As the summer winds down, here’s some food for thought:

It would not be too much to say that the passion for originality begins with modern philosophy. Each thinker is intent on developing his own system and contrasting it with previous efforts. One wants a personal stamp on what one proposes: the Bullwinkle theory of knowledge, the Basil Faulty [sic] account of moral evil. There is indeed a lot of originality in modern philosophy, a lot of novelty. Most of it has a very short shelf life, pushed aside by the new and improved. In philosophy, as in the arts, novelty is all too easily come by, but truth is neither new nor old.

– Ralph McInerney, “Philosophia Perennis

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

Good morning, readers!

Here are the March 2009 Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews:

Moral & Political Philosophy

Metaphysics

Epistemology

Aesthetics

Philosophers & History of Philosophy

Philosophy of Science

Philosophy of Literature

Asian Philosophy

Philosophy of Religion

Good morning, readers!  Happy Friday to you!

For those interested in early modern philosophy, the program for the 8th Annual New England Conference in Early Modern Philosophy is now available.

The conference will be held here at Harvard from 29-31 May 2009.  More information about the Conference can be found here.

Also, next week is spring break for Harvard, and I will be away on vacation.  So, no posts next week.  See you when I return on Monday 30 March!

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

Philosophers and History of Philosophy

Critical Theory

Philosophy of Language

Aesthetics

Perception

Personal Identity

Philosophy of Religion

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

Philosophers

Metaphysics

Epistemology

History of Philosophy

Moral & Political Philosophy

Philosophy of Law

Philosophy of Religion

Philosophy of Science

Good morning, readers!

Here are the November 2008 reviews from Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.  Are any worth acquiring for Robbins?

Dean Moyar, Michael Quante (eds.), Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit: A Critical Guide
Reviewed by Jeffrey Church, Duke University

Nathan Widder, Reflections on Time and Politics
Reviewed by Dorothea Olkowski, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

Heather Dyke, Metaphysics and the Representational Fallacy
Reviewed by Matti Eklund, Cornell University

Hans Bernhard Schmid, Katinka Schulte-Ostermann, Nikos Psarros (eds.), Concepts of Sharedness: Essays on Collective Intentionality
Reviewed by Peter Tramel, USMA, West Point

W.J. Waluchow, A Common Law Theory of Judicial Review: The Living Tree
Reviewed by Jeffrey Brand-Ballard, George Washington University

Douglas Walton, Witness Testimony Evidence: Argumentation, Artificial Intelligence, and Law
Reviewed by Michael S. Pardo, University of Alabama

Lewis R. Gordon, An Introduction to Africana Philosophy
Reviewed by Jacoby Adeshei Carter, CUNY: John Jay College

James Griffin, On Human Rights
Reviewed by William J. Talbott, University of Washington

Michael Allen Gillespie, The Theological Origins of Modernity
Reviewed by David Burrell, C.S.C., University of Notre Dame/Uganda Martyrs University, Nkozi

Stewart Goetz, Charles Taliaferro, Naturalism
Reviewed by Paul Draper, Purdue University

Robert Audi, Moral Value and Human Diversity
Reviewed by Diane Jeske, University of Iowa

Maria Cristina Amoretti, Nicla Vassallo (eds.), Knowledge, Language, and Interpretation: On the Philosophy of Donald Davidson
Reviewed by Daniel Laurier, University of Montreal

Hanno Birken-Bertsch, Subreption und Dialektik bei Kant: Der Begriff des Fehlers der Erschleichung in der Philosophie des 18. Jahrhunderts
Reviewed by Riccardo Pozzo, Universitä di Verona

Larry May (ed.). War: Essays in Political Philosophy
Reviewed by Helen Frowe, University of Sheffield

Diane Jeske, Rationality and Moral Theory: How Intimacy Generates Reasons
Reviewed by Simon Keller, University of Melbourne

Paul Weingartner, Omniscience: From a Logical Point of View
Reviewed by Daniel J. Hill, University of Liverpool

John T. Lysaker, Emerson and Self-Culture
Reviewed by Corey McCall, Elmira College

Michele Marsonet, Idealism and Praxis: The Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher
Reviewed by Don Ihde, Stony Brook University

) Montaigne, Descartes, Newton, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Rousseau, Hume, Kant

(From top left:) Montaigne, Descartes, Newton, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Rousseau, Hume, and Kant.

Good morning, readers!

The New England Conference in Early Modern Philosophy will be held here at Harvard on 29-31 May 2009.  Details about the conference are available, as well as a registration form.  Also, there is a Call for Abstracts, if you are interested in submitting a paper for consideration for presentation at this conference.

I’ll post another announcement closer to the conference date.

Good morning, readers, and welcome back after the Labor Day holiday weekend!

A short administrative update: I will be in tomorrow, as my plans have changed.

Now, for our main attraction: here are the Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews from August 2008.  Should any of these be added to the Robbins collection?

Epistemology

History of Philosophy

Philosophy of Law

Philosophy of Science

Philosophy of Religion

  • Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, Reviewed by Michael L. Morgan, Indiana University

Metaphysics

Historiography

Moral & Political Philosophy

Good morning, readers!

Here is the list of the June 2008 reviews from Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.  Do you think any of these should be in the Robbins collection?

Stephen H. Daniel (ed.)
New Interpretations of Berkeley’s Thought
Reviewed by Marc A. Hight, Hampden-Sydney College

Rachel Cooper
Psychiatry and Philosophy of Science
Reviewed by Grant Gillett, University of Otago

Christopher Janaway
Beyond Selflessness: Reading Nietzsche’s Genealogy
Reviewed by Brian Leiter, University of Texas, Austin

Brian J. Braman
Meaning and Authenticity: Bernard Lonergan and Charles Taylor on the Drama of Authentic Human Existence
Reviewed by David Burrell, C.S.C., University of Notre Dame/Uganda Martyrs University, Nkozi

Peter Hylton
Quine
Reviewed by Guido Bonino, Università di Torino

James W. Felt
Aims: A Brief Metaphysics for Today
Reviewed by Oliva Blanchette, Boston College

Cécile Laborde, John Maynor (eds.)
Republicanism and Political Theory
Reviewed by Hans Oberdiek, Swarthmore College

Lambert Zuidervaart
Social Philosophy after Adorno
Reviewed by Hauke Brunkhorst, Universität Flensburg

Theodore Scaltsas, Andrew S. Mason (eds.)
The Philosophy of Epictetus
Reviewed by Brad Inwood, University of Toronto

Julie K. Ward
Aristotle on Homonymy: Dialectic and Science
Reviewed by David Evans, Queen’s University Belfast

Jay F. Rosenberg
Wilfrid Sellars: Fusing the Images
Reviewed by Willem A. deVries, University of New Hampshire

A. C. Grayling
Truth, Meaning and Realism: Essays in the Philosophy of Thought
Reviewed by Alexander Miller, University of Birmingham

Eric Christian Barnes
The Paradox of Predictivism
Reviewed by Clark Glymour, Carnegie Mellon

Thomas Baldwin (ed.)
Reading Merleau-Ponty: On Phenomenology of Perception
Reviewed by Taylor Carman, Barnard College

James R. Hamilton
The Art of Theater
Reviewed by Brian Soucek, University of Chicago

Andrew Bowie
Music, Philosophy, and Modernity
Reviewed by James Currie, University at Buffalo

Theodore Sider, John Hawthorne, Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.)
Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics
Reviewed by Alan Sidelle, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Alexander Bird
Nature’s Metaphysics: Laws and Properties
Reviewed by John W. Carroll, North Carolina State University

Charles L. Griswold
Forgiveness: A Philosophical Exploration
Reviewed by Ernesto V. Garcia, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Robert Young
Medically Assisted Death
Reviewed by John Keown, Georgetown University

Raimo Tuomela
The Philosophy of Sociality: The Shared Point of View
Reviewed by Kenneth Shockley, University at Buffalo, SUNY

Bernd Prien, David P. Schweikard (eds.)
Robert Brandom: Analytic Pragmatist
Reviewed by Bernhard Weiss, University of Cape Town

Terence Cuneo,
The Normative Web: An Argument for Moral Realism
Reviewed by James Lenman, University of Sheffield

Sarah Broadie
Aristotle and Beyond: Essays on Metaphysics and Ethics
Reviewed by Jacob Rosen, New York University

Vincent F. Hendricks, Duncan Pritchard (eds.)
New Waves in Epistemology
Reviewed by Dennis Whitcomb, Western Washington University

Christian Beyer, and Alex Burri (eds.)
Philosophical Knowledge: Its Possibility and Scope
Reviewed by Duncan Pritchard, University of Edinburgh

David L. Hull, Michael Ruse (eds.)
The Cambridge Companion to the Philosophy of Biology
Reviewed by David Depew, University of Iowa

David Lay Williams
Rousseau’s Platonic Enlightenment
Reviewed by Neven Leddy, Magdalen College, Oxford

Jesse Prinz
The Emotional Construction of Morals
Reviewed by Ronald de Sousa, University of Toronto

Immanuel Kant, Günter Zöller (ed.), Robert Louden (ed.)
Anthropology, History and Education
Reviewed by Amelie Rorty, Boston University

Katherine J. Morris
Sartre
Reviewed by William L. McBride, Purdue University

Timothy O’Connor
Theism and Ultimate Explanation: The Necessary Shape of Contingency
Reviewed by Graham Oppy, Monash University

David Luban
Legal Ethics and Human Dignity
Reviewed by Charles Silver, University of Texas at Austin

Igor Primoratz (ed.)
Civilian Immunity in War
Reviewed by Steven P. Lee, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Giorgio Agamben
Profanations
Reviewed by Jeffery Geller, University of North Carolina, Pembroke

Savas L. Tsohatzidis (ed.)
John Searle’s Philosophy of Language: Force, Meaning and Mind
Reviewed by Jesse R. Steinberg, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Martin Carrier, Don Howard, Janet Kourany (eds.)
The Challenge of the Social and the Pressure of Practice: Science and Values Revisited
Reviewed by Miriam Solomon, Temple University

Ginia Schönbaumsfeld
A Confusion of the Spheres: Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein on Philosophy and Religion
Reviewed by Wayne Proudfoot, Columbia University

C. A. J. Coady
Morality and Political Violence
Reviewed by Christine Chwaszcza, European University Institute, San Domenico di Fiesole, Florence

Megan Laverty
Iris Murdoch’s Ethics: A Consideration of her Romantic Vision
Reviewed by Christopher Cordner, University of Melbourne

P.M.S. Hacker
Human Nature: The Categorial Framework
Reviewed by Michael Quante, Universität zu Köln

Allen W. Wood
Kantian Ethics
Reviewed by Noell Birondo, Pomona College