Robbins Library Notes

Good morning, readers!  Here’s this week’s installment:

• Simon Critchley discusses the relevance of Heidegger here, here, and here. (A hat-tip to Bookforum.com for these.)
• The June 2009 book reviews from Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews are in.
• Update: I received word this morning about new changes to Project MUSE:

“– A ‘Search this Journal’ search box. This search box appears on each journal’s home page, on the Table of Contents (TOC) of each issue, and on each article. The ‘Search This Journal’ feature enables a user to quickly check all issues of the journal in MUSE, with a single search, for all articles in that journal pertaining to a particular subject.

– Summaries (abstracts) for articles. MUSE now provides a link for the summary of each article. Users know that the ability to scan summaries of articles is essential to determining which articles are relevant to their research. That ability is now available in MUSE. The Summary links appear on the TOCs and in search results, next to the article format options of HTML and PDF.

New Option for Custom Print
–Custom Print is a service provided by Sheridan Press that allows a user to click on a link from MUSE and purchase an article or groups of articles for the purpose of creating a custom publication. MUSE is one of the first online providers to activate this service. The user may choose either print or electronic format for the purchased articles. At this time, articles contained in ‘The American Indian Quarterly’ published by the University of Nebraska Press are the only articles in MUSE for which this option is available. On the article page, look for the link ‘Custom Print’ to initiate the transaction.

MUSE on Facebook
MUSE has been on Facebook for some time now, but we just secured our own URL and wanted to pass the word on to MUSE users. Find MUSE at www.facebook.com/ProjectMUSE. Become a fan of MUSE! You can also follow us on Twitter, @ProjectMUSE.”

I will be on vacation starting next and will be away for two weeks.  I’ll resume posting on 24 July.  Until then, have a happy and safe Fourth of July, and I’ll see you when I return!

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!

Many of you may remember an earlier post from mid-August, in which I reviewed, among other books, Michael Friedman’s A Parting of the Ways.  While browsing through Bookforum.com yesterday, I found a link to the Introduction of Edward Skidelsky’s new book, Ernst Cassirer: The Last Philosopher of Culture.

From what I’m reading in the introduction, this book will likely have great appeal for historians of philosophy, and those interested in the development of philosophy during the late nineteenth century into the twentieth century.

What do you think, readers?  Something to acquire for Robbins?

Good morning, readers!

Last week, we received the latest issue of the European Journal of Philosophy — European Journal of Philosophy 16(3) December 2008 — which has a symposium on Joseph Raz, among other things.

Here is the Table of Contents:

Symposium on Joseph Raz

• Respecting Value, Mark Eli Kalderon
• The Myth of Practical Consistency, Niko Kolodny
  
• Rationalism about Obligation, David Owens

Article

• Rules, Regression and the ‘Background’: Dreyfus, Heidegger and McDowell, Denis McManus

Review Articles

• Nihilism and the Affirmation of Life: A Review of and Dialogue with Bernard Reginster, Ken Gemes
• Ricoeur on Recognition, Robert R. Williams

Reviews

• Recognition and Power: Axel Honneth and the Tradition of Critical Social Theory, edited by Bert van den Brink and David Owen, Robin Celikates
• Post-Analytic Tractatus, edited by Barry Stocker, Oskari Kuusela

Also arrived last week — the latest issue of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy – Canadian Journal of Philosophy 38(2) June 2008 — here is its Table of Contents:

• Two Models of Equality and Responsibility, Michael Blake, and Mathias Risse
• Material Constitution and the Many-Many Problem, Robert A. Wilson
• Husserl on Sensation, Perception, and Interpretation, Walter Hopp
• Leibniz’s Theory of Universal Expression Explicated, Ari Maunu
• Informative Identities in the Begriffsschrift and ‘On Sense and Reference’, Imogen Dickie
• Analysis, Schmanalysis, Stephen Petersen

Both issues are currently online.  As always, you’ll need your Harvard ID and PIN to access these articles.

Enjoy!

Good morning, readers!

Here are the September reviews from Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

Are any of these items which we should add to the Robbins collection?

Aesthetics

• Kendall L. Walton, Marvelous Images: On Values and the Arts, Reviewed by Scott Walden, Nassau Community College
• David Davies, Aesthetics and Literature, Reviewed by Eileen John, University of Warwick

Epistemology

• Jens Harbecke, Mental Causation: Investigating the Mind’s Powers in a Natural World, Reviewed by David Robb, Davidson College

History of Philosophy

• Paul Guyer, Knowledge, Reason, and Taste: Kant’s Response to Hume, Reviewed by Richard N. Manning, University of South Florida
• Delbert Reed. The Origins of Analytic Philosophy: Kant and Frege, Reviewed by Jeremy Heis, University of California, Irvine
• François Cusset, French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States, Reviewed by Ethan Kleinberg, Wesleyan University

Individual Philosophers

• Richard Creath, Michael Friedman (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Carnap, Reviewed by Gregory Lavers, Concordia University, Montreal
• Novalis, David Wood (ed., tr.), Notes for a Romantic Encyclopaedia: Das Allgemeine Brouillon, Reviewed by Jane Kneller, Colorado State University
• Emmanuel Bermon, La Signification et l’enseignement: Texte latin, traduction française et commentaire du De Magistro de saint Augustin, Reviewed by Roland J. Teske, S.J., Marquette University
• Marina McCoy, Plato on the Rhetoric of Philosophers and Sophists, Reviewed by Eugene Garver, Saint John’s University
• Oskari Kuusela, The Struggle Against Dogmatism: Wittgenstein and the Concept of Philosophy, Reviewed by Marie McGinn, University of York
• Dorothea Olkowski, Gail Weiss (eds.), Feminist Interpretations of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Reviewed by Gayle Salamon, Princeton University

Metaphysics

• Fred Wilson, Body, Mind and Self in Hume’s Critical Realism, Reviewed by Wade Robison, Rochester Institute of Technology
• Owen Flanagan, The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World, Reviewed by Peter B. M. Vranas, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Moral & Political Philosophy

• John Kleinig, Ethics and Criminal Justice: An Introduction, Reviewed by Douglas Husak, Rutgers University
• Claudia Card, Armen T. Marsoobian (eds.), Genocide’s Aftermath: Responsibility and Repair, Reviewed by John K. Roth, Claremont McKenna College
• Tobias Hoffmann (ed.), Weakness of Will from Plato to the Present, Reviewed by Byron Williston, Wilfrid Laurier University
• Jean Hampton, The Intrinsic Worth of Persons: Contractarianism in Moral and Political Philosophy, Reviewed by Matt Matravers, University of York
• A. W. Price, Contextuality in Practical Reason, Reviewed by Tim Henning, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena

Philosophy of Mathematics

• Michael Roubach, Being and Number in Heidegger’s Thought, Reviewed by Stephan Käufer, Franklin & Marshall College

Philosophy of Physics

• Robert DiSalle, Understanding Space-Time: The Philosophical Development of Physics from Newton to Einstein, Reviewed by Carl Hoefer, ICREA/Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Good morning, readers!

Over the summer, I’ve been reading some fascinating histories of philosophy in the 20th century.  Two of them address American philosophy during the Cold War, and the third looks at philosophy at a pivotal moment in the first part of the century, before the notorious split between analytic and Continental philosophy.

What emerges from these three books is the degree of influence that the political and historical context in which philosophy is lived and practiced can have. While it’s too simplistic to claim that understanding philosophy can be reduced to merely studying its historical, social, and cultural contexts, I would argue that it’s important to see that philosophy does not exist in a vacuum, and that historical, social, and cultural forces can have a great influence on philosophy, though these need to be interpreted and assessed with care.*

This holds true, I will claim, for American philosophy, especially during the 20th century.  After reading the first two histories, it’s frightening to see how figures like, e.g., Rudolph Carnap, were kept under surveillance for their supposed political activities, or threatened in subtle and not-so-subtle ways to get in line.  It’s scary to read how lives and careers could be ruined or altered by people settling personal scores or demanding ideological conformity under the cloak of national security.  And it’s also sad to consider what might have been, had philosophy not been forced into (and chosen to remain) in a defensive position for so many decades such that it limited the scope of its inquiries and interests.

Without further ado, here are the books, along with a brief review of each:

Time in the Ditch: American Philosophy and the McCarthy Era, John McCumber (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 2001)

McCumber’s book explores how the McCarthy era had a devastating effect on American philosophy during the late 1940s and 1950s, and beyond.  McCumber analyzes how philosophy and philosophers were targeted by the FBI, HUAC, and others during the Cold War, and how this had a chilling and limiting effect on how philosophy was studied and practiced.  McCumber offers evidence to show that the defensive position and apolitical stance that American philosophy was forced to take has never been abandoned, and that these have limited and driven the discipline to focus on a narrow range of topics and questions, to the exclusion of others.

It’s a fascinating, if not frightening, read, especially in contemporary times when conservative forces are again trying to silence dissent and questioning by claiming these to be “unpatriotic” and “treasonous.”  In these interesting times, and in light of McCumber’s (and Reisch’s — see below) claims, the quote from Santayana that I posted last week rings true.

However, if there is one failing with the book, it’s that I find that McCumber has an ax to grind, especially towards the end of the book, when he discusses how Continental philosophy and philosophers have been excluded from the American philosophical discourse.  While he does have a point, at times I found that McCumber quickly became strident in his criticism, and found this to be off-putting.

How the Cold War Transformed Philosophy of Science: To the Icy Slopes of Logic, George A. Reisch (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005)

Similar to McCumber’s book, but from more of an analytic perspective, Reisch’s book also examines how the Cold War, and the shift in political climate from the progressive 1930s to the conservative 1950s wrought a number of changes on the practice and understanding of American philosophy (and especially philosophy of science).

This is an decent book, overall, especially if you are looking to get a good grounding in the basis of some of context around and concepts of philosophy of science during the early and middle parts of the 20th century.

Nonetheless, I do have a complaint about the book.  I’m bothered by the fact that relatively little attention is given to the conservative critics of philosophy of science, in comparison with the left-wing critics.  Mortimer Adler and Robert Maynard Hutchins get a few dismissive paragraphs and mentions throughout the book, but no chapter in their own right — unlike the left-wing critics, who get two chapters of their own.  And there were certainly more critics of philosophy of science than just these two men.

Furthermore, there was (and is still) a battle over where philosophy belongs: is it merely a part of science?  Or is it part of the humanities?  What sort of questions should philosophy address?  Should it be apolitical, or be used in the service of political agendas?  Do the empirical sciences supplant the social sciences and humanities, or do the latter have their own contributions to make and value to add?  These and other questions remain relevant, and were given serious consideration by people like Adler and Hutchins, and perhaps deserve more attention than they are given in this book.

I’m also a bit uncomfortable with Reisch’s attempt at engaging Continental philosophy at the end of the book, wherein he attempts a Foucauldian-style power analysis.  In short, he makes the claim that the American academy during the Cold War and beyond, was akin to a concentration camp.  The conservative power structure, in an attempt to silence and render impotent their progressive adversaries, shunted the latter off into the irrelevance of the ivory tower, where they would have little to no effect.  While the claim is intriguing, prima facie, I’m not sure that it stands on deeper inspection.  For one thing, the analogy strikes me as being inapt — being a tenured intellectual in an academic setting is nothing like the dehumanizing brutality of the camps.  For another, it strikes me as being somewhat offensive, for the same reasons.  Finally, in light of my own reading of several of Foucault’s works, I’m not sure that this analysis is something with which Foucault would himself agree, though I may be wrong on this account.

In spite of these criticisms, don’t discount the book entirely on these grounds.  It’s still worth reading, if you keep these flaws in mind.

A Parting of the Ways: Carnap, Cassirer, and Heidegger, Michael Friedman (Chicago: Open Court, 2000)

Of the three histories that I read over the summer, this one was by far the best.  Friedman discusses the 1929 Davos Conference, at which Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger debated, and Rudolph Carnap attended.  In examining the thought projects of these three men, Friedman provides a clear and lucid outline, not only of Heidegger’s, Carnap’s and Cassirer’s thought, but also of Kantian epistemology, neo-Kantianism, and phenomenology. Moreover, Friedman shows how these three interact and critique each other, and where they will ultimately split, because of political and historical circumstances, into the two-fold division of 20th century Western philosophy.  Finally, Friedman shows the importance and continuing relevance of Cassirer, who is often overlooked in the history of 20th century thought, other than as an historian of thought.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and have recommended it to several others who are working in this field and on these topics.

Do any readers have opinions on these books? Are there other histories that I should look at and review, e.g., Glock’s What is Analytic Philosophy?

——————————————————————————————

*Peter Gordon offers some relevant discussion on historical context and the history of ideas in Gordon, P.E. (2004).  Continental Divide: Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger at Davos, 1929 — An Allegory of Intellectual History. Modern Intellectual History (1)2, 219-248.  (You’ll need a Harvard PIN and ID to access this article.) This article is especially relevant in light of the third book that I review, Thomas Friedman’s A Parting of the Ways.

Good morning, readers!

Here are the July reviews from Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.  Are any of these books candidates for inclusion in the Robbins collection?

Philosophy of Language

Frederik Stjernfelt
Diagrammatology: An Investigation on the Borderlines of Phenomenology, Ontology and Semiotics
Reviewed by Valeria Giardino, Institut Jean Nicod (CNRS-EHESS-ENS), Paris

François Recanati
Perspectival Thought: A Plea for (Moderate) Relativism
Reviewed by Kepa Korta, University of the Basque Country

 Epistemology

Mark Okrent
Rational Animals: The Teleological Roots of Intentionality
Reviewed by Matthew Ratcliffe, Durham University

Michael N. Forster
Kant and Skepticism
Reviewed by Anthony Brueckner, University of California, Santa Barbara

Zenon W. Pylyshyn
Things and Places: How the Mind Connects with the World
Reviewed by Christopher S. Hill, Brown University

Jennifer Lackey
Learning from Words: Testimony as a Source of Knowledge
Reviewed by Aaron Z. Zimmerman, University of California, Santa Barbara

Philosophy of Religion

Alvin Plantinga, Michael Tooley
Knowledge of God
Reviewed by William L. Rowe, Purdue University

J. L. Schellenberg
The Wisdom to Doubt: A Justification of Religious Skepticism
Reviewed by Stephen Wykstra, Calvin College and Timothy Perrine, Calvin College

Erik J. Wielenberg
God and the Reach of Reason: C.S. Lewis, David Hume, and Bertrand Russell
Reviewed by Bruce Russell, Wayne State University

Metaphysics

Robin Le Poidevin
The Images of Time: An Essay on Temporal Representation
Reviewed by Craig Callender, University of California, San Diego

John Leslie
Immortality Defended
Reviewed by Charles Taliaferro, St. Olaf College

Max Kistler, Bruno Gnassounou (eds.)
Dispositions and Causal Powers
Reviewed by Jennifer McKitrick, University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Lynne Rudder Baker
The Metaphysics of Everyday Life: An Essay in Practical Realism
Reviewed by Charlotte Witt, University of New Hampshire

History of Philosophy

Terence Irwin
The Development of Ethics: A Historical and Critical Study; Volume I: From Socrates to the Reformation
Reviewed by Dimitrios Dentsoras, University of Manitoba

Iain Macdonald, Krzysztof Ziarek (eds.)
Adorno and Heidegger: Philosophical Questions
Reviewed by David Pettigrew, Southern Connecticut State University

Larry A. Hickman
Pragmatism as Post-Postmodernism: Lessons from John Dewey
Reviewed by Dennis M. Senchuk, Indiana University

P. J. E. Kail
Projection and Realism in Hume’s Philosophy
Reviewed by Angela Coventry, Portland State University

Christopher Shields
Aristotle
Reviewed by Barbara Sattler, Yale University

Andrew Haas
The Irony of Heidegger
Reviewed by Richard Polt, Xavier University

Quentin Skinner
Hobbes and Republican Liberty
Reviewed by Bernard Gert, Dartmouth College

Paul Russell
The Riddle of Hume’s Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism, and Irreligion
Reviewed by Rico Vitz, University of North Florida

Charlie Huenemann (ed.)
Interpreting Spinoza: Critical Essays
Reviewed by Steven Barbone, San Diego State University

Philosophical Practice

Rupert Read, Laura Cook (ed.)
Applying Wittgenstein
Reviewed by Colin Johnston, Institute of Philosophy, University of London

Steve Fuller
The Knowledge Book: Key Concepts in Philosophy
Reviewed by Val Dusek, University of New Hampshire

Ethics/Moral Philosophy/Political Philosophy

Jerome Neu
Sticks and Stones: The Philosophy of Insults
Reviewed by Macalester Bell, Columbia University

J. McKenzie Alexander
The Structural Evolution of Morality
Reviewed by Herbert Gintis, University of Massachusetts

Francisco J. Benzoni
Ecological Ethics and the Human Soul: Aquinas, Whitehead, and the Metaphysics of Value
Reviewed by Christopher M. Brown, University of Tennessee at Martin

Aesthetics

Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei
The Ecstatic Quotidian: Phenomenological Sightings in Modern Art and Literature
Reviewed by K. Gover, Bennington College

Elisabeth Schellekens
Aesthetics and Morality
Reviewed by James Harold, Mount Holyoke College

Jane Kneller
Kant and the Power of Imagination
Reviewed by James Schmidt, Boston University

James O. Young
Cultural Appropriation and the Arts
Reviewed by John Rapko, San Francisco Art Institute

Stephen Davies
Philosophical Perspectives on Art
Reviewed by Christian Helmut Wenzel, National Chi Nan University, Taiwan

Philosophy of Mathematics

Marcus Giaquinto
Visual Thinking in Mathematics: An Epistemological Study
Reviewed by Sun-Joo Shin, Yale University

Good morning, all!

Today’s post highlights the latest issue of The Review of Metaphysics – Review of Metaphysics 61(4) June 2008.  The table of contents for this issues includes:

• David Roochnik, “Aristotle’s Defense of the Theoretical Life: Comments on Politics 7″
• John K. O’Connor, “Precedents in Aristotle and Brentano for Husserl’s Concern with Metabasis“
• Matthew J. Kisner, “Spinoza’s Virtuous Passions”
• Ronald E. Santoni, “Camus on Sartre’s Freedom — Another ‘Misunderstanding’”
• Alexander S. Jensen, “The Influence of Schleiermacher’s Second Speech on Religion on Heidegger’s Concept of Ereignis“

The journal is available electronically, but only up to volume 59 (2006).  If you are interested in looking at any of these articles, please let me know, as I will be sending this issue off to be bound in the next week or so.

Good morning, readers! And a happy Friday to you all!

In my travels around cyberspace last week, I discovered four great articles on philosophical practice:

• From Eurozine: Daniel Gamper and Mercè Rius interview Catalan philosopher Xavier Rubert de Ventós, and Jonathan Barnes, Myles Burnyeat, Raymond Geuss, and Barry Stroud debate the nature and place of philosophical practice
• Roger Davidson considers the humanism offered by Emmanuel Levinas
• Emanuel L. Paparella writes, “Emmanuel Levinas’ Challenge to the Modern European Cultural Identity“
• Simon May reviews Simon Critchley’s new book, The Book of Dead Philosophers

A hat-tip to Bookforum.com for these links.

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