Robbins Library Notes

Good morning, readers!

At right: René Girard

There has been a lot of great philosophical material popping up over the last few days.

For instance: while poking around Bookforum.com yesterday, I found a link to a translation of an interview with the French anthropologist, René Girard. Titled “Intellectuals as Castrators of Meaning,” Girard offers sharp criticisms of modernity in its many forms, from post-modernism to scientism.  While Girard challenges mainly French post-modernism, he also does not spare parts of the analytic tradition as well, especially philosophy of science.

Here is one example of Girard’s critique:

Today there are three areas—nuclear weapons, terrorism, and genetic manipulation—in which man is especially placed in danger:

“The twentieth century was the century of classical nihilism. The twenty-first century will be the century of alluring nihilism. C. S. Lewis was right when he talked about the abolition of man. Michel Foucault added that the abolition of man was becoming a philosophical concept. Today, one can no longer speak of ‘man.’ When Friedrich Nietzsche announced the death of God, in fact he was announcing the death of man. Eugenics is the negation of human rationality. If one considers man as the outcome of mere chance and as crude material for the laboratory, a malleable object to be manipulated, one reaches the point of being able to do anything to man. That ends with the destruction of the fundamental rationality that belongs to the human being. But man cannot be reorganized thus and still remain man.”

The other parts of the interview are worth reading, if only as an alternative view to the modern project.  Nonetheless, I suspect that much of what Girard writes will irritate, annoy, and perhaps even anger some of my readers.

At left: Giambattista Vico (1668-1744)

Those upset by Girard’s critique might remember that he is not alone in challenging the dominant modern project’s paradigms.  Giambattista Vico, for example, offered many critiques of the modern project (and especially of Cartesian thought) in The New Science, On Humanistic Education, and On the Study Methods of Our Time.  Or Leszek Kolakowski’s essay, “Modernity on Endless Trial,” in the collection of the same title.

Sometimes, it’s a good idea to read things with which we might disagree, if only to see where the strengths and weakenesses of our own positions lie.

As for what I think of this interview, I’m not, at this point, suggesting that Girard is completely correct.  I have not read his work extensively, so I do not know how solid his critiques are.  All I will say is that his interview is provocative — to say the least! — and bears further study, nothing more.

What do you think, readers?

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

• Jeffrey Blustein, The Moral Demands of Memory, Reviewed by Sue Campbell, Dalhousie University
• Yujin Nagasawa, God and Phenomenal Consciousness: A Novel Approach to Knowledge Arguments, Reviewed by Uwe Meixner, University of Regensburg
• Sanford C. Goldberg (ed.), Internalism and Externalism in Semantics and Epistemology, Reviewed by Hanseung Kim, University of Seoul
• Simone Gozzano, Francesco Orilia (eds.), Tropes, Universals and the Philosophy of Mind: Essays at the Boundary of Ontology and Philosophical Psychology, Reviewed by Keith Campbell, University of Sydney

History of Philosophy

• Christian Lotz, From Affectivity to Subjectivity: Husserl’s Phenomenology Revisited, Reviewed by A. D. Smith, University of Warwick
• Samantha Frost, Lessons from a Materialist Thinker: Hobbesian Reflections on Ethics and Politics, Reviewed by Stewart Duncan, University of Florida
• Johann Georg Hamann, Writings on Philosophy and Language, Reviewed by Ted Kinnaman, George Mason University
• Douglas Hedley, Sarah Hutton (eds.), Platonism at the Origins of Modernity: Studies on Platonism and Early Modern Philosophy, Reviewed by Eric Schliesser, Leiden University
• William F. Bristow, Hegel and the Transformation of Philosophical Critique, Reviewed by Paul Franks, University of Toronto
• Allen Speight, The Philosophy of Hegel, Reviewed by Mark Alznauer, Sweet Briar College
• James Hankins (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Philosophy, Reviewed by E. Jennifer Ashworth, University of Waterloo
• Keith Green, Bertrand Russell, Language and Linguistic Theory, Reviewed by Bernard Linsky, University of Alberta
• Santiago Zabala, The Hermeneutic Nature of Analytic Philosophy: A Study of Ernst Tugendhat, Reviewed by Robert Sokolowski, The Catholic University of America
• Francis J. Ambrosio, Dante and Derrida: Face to Face, Reviewed by Donald G. Marshall, Pepperdine University

Philosophy of Law

• Douglas Husak, Overcriminalization: The Limits of the Criminal Law, Reviewed by John Gardner, University College, Oxford
• Douglas E. Edlin (ed.), Common Law Theory, Reviewed by W.J. Waluchow, McMaster University

Philosophy of Science

• Steve Fuller, Science v. Religion? Intelligent Design and the Problem of Evolution, Reviewed by Sahotra Sarkar, University of Texas at Austin
• Michael Ruse, Charles Darwin, Reviewed by Bruce Weber, California State University, Fullerton/Bennington College

Philosophy of Religion

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

Metaphysics

• Peter van Inwagen, Dean Zimmerman (eds.), Persons: Human and Divine, Reviewed by William R. Carter, North Carolina State University
• Laird Addis, Ontology and Explanation: Collected Papers, Reviewed by Katalin Farkas, Central European University, Budapest

Historiography

• Jonathan Gorman, Historical Judgement: The Limits of Historiographical Choice, Reviewed by Paul A. Roth, University of California, Santa Cruz

Moral & Political Philosophy

• Robert B. Talisse, A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy, Reviewed by David Hildebrand, University of Colorado Denver
• Larry May, Aggression and Crimes Against Peace, Reviewed by Douglas Lackey, Baruch College/Graduate Center, CUNY

April has been a busy month at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. I’ve listed some of the more relevant and interesting books below, sorted out into my own categories. (Obviously, a few books can be placed in more than category.)

Do any strike you as needing to be in the Robbins collection?

Historical Figures & Periods

Gregory Landini
Wittgenstein’s Apprenticeship with Russell
Reviewed by Nicholas Griffin, McMaster University

Judith Chelius Stark (ed.)
Feminist Interpretations of Augustine
Reviewed by Colleen McCluskey, Saint Louis University

Mark Dooley, Liam Kavanagh
The Philosophy of Derrida
Reviewed by Matthew C. Halteman, Calvin College

Robert B. Louden
The World We Want: How and Why the Ideals of the Enlightenment Still Elude Us
Reviewed by Beatrix Himmelmann, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Bret W. Davis
Heidegger and the Will: On the Way to Gelassenheit
Reviewed by Frank Schalow, University of New Orleans

Aaron Preston
Analytic Philosophy: The History of an Illusion
Reviewed by William Larkin, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Paul Redding
Analytic Philosophy and the Return of Hegelian Thought
Reviewed by Willem A. deVries, University of New Hampshire

Brad Inwood
Seneca: Selected Philosophical Letters
Reviewed by Katja Maria Vogt, Columbia University

Songsuk Susan Hahn
Contradiction in Motion: Hegel’s Organic Conception of Life and Value
Reviewed by Richard Velkley, Tulane University

Epistemology & Perception

Mary Margaret McCabe, Mark Textor (eds.)
Perspectives on Perception
Reviewed by José Luis Bermúdez, Washington University in St. Louis

Jaakko Hintikka
Socratic Epistemology: Explorations of Knowledge-Seeking by Questioning
Reviewed by Vincent F. Hendricks, Roskilde University, Denmark

David Reisman
Sartre’s Phenomenology
Reviewed by Katherine Morris, Mansfield College, University of Oxford

Russell T. Hurlburt, Eric Schwitzgebel
Describing Inner Experience? Proponent Meets Skeptic
Reviewed by Gualtiero Piccinini, University of Missouri, St. Louis

Metaphysics

Christian Kanzian, Muhammad Legenhausen (eds.)
Substance and Attribute: Western and Islamic Traditions in Dialogue
Reviewed by Sajjad Rizvi, University of Exeter

Christian Kanzian (ed.)
Persistence
Reviewed by Thomas Sattig, Washington University

Moral & Political Philosophy, Ethics

Jens Timmermann
Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: A Commentary
Reviewed by Sean P. Walsh, University of Minnesota, Duluth

David Copp
Morality in a Natural World: Selected Essays in Metaethics
Reviewed by Eric Gampel, California State University, Chico

Christopher J. Finlay
Hume’s Social Philosophy: Human Nature and Commercial Sociability in A Treatise of Human Nature
Reviewed by Lorraine Besser-Jones, University of Waterloo

Michael W. Austin
Conceptions of Parenthood: Ethics and the Family
Reviewed by Joseph Millum, National Institutes of Health

Pedro Alexis Tabensky
Judging and Understanding: Essays on Free Will, Narrative, Meaning and the Ethical Limits of Condemnation
Reviewed by Meghan Griffith, Davidson College

Simon Keller
The Limits of Loyalty
Reviewed by John Kleinig, John Jay College, CUNY; and Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, CSU

Philosophy of Science

Steven Horst
Beyond Reduction: Philosophy of Mind and Post-Reductionist Philosophy of Science
Reviewed by D. Gene Witmer, University of Florida

Aesthetics

Paul Crowther
Defining Art, Creating the Canon: Artistic Value in an Era of Doubt
Reviewed by Ingvild Torsen, Florida International University

Philosophy of Religion

Sandra Menssen, Thomas D. Sullivan
The Agnostic Inquirer: Revelation from a Philosophical Standpoint
Reviewed by Keith M. Parsons, University of Houston, Clear Lake

Miscellaneous

Barry C. Smith (ed.), Fritz Allhoff (ed.)
Questions of Taste: The Philosophy of Wine; and, Wine and Philosophy: A Symposium on Thinking and Drinking
Reviewed by Peter Machamer, University of Pittsburgh

Via Bookforum.com: Raymond Tallis writes “The neuroscience delusion:
Neuroaesthetics is wrong about our experience of literature – and it is wrong about humanity” for the Times Literary Supplement. It’s an interesting article on how aspects of neuroscience have been transformed into “neuroaesthetics,” the literary theory du jour.

While some may balk at the whiff of Continental literary theory, Tallis offers some fascinating commentary on the present state and use of neuroscience as an explanatory model — his main criticism is that some who use neuroscience as an explanatory model assume that the field is far more advanced than it actually is. He also argues that neuroscience is not sufficient to explain the whole of human creativity. Finally, he also critiques the attempts by contemporary neuroscience to explain (or dismiss) consciousness. Tallis concludes:

At any rate, attempting to find an explanation of a sophisticated twentieth-century reader’s response to a sophisticated seventeenth-century poet in brain activity that is shared between humans and animals, and has been around for many millions of years, rather than in communities of minds that are unique to humans, seems perverse. Neuroaesthetics is wrong about the present state of neuroscience: we are not yet able to explain human consciousness, even less articulate self-consciousness as expressed in the reading and writing of poetry. It is wrong about our experience of literature. And it is wrong about humanity.

Do you think he is right, readers?

At left: A map of the places that Christian visits during his journey in John Bunyan’s book, Pilgrim’s Progress. The map is taken from a 1778 edition printed in England. Click on the image to see a larger version; the Slough of Despond is in the lower left-hand corner, just above the City of Destruction.

For those of my readers who are more inclined to post-modernism and Jacques Derrida, today’s post may be of interest to you — for all others, I ask that you keep an open mind, as I return to my roots in Continental philosophy. But, I must warn you: we’ll be walking on the edges of the Slough of (Post-Modern) Despond as we make our way to Hypertextopia. So make sure to bring your philosophical hip-waders, so as not to get overly muddied with and soaked by post-modern sludge.

The development and implementation of hypertext in the mid- to late 20th century, especially with the rise of the Internet, changed the way that many people viewed and thought about reading, writing, and researching. No longer bound by traditional linear narrative, hierarchical categories, or print media, people could move through and enter into print and electronic texts from a multiplicity of points, perspectives, and directions.

In the 1990s, the use of hypertext took on an intriguing form: “hypertext fiction,” which Wikipedia describes as follows:

Hypertext fiction is a genre of electronic literature, characterized by the use of hypertext links which provides a new context for non-linearity in “literature” and reader interaction. The reader typically chooses links to move from one node of text to the next, and in this fashion arranges a story from a deeper pool of potential stories. Its spirit can also be seen in interactive fiction.

The term can also be used to describe traditionally-published books in which a non-linear and interactive narrative is achieved through internal references. Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire (1962) and Julio Cortázar’s Rayuela (1963; translated as Hopscotch) are early examples (predating the word hypertext), while a common pop-culture example is the “Choose Your Own Adventure” format of young adult fiction.

I remember hypertext fiction and writing being all the rage during my undergraduate days. Those days were the early, heady ones of the Internet, during the height of political correctness and the ascendancy of post-modernism and deconstructionism in English departments, literary theory, and literary criticism.

At that time, in the early 1990s, advocates of hypertext fiction and writing made all sorts of predictions about the death of the book, the author, and linear narrative. Moreover, they took joy in manipulating and altering “texts” — i.e., taking a canonical edition of a work of fiction and rearranging or altering words or the order of words in that work. Usually, this involved restoring sections from manuscripts, early drafts, or variant printings or editions of that work. The justification for doing so was the claim that there are neither authors nor narratives, so anyone can alter a text to whatever format s/he pleases, regardless of authorial intent or decision, and offer it as an equally valid and worthwhile version of that work.

In all honesty, this practice seemed, to me, to be more a lame attempt by second- and third-rate writers to “prove” that they were “superior” writers than the great masters of fiction. They could manipulate a text with impunity, with no author to challenge them — since most of the authors were literally dead — and pronounce their work just as “good as”, if not “better than” the original. In my view, this is not only the practice of a coward and a hack, but also ironic and self-defeating, since post-modernity is partly about challenging the existence and validity of hierarchical categories such as “good” and “better than.”

Some of the extremists of political correctness that I encountered saw hypertext fiction as one more blow to the phallocentric and patriarchal hegemony of old, dead Caucasian males over writing. Hypertext fiction, to these extremists, was all part of the post-modern liberation, part of the establishment of a glorious non-hierarchical utopia of post-industrial, post-capitalist, post-everything culture and society.

If I seem a bit sarcastic here in my reconstruction, please forgive me. Having lived through the excesses of post-modernity and political correctness, and the sheer silliness of many of their claims, I find that my Gen X sarcasm often flows from my pen… no, wait… pixels… when I describe and criticize these excesses.

In all fairness, though, the views of extremists do not represent the whole or the best of post-modernism. Indeed, post-modernism has raised valid and insightful critiques of power, paradigms, and structures in many areas, and these critiques that should be taken seriously.

But, I’ll get off my soap box now, and stop pontificating, so that we can return to our regularly-scheduled posting.

While doing my usual early-morning ritual of blog-scanning earlier this week, I came across a fascinating post from if:book on a new hypertext writing site, Hypertextopia. Here is the opening of that post, describing what Hypertextopia is:

We were recently alerted, via Grand Text Auto, to a new hypertext fiction environment on the Web called Hypertextopia:

Hypertextopia is a space where you can read and write stories for the internet. On the surface, it looks like a mind-map, but it embeds a word-processor, and allows you to publish your stories like a blog.

The site is gorgeously done, applying a fresh coat of Web 2.0 paint to the creaky concepts of classical hypertext. I find myself strangely conflicted, though, as I browse through it. Design-wise, it is a triumph, and really gets my wheels spinning w/r/t the possibilities of online writing systems. The authoring tools they’ve developed are simple and elegant, allowing you to write “axial hypertexts”: narratives with a clear beginning and end but with multiple pathways and digressions in between. You read them as a series of textual screens, which can include beautiful fold-out boxes for annotations and illustrations, and various color-coded links (the colors denote different types of internal links, which the author describes). You also have the option of viewing stories as nodal maps, which show the story’s underlying structure.

Yet, in spite of this glowing introduction, the rest of the post becomes a bit more critical. The author, Ben Vershow, and the accompanying comments, offer an interesting commentary on the limits of hypertext fiction and why it is generally more interesting in theory than and practice. There’s also some very interesting discussion of hypertext fiction in relation to Jorge Luis Borges, who is often viewed as prefiguring the Internet era in his writings.

But, let’s be clear: I am not against hypertext fiction, or hypertext in general, not at all. Nor are Ben Vershow and the commentators to his post. Hypertext and hypertext fiction are good things. Indeed, hypertext in general has opened up all sorts of possibilities in organizing, accessing, and moving through information, possibilities that would have been unthinkable just a short decade or so ago. And hypertext fiction is one way of reconceptualizing how we actually engage with and move through texts and digital media. As Vershow concludes his post:

Grumbling aside though, Hypertextopia offers much to ponder. Recontextualizing a pre-Web form in the Web is a worthwhile experiment and is bound to shed some light. I’m thinking about how we might play around in it…

Readers who remember my post from last week on the new forms of reading and books suggested by Howard Gardner might find parallels in that post to the discussion here.

I think that the perspective that I’m critiquing is a simplistic chase after novelty, one that assumes that anything “new” is “good,” and, by extension, “better” than what is “old.” For me, what Vershow’s post illustrates is how some of the predications about the effects of the Digital Age have not come, and are not likely to come, to pass any time soon. Soothsayers are not always right in their predictions. And, merely pursuing novelty for novelty’s sake can be fruitless, at best, and dangerous, at worst.

So, readers, here’s my prediction: books and linear narrative are not going away any time in the near future. They will continue to co-exist with new forms of literature and writing, like hypertext fiction. So you don’t need to toss out your print collection just yet, nor do you need to get mired in the Slough of (Post-Modern) Despond on your way to Hypertextopia. That, at least, is my view on the topic. And that, along with a few dollars, will get you a medium coffee at a local coffee shop here in the People’s Republic of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Do you agree?