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!

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 latest podcasts from Philosophy Bites:

• Raymond Tallis on Parmenides
• M.M. McCabe on the Paradox of Inquiry
• Chandran Kukathas on Genocide
• Kate Soper on Alternative Hedonism

Enjoy!

At left: “Multiple cloud-to-ground and cloud-to-cloud lightning strokes during night-time.” Source: NOAA.

Good morning, readers!  Happy Monday to you!

A few weeks ago, I received a very interesting request that I want to share with you, because it turned out to be more involved and trickier than I had originally anticipated.  Here’s how the search unfolded…

A patron contacted me, and was interested in learning what ancient philosophers (e.g., Thales, Aristotle, and the like) had called the phenomena of electricity and electromagnetism.  He was curious since the word “electricity” is of relatively recent origin — the Oxford English Dictionary lists the first use of the word at around 1646 — even though these two phenomena were well-known in antiquity from observations of static electricity generated by amber and lodestone.   Armed with this information, I began to plan my search.

For the reader’s clarification: all of the text that follows in bold font are steps from my Searching 101: Guidelines post, to highlight the importance of focusing on the how of searching, i.e., the method of searching.

First off, what is the question? The question is, simply: what word or words did the ancient philosophers use to describe the phenomena of electricity and electromagnetism?  That’s fairly straightforward, and doesn’t require too much additional clarification.

Next, what search terms come to mind? “History,” “electricity,” “electromagnetism,” “Greek(s),” and “Thales” come to mind.  Also, knowing that classical discussions of electricity and electromagnetism arose out of observations of static electricity created by rubbing amber on cloth and of lodestone, we could add the terms “amber” and “lodestone” to the search as well.  Variants and truncated forms of these words should be considered, too, as part of the Synonym Game.

Thirdly, where should we look first? It’s generally best to start searching in a narrow space, and then broaden out the search.  As you read through where I looked, hopefully you will get a sense for this practice of applying Ockham’s Razor.

The first place I checked was Greek Thought: a Guide to Classical Knowledge, edited by Jacques Brunschwig and Geoffrey E.R. Lloyd (Robbins Philosophy DF78 .S2813 2000), as this is usually a great source for information on the classical world.  However, none of the entries discussed views on electricity in the ancient world.  Nor did any of the encyclopedias that I consulted next — the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, or the Encyclopedia of Philosophy.  Now was I getting intrigued.  None of these big sources were mentioning anything.

This omission isn’t completely surprising, given that the question focuses more on history of science than it does on philosophy. Nonetheless, I found it strange to find not even a passing reference to Thales, or to Aristotle, whom I would expect have something to say on the topic.

At this point, I decided to look in HOLLIS, to see what histories of science or histories of the science of electricity might be available.  First, I tried searching “electricity” and “history” as title words in the Expanded Search screen, but turned up very little.  I re-entered these terms, changing the search box to search only subject terms.  The first hit turned out to be the major find of this search:

• Baigrie, B. S. (2007). Electricity and magnetism: a historical perspective. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Baigrie’s book has a great introductory chapter on electricity in the ancient world, as well as a chapter on the 13th century scientist, Peter of Maricourt (sometimes known as “Peter Peregrinus”), who wrote at least one letter, and reportedly a treatise (now lost), on electricity and electromagnetism.  Much of the information that I used to erect the framework of my answer to the patron is drawn from this work.

However, Baigrie’s text was the only recent book that I found that covered the study of electricity and electromagnetism in the ancient world.  Most books, if they even made a passing reference to Thales, treated the study of electricity, and science in general, as beginning only in the early modern era.  Oftentimes, they omitted anything before the 16th century altogether. I’m not sure why this is so, but it is interesting to note.

Next, I decided to search the journals Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Journal of the History of Philosophy, and Journal of the History of Ideas.  I ran into the same results that I did with the books: no references to the ancients, and all references beginning with the early modern era, regardless of how I manipulated the search terms “history,” “electricity,” “Ancients,” “Greeks,” “Thales,” etc.  Moving to broader search engines, like Arts & Humanities Citation Index still turned up nothing relevant.

At this point, I decided that the final stop would be Google Scholar.  Entering in “history” and “electricity” in the advanced search option, and limiting the results to Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities, I turned up two very interesting results, which filled out the missing pieces:

• Benjamin, P. (1898). A history of electricity. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
• Ricker III, H. H. (2005). Magnetism of the Greek Era. The General Science Journal.

The first book was available in electronic format via Google Books, as it is out of copyright. Both gave extensive information about the various views on electricity and electromagnetism in the ancient world, some versions of which lasted well into the 19th century.  And they confirmed each other and what I had learned in Baigrie’s book, all of which triangulated my results.

Finally, I knew when to say when. At this point, I realized that I had answered the question satisfactorily.  I typed up a page of results for my patron, and sent them along.

One thing readers might want to note at the end of this post is that, even for a straightforward question such as I was given, the search become quite complicated and involved, involving a lot of trial and error to track down the requested information.  Oftentimes this happens — what appears to be a simple research question will require a good deal of searching in multiple sources.  So, the moral of the story is: don’t give up too quickly if you don’t find the information right away.  It may just require a little more digging to locate.

What do you think, readers?  Is there another way I might have answered this question?  Another source I might have considered?  Please leave your answers in the comments box…

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!

Blog Status update: I still don’t have the ability to add categories or tags to blog posts, nor am I able to post links.  I’m still trying to get in touch with someone who can help me, but I’m not having much luck at this point.  So, there we are.  With that out of the way, let’s turn to today’s post.

Late yesterday, I received a request, asking if there are online versions of Plato’s dialogues.  The answer is yes!

One good source is the Internet Classics Archive.  Along with Plato, there are 58 other authors, with 441 works of classical literature.  The texts are mainly Greek and Roman works, but the site does include a few Chinese and Persian works.  All of the texts are in English translation.

However, two caveats about using the Plato texts on the Internet Classics Archive:

• The texts do not appear to have the Stephanus pagination.  So, if you’re looking for a specific reference, e.g., Republic 514a — the start of the Allegory of the Cave in Book VII — you will not be able to easily locate it using these texts.
• With one exception, the translations offered are those by Benjamin Jowett, mostly like because they are in the public domain and thus fall outside the purview of copyright.  Jowett did his translations in the late 19th century, so the language may appear to some to be dated.  Also, Jowett had his own idiosyncratic views on Plato, which color the translations.  None of which invalidates the work that Jowett did — only that readers should approach his translations cum grano salis.*

The Perseus Digital Library is another place to visit.  There is a wealth of information on this site, with much more than just classical texts.  However, it doesn’t have the friendliest interface — though the new version, in beta testing, is a definite improvement!  For Plato’s dialogues, there are English translations and the original Greek texts, for comparison, and links to older reference sources.  Also, many of the translations are those of the Loeb Classical Library and other sources, not those of Jowett, and they include the Stephanus pagination.

Both of these sites are great to check a reference, or to locate readings should the required translations for your course not be available.  Nonetheless, as older, public domain sources, they will not reflect current scholarship, and may differ significantly from the translations that you’ve been assigned in class.

Project Gutenberg is a third place, though it offers mostly the Jowett translations, which include Jowett’s lengthy commentaries before the texts of the respective dialogues.  If you have been asked by your professor to read only the text of a dialogue, and to not use secondary sources, you may want to avoid these versions for the time being.

Are there other sources to which one might turn?

*Latin: With a grain of salt.

Good morning, readers!

Here is the list of the June 2008 reviews from Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.  Do you think any of these should be in the Robbins collection?

Stephen H. Daniel (ed.)
New Interpretations of Berkeley’s Thought
Reviewed by Marc A. Hight, Hampden-Sydney College

Rachel Cooper
Psychiatry and Philosophy of Science
Reviewed by Grant Gillett, University of Otago

Christopher Janaway
Beyond Selflessness: Reading Nietzsche’s Genealogy
Reviewed by Brian Leiter, University of Texas, Austin

Brian J. Braman
Meaning and Authenticity: Bernard Lonergan and Charles Taylor on the Drama of Authentic Human Existence
Reviewed by David Burrell, C.S.C., University of Notre Dame/Uganda Martyrs University, Nkozi

Peter Hylton
Quine
Reviewed by Guido Bonino, Università di Torino

James W. Felt
Aims: A Brief Metaphysics for Today
Reviewed by Oliva Blanchette, Boston College

Cécile Laborde, John Maynor (eds.)
Republicanism and Political Theory
Reviewed by Hans Oberdiek, Swarthmore College

Lambert Zuidervaart
Social Philosophy after Adorno
Reviewed by Hauke Brunkhorst, Universität Flensburg

Theodore Scaltsas, Andrew S. Mason (eds.)
The Philosophy of Epictetus
Reviewed by Brad Inwood, University of Toronto

Julie K. Ward
Aristotle on Homonymy: Dialectic and Science
Reviewed by David Evans, Queen’s University Belfast

Jay F. Rosenberg
Wilfrid Sellars: Fusing the Images
Reviewed by Willem A. deVries, University of New Hampshire

A. C. Grayling
Truth, Meaning and Realism: Essays in the Philosophy of Thought
Reviewed by Alexander Miller, University of Birmingham

Eric Christian Barnes
The Paradox of Predictivism
Reviewed by Clark Glymour, Carnegie Mellon

Thomas Baldwin (ed.)
Reading Merleau-Ponty: On Phenomenology of Perception
Reviewed by Taylor Carman, Barnard College

James R. Hamilton
The Art of Theater
Reviewed by Brian Soucek, University of Chicago

Andrew Bowie
Music, Philosophy, and Modernity
Reviewed by James Currie, University at Buffalo

Theodore Sider, John Hawthorne, Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.)
Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics
Reviewed by Alan Sidelle, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Alexander Bird
Nature’s Metaphysics: Laws and Properties
Reviewed by John W. Carroll, North Carolina State University

Charles L. Griswold
Forgiveness: A Philosophical Exploration
Reviewed by Ernesto V. Garcia, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Robert Young
Medically Assisted Death
Reviewed by John Keown, Georgetown University

Raimo Tuomela
The Philosophy of Sociality: The Shared Point of View
Reviewed by Kenneth Shockley, University at Buffalo, SUNY

Bernd Prien, David P. Schweikard (eds.)
Robert Brandom: Analytic Pragmatist
Reviewed by Bernhard Weiss, University of Cape Town

Terence Cuneo,
The Normative Web: An Argument for Moral Realism
Reviewed by James Lenman, University of Sheffield

Sarah Broadie
Aristotle and Beyond: Essays on Metaphysics and Ethics
Reviewed by Jacob Rosen, New York University

Vincent F. Hendricks, Duncan Pritchard (eds.)
New Waves in Epistemology
Reviewed by Dennis Whitcomb, Western Washington University

Christian Beyer, and Alex Burri (eds.)
Philosophical Knowledge: Its Possibility and Scope
Reviewed by Duncan Pritchard, University of Edinburgh

David L. Hull, Michael Ruse (eds.)
The Cambridge Companion to the Philosophy of Biology
Reviewed by David Depew, University of Iowa

David Lay Williams
Rousseau’s Platonic Enlightenment
Reviewed by Neven Leddy, Magdalen College, Oxford

Jesse Prinz
The Emotional Construction of Morals
Reviewed by Ronald de Sousa, University of Toronto

Immanuel Kant, Günter Zöller (ed.), Robert Louden (ed.)
Anthropology, History and Education
Reviewed by Amelie Rorty, Boston University

Katherine J. Morris
Sartre
Reviewed by William L. McBride, Purdue University

Timothy O’Connor
Theism and Ultimate Explanation: The Necessary Shape of Contingency
Reviewed by Graham Oppy, Monash University

David Luban
Legal Ethics and Human Dignity
Reviewed by Charles Silver, University of Texas at Austin

Igor Primoratz (ed.)
Civilian Immunity in War
Reviewed by Steven P. Lee, Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Giorgio Agamben
Profanations
Reviewed by Jeffery Geller, University of North Carolina, Pembroke

Savas L. Tsohatzidis (ed.)
John Searle’s Philosophy of Language: Force, Meaning and Mind
Reviewed by Jesse R. Steinberg, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Martin Carrier, Don Howard, Janet Kourany (eds.)
The Challenge of the Social and the Pressure of Practice: Science and Values Revisited
Reviewed by Miriam Solomon, Temple University

Ginia Schönbaumsfeld
A Confusion of the Spheres: Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein on Philosophy and Religion
Reviewed by Wayne Proudfoot, Columbia University

C. A. J. Coady
Morality and Political Violence
Reviewed by Christine Chwaszcza, European University Institute, San Domenico di Fiesole, Florence

Megan Laverty
Iris Murdoch’s Ethics: A Consideration of her Romantic Vision
Reviewed by Christopher Cordner, University of Melbourne

P.M.S. Hacker
Human Nature: The Categorial Framework
Reviewed by Michael Quante, Universität zu Köln

Allen W. Wood
Kantian Ethics
Reviewed by Noell Birondo, Pomona College

At left: Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio), The School of Athens (1509-1511). Plato is in the center, pointing upwards with one hand, and holding a copy of the Timaeus in the other.

“The safest general characterization of the European philosophic tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. I do not mean the systematic scheme of thought which scholars have doubtfully extracted from his writings. I allude to the wealth of general ideas scattered through them.” — Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality (1929), p. 63

Few will contest the long shadow that Plato casts over Western philosophy, and Western culture in general. Politics, religion, aesthetics, ethics, mathematics, epistemology, language — these are but a few of the many topics that Plato covers in his dialogs.

Two recent articles — one on the philosophy of mathematics, the other on how Plato constructs philosophical practice — might pique the interest of my readers:

• Julie Rehmeyer writes “Still Debating with Plato: Where Do Mathematical Objects Live?” for ScienceNews.org.
• Will Rasmussen (King’s College London) reviews David Wolfsdorf’s Trials of Reason: Plato and the Crafting of Philosophy for Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

(For those interested in the latter article, Alexander Nehamas’ The Art of Living: Socratic Reflections from Plato to Foucault, covers similar ground, and is worth reading for comparison to Wolfsdorf.)

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

At Philosophy Bites, new podcasts have been posted:

• Thomas Pink (King’s College, London) discusses free will
• Michael Sandel (Harvard University) talks about genetic enhancement in sports
• Melissa Lane (King’s College, University of Cambridge) speaks about Karl Popper’s critique of Plato’s Republic
• Richard Norman (University of Kent) examines the morality of killing in war
  

If you have been enjoying the Philosophy Bites podcasts, you may want to listen to some of the earlier podcasts — you can link to the first forty-four episodes by clicking on the link at left.

At left: Diogenes of Sinope, by John William Waterhouse, 1882

Here is another example of why common sense is sometimes to be preferred over abstract philosophical speculation –

To one who by argument had proved conclusively that he had horns, [Diogenes] said, touching his forehead, “Well, I for my part don’t see any.” In like manner, when somebody declared that there is no such thing as motion, he got up and walked about. … Plato had defined Man as an animal, biped and featherless, and was applauded. Diogenes plucked a fowl and brought it into the lecture-room with the words, “Here is Plato’s man.” In consequence of which there was added to the definition, “having broad nails.”

– Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, VI., 39, 40