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! Happy Monday to you!

Very funny — what I’m calling “corporate Cartesian philosophy,” according to Dilbert.

Enjoy!

Good morning, readers!

Here are the December 2008 reviews from Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.  Are any worth purchasing for the Robbins collection?

• Peg Birmingham, Serena Parekh, Hannah Arendt and Human Rights: The Predicament of Common Responsibility; Hannah Arendt and the Challenge of Modernity: A Phenomenology of Human Rights , Reviewed by Patchen Markell, University of Chicago
  

• Virginia Held, How Terrorism Is Wrong: Morality and Political Violence, Reviewed by Igor Primoratz, University of Melbourne

• Rosalyn Diprose, Jack Reynolds (eds.), Merleau-Ponty: Key Concepts, Reviewed by John Protevi, Louisiana State University

• Annika Thiem, Unbecoming Subjects: Judith Butler, Moral Philosophy, and Critical Responsibility, Reviewed by Catherine Mills, University of Sydney

• Brian Leiter, Michael Rosen (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Continental Philosophy, Reviewed by Pol Vandevelde, Marquette University

• Joshua Knobe, Shaun Nichols (eds.), Experimental Philosophy, Reviewed by Frank Jackson, Princeton University
  

• Joseph Agassi, Abraham Meidan, Philosophy from a Skeptical Perspective, Reviewed by Charles Landesman, Hunter College/Graduate School of the City University of New York

• Barry Dainton, The Phenomenal Self, Reviewed by William Uzgalis, Oregon State University

• Deborah Cook (ed.), Theodor Adorno: Key Concepts, Reviewed by Lambert Zuidervaart, University of Toronto

• Gillian Russell, Truth in Virtue of Meaning: A Defence of the Analytic/Synthetic Distinction, Reviewed by Åsa Wikforss, Stockholm University

• Sara MacDonald, Finding Freedom: Hegel’s Philosophy and the Emancipation of Women, Reviewed by Lydia Moland, Colby College

• Aldo Brancacci, Pierre-Marie Morel (eds.), Democritus: Science, the Arts, and the Care of the Soul, Reviewed by Patricia Curd, Purdue University

• Joseph Almog, Cogito?: Descartes and Thinking the World, Reviewed by Kurt Smith, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania

• Sally Sedgwick, Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: An Introduction, Reviewed by Lara Denis, Agnes Scott College

• Duncan Ivison, Rights, Reviewed by Derrick Darby, University of Kansas

Good morning, readers!

We recently received the latest issue of Inquiry — Inquiry 51(5) October 2008.  Here is the Table of Contents:

• Naturalism and Un-Naturalism Among the Cartesian Physicians, Gideon Manning
• Descartes’ Mind-Body Composites, Psychology and Naturalism, Lili Alanen
• Spinoza and the Dictates of Reason, Donald Rutherford
• Kant and the Myth of the Given, Eric Watkins
• Kant and Naturalism Reconsidered, John H. Zammito

Also arrived: Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement: 63 — Kant and Philosophy of Science Today.

• Why There are No Ready-Made Phenomena: What Philosophers of Science Should Learn From Kant, Michela Massimi
• Reduction, Unity and the Nature of Science: Kant’s Legacy?, Margaret Morrison
• Invariance Principles as Regulative Ideals: From Wigner to Hilbert, Thomas Ryckman
• Objectivity: A Kantian Perspective, Roberto Torretti
• Einstein, Kant, and the A Priori, Michael Friedman
• Contingent Transcendental Arguments for Metaphysical Principles, Hasok Chang
• Arithmetic from Kant to Frege: Numbers, Pure Units, and the Limits of Conceptual Representation, Daniel Sutherland
• Intuition and Infinity: A Kantian Theme with Echoes in the Foundations of Mathematics, Carl Posy

Via Bookforum.com:

Gary Rosen reviews Russell Shorto’s Descartes’ Bones: A Skeletal History of the Conflict Between Faith and Reason for the New York Times Sunday Book Review.

Have a good weekend!

The taste for Zen in the West is in part a healthy reaction of people exasperated with the heritage of four centuries of Cartesianism: the reification of concepts, idolization of the reflexive consciousness, flight from being into verbalism, mathematics, and rationalization.  Descartes made a fetish out of the mirror in which the self finds itself.  Zen shatters it.

– Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, 285.

Comments?  Thoughts?  Is Merton correct?

Hello, readers, and happy Friday!

Yesterday, we received the latest issue of Philosophy and Phenomenological Research — Vol. 76 (3) May 2008.

For those interested in epistemology, psychology, philosophy of mind, and perception, this issue may catch your fancy. Articles include:

• Erik J. Olsson, “Klein on the Unity of Cartesian and Contemporary Skepticism”
• Henry E. Allison, “‘Whatever Begins to Exist Must Have a Cause of Existence’: Hume’s Analysis and Kant’s Response”
• David Enoch and Joshua Schechter, “How are Basic Belief-Forming Methods Justified?”
• Peter Baumann, “Contextualism and the Factivity Problem”
• Todd Buras, “Three Grades of Immediate Perception: Thomas Reid’s Distinctions
• Adina L. Roskies, “A New Argument for Nonconceptual Content”

Additionally, there are two book symposia.

• The first covers Alva Noë’s Action in Perception, with responses by John Campbell, M.G.F. Martin, and Sean Kelly, and a reply by Noë.
• The second covers Jesse Prinz’s Gut Reactions, with responses by Justin D’Arms and David Hills, and a reply by Prinz.

The issue is not currently available in electronic format, but will likely be so at some point. You will be able to find it via the database, Synergy. (For information on how to use Synergy, please see my earlier post.) You’ll need your PIN and ID to access the journal.

Good morning, and happy Friday! Three articles in Bookforum.com caught my attention recently:

• Following on my recent post about neuroscience and neuroaesthetics, I found this article, “The Limits of Neuro-Talk,” by Matthew B. Crawford to be an intriguing and critical examination of the models and language that we use to discuss and frame neuroscience.

• Bill Moyers interviews Martha Nussbaum, discussing the separation of church and state in the context of her new book, Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America’s Tradition of Religious Equality.

• Finally, Thomas Merrill offers an interesting reading of Descartes’ Discourse on Method, with a look at the strengths and flaws of the Cartesian project.

Good morning! A number of reviews of potential interest have been posted at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. I’ve listed them from the beginning of March through the beginning of April. Click on the link in the journal title to see additional reviews.

• Michael Slote, The Ethics of Care and Empathy, Reviewed by Lawrence Blum, University of Massachusetts, Boston
• David Clemenson, Descartes’ Theory of Ideas, Reviewed by Dan Kaufman, University of Colorado
• Anthony Kenny, Philosophy in the Modern World: A New History of Western Philosophy, Volume 4, Reviewed by David R. Cerbone, West Virginia University
• Mathew H. Kramer, Objectivity and the Rule of Law, Reviewed by Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco, University of Birmingham
• Berys Gaut, Art, Emotion and Ethics Reviewed by Daniel Jacobson, Bowling Green State University
• Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing, Reviewed by Lorraine Code, York University
• Mark Timmons, John Greco, Alfred R. Mele (eds.), Rationality and the Good: Critical Essays on the Ethics and Epistemology of Robert Audi,Reviewed by Scott Sehon, Bowdoin College
• Diana Abad, Keeping Balance: On Desert and Propriety, Reviewed by Saul Smilansky, University of Haifa
• William M. Sullivan, Will Kymlicka (eds.), The Globalization of Ethics: Religious and Secular Perspectives, Reviewed by Stephen C. Angle, Wesleyan University
• Gilbert Harman, Sanjeev Kulkarni, Reliable Reasoning: Induction and Statistical Learning Theory, Reviewed by Kevin Kelly, and Conor Mayo-Wilson, Carnegie Mellon Universit
• Howard Schweber, The Language of Liberal Constitutionalism, Reviewed by Brian Bix, University of Minnesota
• Lucy O’Brien,, Self-Knowing Agents, Reviewed by Robert J. Howell, Southern Methodist University
• Eric T. Olson, What Are We? A Study in Personal Ontology, Reviewed by Michael O’Rourke, University of Idaho
• Daniel D. Hutto, Folk Psychological Narratives: The Sociocultural Basis of Understanding Reasons, Reviewed by Deborah Perron Tollefsen, University of Memphis
• Ellen K. Feder, Family Bonds: Genealogies of Race and Gender, Reviewed by Sharon Meagher, University of Scranton
• Patricia Curd, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae: Fragments and Testimonia, Reviewed by Malcolm Schofield, St John’s College, University of Cambridge
• Anandi Hattiangadi, Oughts and Thoughts: Scepticism and the Normativity of Meaning, Reviewed by Reinaldo Elugardo, University of Oklahoma
• Charles Travis, Thought’s Footing: A Theme in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, Reviewed by James C. Klagge, Virginia Tech

For those of you with iPods, and who may have read my post yesterday on the use of iPods and learning, here are several great podcasts from Philosophy Bites:

• Richard Tuck (Harvard) discusses Free Riding.
• Hugh Mellor (Cambridge) speaks about Time.
• Peter Singer (Princeton) talks about Ethics – part of the new Ethics Bites series.
• Mary Warnock talks about the Right to Have Babies – also part of Ethics Bites.
• A.C. Grayling discusses Descartes’ cogito.

Also, for those who are interested — there is information on Philosophy Bites that you can shop for philosophy podcasts at iTunes — go to “Podcasts,” then to “Society and Culture.” “Philosophy” is a subsection of this category.