny, From Empedocles to Wittgenstein: Historical Essays in Philosophy, Reviewed by Owen Goldin, Marquette University
• W. J. Mander, The Philosophy of John Norris, Reviewed by Lawrence Nolan, Marquette University, and June Yang, Grossmont College
• Michel Foucault, Introduction à l’Anthropologie (published in one volume with Foucault’s translation of Emmanuel Kant’s Anthropologie d’un point de vue pragmatique), Reviewed by Béatrice Han-Pile, University of Essex
• Oliver Feltham, Alain Badiou: Live Theory, Reviewed by Todd May, Clemson University
• S. J. McGrath, Heidegger: A (Very) Critical Introduction, Reviewed by Charles Guignon, University of South Florida
• M. Jamie Ferreira, Kierkegaard, Reviewed by Edward F. Mooney, Syracuse University
• Jeremy Wanderer, Robert Brandom Reviewed by Christopher Gauker, University of Cincinnati
• Catherine Wilson, Epicureanism at the Origins of Modernity, Reviewed by Margaret J. Osler, University of Calgary

Philosophy of Science

• Stephan Hartmann, Carl Hoefer, Luc Bovens (eds.), Nancy Cartwright’s Philosophy of Science, Reviewed by Mathias Frisch, University of Maryland, College Park
• Bas C. van Fraassen, Scientific Representation: Paradoxes of Perspective, Reviewed by Gabriele Contessa, Carleton University

Philosophy of Literature

• Peter Lamarque, The Philosophy of Literature, Reviewed by Robert J. Yanal, Wayne State University

Asian Philosophy

• Karyn L. Lai, An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy, Reviewed by Manyul Im, Fairfield University
• Mengzi, Bryan W. Van Norden (trans.), Mengzi: With Selections from Traditional Commentaries, Reviewed by Hui-chieh Loy, National University of Singapore
• Lin Ma, Heidegger on East-West Dialogue: Anticipating the Event, Reviewed by Eric Sean Nelson, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Philosophy of Religion

• Paul K. Moser (ed.), Jesus and Philosophy: New Essays, Reviewed by Michael Rea, University of Notre Dame
• Richard Swinburne, Was Jesus God?, Reviewed by Phillip Wiebe, Trinity Western University

Good morning, readers!

Here are the February 2009 reviews from Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews:

Philosophy of Law

• Peter Goodrich, Florian Hoffmann, Michel Rosenfeld, Cornelia Vismann (eds.), Derrida and Legal Philosophy, Reviewed by Douglas Litowitz, Magnetar Capital LLC

Moral & Political Philosophy

• Kelvin Knight, Aristotelian Philosophy: Ethics and Politics from Aristotle to MacIntyre, Reviewed by Peter C. Meilaender, Houghton College
• Charles Larmore, The Autonomy of Morality, Reviewed by Richard Kraut, Northwestern University
• Jennifer S. Hawkins, Ezekiel J. Emanuel (eds.), Exploitation and Developing Countries: The Ethics of Clinical Research, Reviewed by David DeGrazia, George Washington University
• Christopher Woodard, Reasons, Patterns, and Cooperation, Reviewed by Rob Lawlor, University of Leeds
• Hilde Lindemann, Marian Verkerk, Margaret Urban Walker (eds.), Naturalized Bioethics: Toward Responsible Knowing and Practice, Reviewed by Rosemarie Tong, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
• Jon Miller, Rahul Kumar (eds.), Reparations: Interdisciplinary Inquiries, Reviewed by Bernard Boxill, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Christopher Bennett, The Apology Ritual: A Philosophical Theory of Punishment, Reviewed by Gabriel S. Mendlow, Yale, Law School and Department of Philosophy
• Bob Brecher, Torture and the Ticking Bomb, Reviewed by C.A.J. Coady, University of Melbourne
• Michael J. Murray, Nature Red in Tooth and Claw: Theism and the Problem of Animal Suffering, Reviewed by Mylan Engel Jr., Northern Illinois University
• Michael Thompson, Life and Action: Elementary Structures of Practice and Practical Thought, Reviewed by Paul Hurley, Claremont McKenna College

Philosophers and History of Philosophy

• Penelope Deutscher, The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir: Ambiguity, Conversion, Resistance, Reviewed by Gail Weiss, The George Washington University
• Michael Della Rocca, Spinoza, Reviewed by Michael LeBuffe, Texas A&M University
• Daniel Garber, Béatrice Longuenesse (eds.), Kant and the Early Moderns, Reviewed by Andrew Janiak, Duke University
• Katherin Rogers, Anselm on Freedom, Reviewed by Thomas Williams, University of South Florida
• John Preston (ed.), Wittgenstein and Reason, Reviewed by Daniel D. Hutto, University of Hertfordshire
• Robert Mayhew, Plato: Laws 10, Reviewed by Nathan Powers, The University at Albany (SUNY)
• Elizabeth S. Radcliffe (ed.), A Companion to Hume, Reviewed by James A. Harris, University of St. Andrews
• Stewart Candlish, The Russell/Bradley Dispute and its Significance for Twentieth-Century Philosophy, Reviewed by James Levine, Trinity College, Dublin
• Diane Perpich, The Ethics of Emmanuel Levinas, Reviewed by Lisa Guenther, Vanderbilt University
• Frederick C. Beiser (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hegel and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy, Reviewed by Robert M. Wallace, www.robertmwallace.com
• Henry E. Allison, Custom and Reason in Hume: A Kantian Reading of the First Book of the Treatise, Reviewed by Karl Schafer, University of Pittsburgh
• Todd May, The Political Thought of Jacques Rancière: Creating Equality, Reviewed by Miguel Vatter, Universidad Diego Portales
• Maria Rosa Antognazza, Leibniz: An Intellectual Biography, Reviewed by Gregory Brown, University of Houston

Critical Theory

• Nikolas Kompridis, Critique and Disclosure: Critical Theory between Past and Future, Reviewed by Fred Dallmayr, University of Notre Dame

Philosophy of Language

• Clive Cazeaux. Metaphor and Continental Philosophy: From Kant to Derrida, Reviewed by Jeffrey Powell, Marshall University
• Jerry A. Fodor, LOT 2: The Language of Thought Revisited, Reviewed by Mark Wilson, University of Pittsburgh

Aesthetics

• Yuriko Saito, Everyday Aesthetics, Reviewed by Tom Leddy, San José State University
• Scott Walden (ed.), Photography and Philosophy: Essays on the Pencil of Nature, Reviewed by John Andrew Fisher, University of Colorado at Boulder

Perception

• Paul Coates. The Metaphysics of Perception: Wilfrid Sellars, Critical Realism and the Nature of Experience, Reviewed by Matthew Burstein, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown

Personal Identity

• Simon J. Evnine, Epistemic Dimensions of Personhood, Reviewed by Krista Lawlor, Stanford University
• David Shoemaker, Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction, Reviewed by Amy Kind, Claremont McKenna College
• Neil Feit, Belief about the Self: A Defense of the Property Theory of Content, Reviewed by Cara Spencer, Howard University

Philosophy of Religion

• Michael Ayers (ed.), Rationalism, Platonism and God, Reviewed by Yitzhak Y. Melamed, Johns Hopkins University

Logic

• Douglas Walton, Chris Reed, Fabrizio Macagno, Argumentation Schemes, Reviewed by Leo Groarke, Wilfrid Laurier University

Good morning, readers!

Here are the January 2009 Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.  Though collection development is on hold for the time being at Robbins, are any of these worth considering for purchase at a later date?

Aesthetics

• Alexander Nehamas, Only a Promise of Happiness: The Place of Beauty in a World of Art, Reviewed by Martin Donougho, University of South Carolina-Columbia
• Noël Carroll, On Criticism, Reviewed by Alan H. Goldman, College of William & Mary
• Richard Eldridge, Literature, Life, and Modernity, Reviewed by Robert Pippin, University of Chicago
• Garry L. Hagberg (ed.), Art and Ethical Criticism, Reviewed by Richard Eldridge, Swarthmore College
• John Gibson, Wolfgang Huemer, Luca Pocci (eds.), A Sense of the World: Essays on Fiction, Narrative, and Knowledge, Reviewed by Allen Speight, Boston University

Philosophers

• Michael Frauchiger, Wilhelm K. Essler (eds.). Representation, Evidence, and Justification: Themes from Suppes, Reviewed by Kenny Easwaran, University of Southern California/Australian National University
• Robert Wicks, Schopenhauer, Reviewed by Robert Guay, Binghamton University
• Thomas Parker, Volition, Rhetoric, and Emotion in the Work of Pascal, Reviewed by Michael Moriarty, Queen Mary, University of London
• Andrew Janiak, Newton as Philosopher, Reviewed by Richard Arthur, McMaster University

Metaphysics

• Joanna Hodge, Derrida on Time, Reviewed by Linnell Secomb, University of Greenwich
• Jacqueline Mariña, Transformation of the Self in the Thought of Friedrich Schleiermacher, Reviewed by C. Jeffery Kinlaw, McMurry University
• Marc A. Hight, Idea and Ontology: An Essay in Early Modern Metaphysics of Ideas, Reviewed by Monte Cook, University of Oklahoma

Epistemology

• Daniel N. Robinson, Consciousness and Mental Life, Reviewed by Sam Coleman, University of Hertfordshire
• Sanford C. Goldberg, Anti-Individualism: Mind and Language, Knowledge and Justification, Reviewed by Jonathan E. Adler, Brooklyn College/CUNY Graduate Center
• Marc Djaballah, Kant, Foucault, and Forms of Experience, Reviewed by Johanna Oksala, University of Dundee

History of Philosophy

• Pauliina Remes, Neoplatonism, Reviewed by Peter Adamson, King’s College London
• Daniel O. Dahlstrom, Philosophical Legacies: Essays on the Thought of Kant, Hegel, and Their Contemporaries, Reviewed by James R. Walker, Union College

Moral & Political Philosophy

• Christopher O. Tollefsen, Biomedical Research and Beyond: Expanding the Ethics of Inquiry, Reviewed by John McMillan, University of Hull
• David Owen, Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morality, Reviewed by Peter Poellner, University of Warwick
• Ronna Burger, Aristotle’s Dialogue with Socrates: On the Nicomachean Ethics, Reviewed by Steven Skultety, University of Mississippi
• Raymond Geuss, Philosophy and Real Politics, Reviewed by Thomas Hurka, University of Toronto
• Tamsin Shaw, Nietzsche’s Political Skepticism, Reviewed by Brian Leiter, University of Chicago
• Mark E. Button, Contract, Culture, and Citizenship: Transformative Liberalism from Hobbes to Rawls, Reviewed by Anna Stilz, Princeton University
• Stephen R. Brown, Moral Virtue and Nature: A Defense of Ethical Naturalism, Reviewed by Emer O’Hagan, University of Saskatchewan
• Philip Pettit, Made with Words: Hobbes on Language, Mind, and Politics, Reviewed by Alan Nelson and Matthew Priselac, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Philosophy of Law

• Larry Alexander, Emily Sherwin, Demystifying Legal Reasoning, Reviewed by Dan Priel, University of Warwick

Philosophy of Religion

• Adam C. English, The Possibility of Christian Philosophy: Maurice Blondel at the Intersection of Theology and Philosophy, Reviewed by Oliva Blanchette, Boston College

Philosophy of Science

• David Bostock, Space, Time, Matter, and Form: Essays on Aristotle’s Physics, Reviewed by Inna Kupreeva, University of Edinburgh

Good morning, readers!

Here are the latest podcasts from Philosophy Bites:

• Raymond Tallis on Parmenides
• M.M. McCabe on the Paradox of Inquiry
• Chandran Kukathas on Genocide
• Kate Soper on Alternative Hedonism

Enjoy!

Good morning, readers!

We will be having four visiting professors in the Department of Philosophy during Spring term 2009.  I am listing them below, with links to the courses which they will be teaching.

• Talbot M. Brewer (University of Virginia)
  • PHIL 175. Ethical Theory
  • PHIL 278x. Virtue Ethics
• Herman De Dijn (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)
  • PHIL 124. Spinoza
• Matti Eklund (Cornell University)
  • PHIL 148. Philosophy of Mathematics
  • PHIL 263. Metaontology
• Mi-Kyoung Lee (University of Colorado, Boulder)
  • PHIL 7. Intro to Ancient Philosophy

A tentative syllabus has been posted for Professor De Dijn’s Spinoza course.  I’ve also listed primary texts for Professor Lee’s course, and for Professor Eklund’s Philosophy of Mathematics course.  I will post syllabi, primary texts, and other readings as they become available.

I’m posting this information now, so that Harvard students reading this blog will know about the courses in advance.

At left: “Multiple cloud-to-ground and cloud-to-cloud lightning strokes during night-time.” Source: NOAA.

Good morning, readers!  Happy Monday to you!

A few weeks ago, I received a very interesting request that I want to share with you, because it turned out to be more involved and trickier than I had originally anticipated.  Here’s how the search unfolded…

A patron contacted me, and was interested in learning what ancient philosophers (e.g., Thales, Aristotle, and the like) had called the phenomena of electricity and electromagnetism.  He was curious since the word “electricity” is of relatively recent origin — the Oxford English Dictionary lists the first use of the word at around 1646 — even though these two phenomena were well-known in antiquity from observations of static electricity generated by amber and lodestone.   Armed with this information, I began to plan my search.

For the reader’s clarification: all of the text that follows in bold font are steps from my Searching 101: Guidelines post, to highlight the importance of focusing on the how of searching, i.e., the method of searching.

First off, what is the question? The question is, simply: what word or words did the ancient philosophers use to describe the phenomena of electricity and electromagnetism?  That’s fairly straightforward, and doesn’t require too much additional clarification.

Next, what search terms come to mind? “History,” “electricity,” “electromagnetism,” “Greek(s),” and “Thales” come to mind.  Also, knowing that classical discussions of electricity and electromagnetism arose out of observations of static electricity created by rubbing amber on cloth and of lodestone, we could add the terms “amber” and “lodestone” to the search as well.  Variants and truncated forms of these words should be considered, too, as part of the Synonym Game.

Thirdly, where should we look first? It’s generally best to start searching in a narrow space, and then broaden out the search.  As you read through where I looked, hopefully you will get a sense for this practice of applying Ockham’s Razor.

The first place I checked was Greek Thought: a Guide to Classical Knowledge, edited by Jacques Brunschwig and Geoffrey E.R. Lloyd (Robbins Philosophy DF78 .S2813 2000), as this is usually a great source for information on the classical world.  However, none of the entries discussed views on electricity in the ancient world.  Nor did any of the encyclopedias that I consulted next — the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, or the Encyclopedia of Philosophy.  Now was I getting intrigued.  None of these big sources were mentioning anything.

This omission isn’t completely surprising, given that the question focuses more on history of science than it does on philosophy. Nonetheless, I found it strange to find not even a passing reference to Thales, or to Aristotle, whom I would expect have something to say on the topic.

At this point, I decided to look in HOLLIS, to see what histories of science or histories of the science of electricity might be available.  First, I tried searching “electricity” and “history” as title words in the Expanded Search screen, but turned up very little.  I re-entered these terms, changing the search box to search only subject terms.  The first hit turned out to be the major find of this search:

• Baigrie, B. S. (2007). Electricity and magnetism: a historical perspective. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Baigrie’s book has a great introductory chapter on electricity in the ancient world, as well as a chapter on the 13th century scientist, Peter of Maricourt (sometimes known as “Peter Peregrinus”), who wrote at least one letter, and reportedly a treatise (now lost), on electricity and electromagnetism.  Much of the information that I used to erect the framework of my answer to the patron is drawn from this work.

However, Baigrie’s text was the only recent book that I found that covered the study of electricity and electromagnetism in the ancient world.  Most books, if they even made a passing reference to Thales, treated the study of electricity, and science in general, as beginning only in the early modern era.  Oftentimes, they omitted anything before the 16th century altogether. I’m not sure why this is so, but it is interesting to note.

Next, I decided to search the journals Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Journal of the History of Philosophy, and Journal of the History of Ideas.  I ran into the same results that I did with the books: no references to the ancients, and all references beginning with the early modern era, regardless of how I manipulated the search terms “history,” “electricity,” “Ancients,” “Greeks,” “Thales,” etc.  Moving to broader search engines, like Arts & Humanities Citation Index still turned up nothing relevant.

At this point, I decided that the final stop would be Google Scholar.  Entering in “history” and “electricity” in the advanced search option, and limiting the results to Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities, I turned up two very interesting results, which filled out the missing pieces:

• Benjamin, P. (1898). A history of electricity. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
• Ricker III, H. H. (2005). Magnetism of the Greek Era. The General Science Journal.

The first book was available in electronic format via Google Books, as it is out of copyright. Both gave extensive information about the various views on electricity and electromagnetism in the ancient world, some versions of which lasted well into the 19th century.  And they confirmed each other and what I had learned in Baigrie’s book, all of which triangulated my results.

Finally, I knew when to say when. At this point, I realized that I had answered the question satisfactorily.  I typed up a page of results for my patron, and sent them along.

One thing readers might want to note at the end of this post is that, even for a straightforward question such as I was given, the search become quite complicated and involved, involving a lot of trial and error to track down the requested information.  Oftentimes this happens — what appears to be a simple research question will require a good deal of searching in multiple sources.  So, the moral of the story is: don’t give up too quickly if you don’t find the information right away.  It may just require a little more digging to locate.

What do you think, readers?  Is there another way I might have answered this question?  Another source I might have considered?  Please leave your answers in the comments box…

Good morning, readers!

Here are the latest podcasts from Philosophy Bites.  These podcasts were recorded from mid-August 2008 to mid-October 2008:

• Aaron Ridley on Nietzsche on Art and Truth
• M. M. McCabe on Socratic Method
• Ray Monk on Philosophy and Biography
• Barry C. Smith on Neuroscience
• Adrian Moore on Kant’s Metaphysics
• Peter Cave on Paradoxes
• Christopher Janaway on Nietzsche on Morality
• Anthony Appiah on Experiments in Ethics
• Roger Crisp on Virtue

Just a reminder that I will be out tomorrow.  See you on Monday!