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!

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

• Kelvin Knight, Aristotelian Philosophy: Ethics and Politics from Aristotle to MacIntyre, Reviewed by Peter C. Meilaender, Houghton College
• Charles Larmore, The Autonomy of Morality, Reviewed by Richard Kraut, Northwestern University
• Jennifer S. Hawkins, Ezekiel J. Emanuel (eds.), Exploitation and Developing Countries: The Ethics of Clinical Research, Reviewed by David DeGrazia, George Washington University
• Christopher Woodard, Reasons, Patterns, and Cooperation, Reviewed by Rob Lawlor, University of Leeds
• Hilde Lindemann, Marian Verkerk, Margaret Urban Walker (eds.), Naturalized Bioethics: Toward Responsible Knowing and Practice, Reviewed by Rosemarie Tong, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
• Jon Miller, Rahul Kumar (eds.), Reparations: Interdisciplinary Inquiries, Reviewed by Bernard Boxill, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Christopher Bennett, The Apology Ritual: A Philosophical Theory of Punishment, Reviewed by Gabriel S. Mendlow, Yale, Law School and Department of Philosophy
• Bob Brecher, Torture and the Ticking Bomb, Reviewed by C.A.J. Coady, University of Melbourne
• Michael J. Murray, Nature Red in Tooth and Claw: Theism and the Problem of Animal Suffering, Reviewed by Mylan Engel Jr., Northern Illinois University
• Michael Thompson, Life and Action: Elementary Structures of Practice and Practical Thought, Reviewed by Paul Hurley, Claremont McKenna College

Philosophers and History of Philosophy

• Penelope Deutscher, The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir: Ambiguity, Conversion, Resistance, Reviewed by Gail Weiss, The George Washington University
• Michael Della Rocca, Spinoza, Reviewed by Michael LeBuffe, Texas A&M University
• Daniel Garber, Béatrice Longuenesse (eds.), Kant and the Early Moderns, Reviewed by Andrew Janiak, Duke University
• Katherin Rogers, Anselm on Freedom, Reviewed by Thomas Williams, University of South Florida
• John Preston (ed.), Wittgenstein and Reason, Reviewed by Daniel D. Hutto, University of Hertfordshire
• Robert Mayhew, Plato: Laws 10, Reviewed by Nathan Powers, The University at Albany (SUNY)
• Elizabeth S. Radcliffe (ed.), A Companion to Hume, Reviewed by James A. Harris, University of St. Andrews
• Stewart Candlish, The Russell/Bradley Dispute and its Significance for Twentieth-Century Philosophy, Reviewed by James Levine, Trinity College, Dublin
• Diane Perpich, The Ethics of Emmanuel Levinas, Reviewed by Lisa Guenther, Vanderbilt University
• Frederick C. Beiser (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Hegel and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy, Reviewed by Robert M. Wallace, www.robertmwallace.com
• Henry E. Allison, Custom and Reason in Hume: A Kantian Reading of the First Book of the Treatise, Reviewed by Karl Schafer, University of Pittsburgh
• Todd May, The Political Thought of Jacques Rancière: Creating Equality, Reviewed by Miguel Vatter, Universidad Diego Portales
• Maria Rosa Antognazza, Leibniz: An Intellectual Biography, Reviewed by Gregory Brown, University of Houston

Critical Theory

• Nikolas Kompridis, Critique and Disclosure: Critical Theory between Past and Future, Reviewed by Fred Dallmayr, University of Notre Dame

Philosophy of Language

• Clive Cazeaux. Metaphor and Continental Philosophy: From Kant to Derrida, Reviewed by Jeffrey Powell, Marshall University
• Jerry A. Fodor, LOT 2: The Language of Thought Revisited, Reviewed by Mark Wilson, University of Pittsburgh

Aesthetics

• Yuriko Saito, Everyday Aesthetics, Reviewed by Tom Leddy, San José State University
• Scott Walden (ed.), Photography and Philosophy: Essays on the Pencil of Nature, Reviewed by John Andrew Fisher, University of Colorado at Boulder

Perception

• Paul Coates. The Metaphysics of Perception: Wilfrid Sellars, Critical Realism and the Nature of Experience, Reviewed by Matthew Burstein, University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown

Personal Identity

• Simon J. Evnine, Epistemic Dimensions of Personhood, Reviewed by Krista Lawlor, Stanford University
• David Shoemaker, Personal Identity and Ethics: A Brief Introduction, Reviewed by Amy Kind, Claremont McKenna College
• Neil Feit, Belief about the Self: A Defense of the Property Theory of Content, Reviewed by Cara Spencer, Howard University

Philosophy of Religion

• Michael Ayers (ed.), Rationalism, Platonism and God, Reviewed by Yitzhak Y. Melamed, Johns Hopkins University

Logic

• Douglas Walton, Chris Reed, Fabrizio Macagno, Argumentation Schemes, Reviewed by Leo Groarke, Wilfrid Laurier University

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, and happy Friday!

A brief note: Monday is a holiday (Labor Day) and I won’t be posting.  Also, I will be out next Wednesday, 3 September, and won’t be posting then, either.

While browsing through Bookforum.com yesterday, I came across the Web site for Philosopher’s Annual. The aim of this site is as follows: “The papers on this website represent our effort to showcase ten of the best philosophy articles published in the past year.” There is a wide range of topics covered by the papers chosen for the annual, as can be seen from the offerings for 2007, though the majority of this year’s selections focus on epistemology and philosophy of mind:

• “Reflection and Disagreement,” Adam Elga, from Nous 41 (2007), 478-502
• “Why Nothing Mental is Just in the Head,” Justin Fisher, from Nous 41 (2007), 318-334
• “Socrates’ Profession of Ignorance,” Michael N. Forster, from Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 3 (2007), 1-36
• “When is a Brain Like a Planet?,” Clark Glymour, from Philosophy of Science 74 (2007), 330-347
• “But Mom, Crop Tops are Cute! Social Knowledge, Social Structure and Ideology Critique,” Sally Haslanger, from Philosophical Issues 17, The Metaphysics of Epistemology, pp. 70-91
• “Innocent Statements and their Metaphysically Loaded Counterparts,” Thomas Hofweber, from Philosophers’ Imprint 7 (2007), 1-33
• “Honest Illusion: Valuing for Nietzsche’s Free Spirits,” Nadeem Hussain from B. Leiter & N. Sinhababu, eds., Nietzsche and Morality, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, 157-191
• “Moral Responsibility and Determinism: The Cognitive Science of Folk Intuitions,” Shaun Nichols & Joshua Knobe, from Nous 41 (2007), 663-668
• “Covenants and Reputations,” Peter Vanderschraaf, from Synthese 157 (2007), 167-195
• “Epistemic Modals,” Seth Yalcin, from Mind 16 (2007), 983-1026

You will be able to link directly to the full text of all of the articles, with the exception of Haslanger’s and Vanderschraaf’s articles, for which you will need to go through HOLLIS to access, and Hussain’s article, for which permission to include an online version has not been granted yet by the publisher.

The Tables of Contents for all previous volumes are available via the link in the upper right hand corner of the home page — “Past Volumes,” which has the same URL as the home page — and full-text of many articles for more recent years is as well, though I’m finding that not all of the links work at the present time.

I will add a link to the Philosopher’s Annual in the blogroll, and also on the Links page of the Philosophy Department’s Web site.

Have a great long holiday weekend, folks!

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

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.

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

Good morning, readers!

New podcasts from Philosophy Bites are now available for your listening pleasure:

• Peter Millican (Hertford College, Oxford) talks about the significance of Hume.
• Janet Radcliffe Richards (University College London) explores human nature, and the nature of women and men in particular.
• Raimond Gaita (King’s College London) examines arguments about the use of torture.
• Derek Matravers (The Open University) speaks on the definition of art.

Happy Friday! The latest issue of the European Journal of Philosophy — 16 (1), April 2008 — has many articles of potential interest on a variety of topics and philosophers. You’ll need a Harvard ID and PIN to access them:

• “Self-Consciousness and Self-Reference: Sartre and Wittgenstein,” Béatrice Longuenesse
• “McDowell on External Reasons,” John Brunero
• “A Non-Eliminative Understanding of Austere Nominalism,” Philip Goff
• “On Hume’s Appropriation of Malebranche: Causation and Self,” P. J. E. Kail
• “The Moral Development of First-Person Authority,” Victoria McGeer
• “Transcendental Philosophy and Atheism,” Wayne M. Martin

Having trouble understanding Kant’s Transcendental Deduction? Perhaps this song might help you…