Robbins Library Notes

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!  A good Monday morning to you!

This year is the 10th anniversary of The Matrix.  I’m curious to know your thoughts, good readers, on this piece about the movie.

Also worth considering are the essays in The Matrix and Philosophy: Welcome to the Desert of the Real.

Comment away!

Well, this post isn’t a Question of the Week per se, but it arises from a conversation that I had with a patron several days ago. In the course of our speaking about the patron’s interests, the patron mentioned one in aesthetics, and was curious to learn more about the subject.This field is one about which I know very little — though I’ve lately become intrigued by the sub-field of film as philosophy through reading Stanley Cavell and others. Hence, I should learn a bit more about the field, so that I can have a deeper understanding of the concepts and ideas being bandied about. Also, I wanted to learn what sort of basic resources might be out there, in case my patron comes back and wants to explore the topic in greater depth.

Basic Resources & Persons

So — what resources are out there?

Journals

Off of the top of my head, I mentioned to the patron that we have subscriptions to two journals in this field at Robbins:

• The British Journal of Aesthetics
• The Journal of Aesthetics & Art Criticism

These journals are highly respected, and cover a wide range of topics, from the plastic arts to film and other media, aesthetic perception and experience, and the like. The patron might also want to look at journals focusing on psychology or philosophy of mind for discussions of aesthetic perception, creativity, arts & the emotions, and the like.

Encyclopedias

After thinking about this topic over the last several days, I decided to follow my practice of applying Ockham’s Razor when narrowing down where to look initially for answers. I began looking in some of the most obvious places — viz., encyclopedias of philosophy.

After an hour or so of searching in their pages, I’ve found three encyclopedias that may be of help for getting a basic understanding of aesthetics:

• The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) has a good many entries on various aspects of aesthetics, all of which should probably be examined.
• Likewise, the entries in volume 1 of both the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy and volume 1 of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd edition, are also very illuminating. Not only do they cover the field in general and in several aspects, but they also give a history of aesthetics.

For those who have forgotten, or for those who are new to this blog, I have written about all of these encyclopedias in an earlier post.

Philosophers

From my own study of philosophy, I know that many philosophers have been interested in aesthetics. In no particular order, one could study:

• Immanuel Kant (especially in the Critique of Judgement)
• G.W.F. Hegel
• Monroe Beardsley
• John Dewey
• Theodor W. Adorno
• Nelson Goodman
• Hans-Georg Gadamer
• Arthur Danto
• R.G. Collingwood
• Plato
• Aristotle (for example, in the Poetics)
• Plotinus
• St. Thomas Aquinas

There are many other figures whom one could explore, e.g., some of the 18th German philosophers such as Baumgarten, Schiller, and Herder.

In the list above, I have linked to relevant SEP articles or books that cover the various views of aesthetics of these authors — unfortunately, there are no entries on the aesthetics of Plato, Aristotle, and Hegel, though these are planned, according to the SEP Table of Contents.

Books

Checking the entries in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Encyclopedia of Philosophy reveals a plethora of introductory texts, broken down by historical period or sub-field. I would have to learn more about where my patron’s interests lie before making any recommendations. Also, I would direct my patron to the primary texts on aesthetics written by the philosophers above, e.g., Kant’s Critique of Judgement, or Hegel’s Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics.

Other Resources?

I haven’t looked for any journal articles on aesthetics, because I’m suspecting that there will likely be many. I would probably wait and see if my patron comes back to look for more information before doing a search. If so, I’d likely go to Philosopher’s Index and Arts & Humanities Citation Index first, in order to generate a bibliography, then follow the links therein to Academic Search Premier, JSTOR, and other databases to troll for articles.

There are a number of Web sites on aesthetics — my patron might want to check out:

• American Society for Aesthetics
• Google’s directory of aesthetics
• Open Directory Project’s listing of online resources of aesthetics

Philosophy and Film: An Excursus

I mentioned above my own interest in film and philosophy sparked by reading Stanley Cavell and others. For those interested in this area:

• The podcast from Stephen Mulhall about which I wrote a post a few days ago — on film as philosophy — might be worth listening to.
• The online journal, Film-Philosophy, takes a Continental approach to studying film.
• SEP has an entry, “Philosophy of Film,” which also looks fascinating.
• Finally, the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 64(1), Winter 2006, is entirely devoted to film and philosophy. I especially enjoyed Christopher Grau’s article from this issue, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the Morality of Memory” — you’ll need a Harvard ID and PIN to access the article.

These items are what I have come up with so far. Are there other basic resources that I might have missed and should mention?

For your listening pleasure: here are four new podcasts from Philosophy Bites:

• Stephen Mulhall (Oxford) examines if we can look at film as philosophy.
• Richard Norman (University of Kent) discusses humanism and the possibility of morality without religion or God.
• Richard Bourke (Queen Mary, University of London) gives an historical overview of Edmund Burke and a summary of his thought.
• Angie Hobbs (University of Warwick) explores war and human aggression from Plato’s perspective in the Republic.

Have a great weekend, folks!

Well, art is art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh… now you tell me what you know.

– Groucho Marx, Animal Crackers (1928)

Lest you think the Marx Brothers are unphilosophical, may I direct you to Cavell on Film, and Stanley Cavell’s essay, “Nothing Goes Without Saying: Reading the Marx Brothers”?

My apologies for my silence yesterday. I was home during the snowstorm, watching the world being draped in white.