Critical Compendium » Philosophy

Liberty of Conscience, by Martha Nussbaum

“Martha Nussbaum straddles several disciplines, holding appointments in the philosophy department, the law school, and the divinity school at the University of Chicago. In her new book, “Liberty of Conscience” (Basic Books, 406 pages, $27.50), she reminds us that she also straddles cultural and religious traditions, having ancestors who came over on the Mayflower and having converted from liberal Episcopalianism to liberal Judaism of the Reform persuasion. Thus does she embody, so to speak, the diversity that she champions in this spirited work of advocacy.” Read the review at the New York Sun.

Filed under: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Religion | Posted 03.03.08 | Comments: None

Describing Inner Experience? Proponent Meets Skeptic, by Russell T. Hurlburt and Eric Schwitzgebel

“A few years ago a psychologist and a philosopher got into an argument over whether we can accurately describe our thoughts. “Yes,” said the psychologist; with training and the help of my special technique, we can accurately describe our thoughts. The philosopher doubted it. To resolve their argument, they recruited a young woman who agreed tell them her thoughts, so that they could argue over whether she was credible. This is not an episode from a Preston Sturgis comedy, but the actual procedure through which Russell T. Hurlburt and Eric Schwitzgebel produced their remarkable book, “Describing Inner Experience? Proponent Meets Skeptic.” The premise is so ludicrous that it might seem impossible for anything to come of it, but this underestimates the skill of the authors, particularly Schwitzgebel, the philosopher, whose talent for straight-faced mischief has been displayed in his some of his other writing.” Read the review at Salon.com.

Filed under: Essays, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Science | Posted 02.04.08 | Comments: None

The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, by Joel Bakan

“We have, over the last three hundred years constructed a remarkably efficient wealth-creating machine, but it is now out of control.” The out-of-control machine to which (Joel) Bakan refers in his highly readable and informative book is the corporation. Few entities are as damaging to the environment as are corporations. Bakan ’s book outlines the history of the problems that stem from too much corporate power, describes some of the worst consequences of this trend, and proposes ways of bringing this out-of-control wealth-creating machine back in line with common decency.” Read the review at Philosophy Now.

Filed under: Nonfiction, Philosophy | Posted 02.02.08 | Comments: None

Philosophers Behaving Badly, by Nigel Rodgers and Mel Thompson

“Philosophers may lead us in terms of profound ideas, but their personal lives can be quite another matter entirely. As historian Nigel Rodgers and philosopher Mel Thompson write in their marvelous little book, Philosophers Behaving Badly, “a life of reason does not necessarily lead to a reasonable life.” Their portraits of eight philosophers bring home this point again and again. Although monumental in their insights, these philosophers were screwed up!” Read the review at Philosophy Now.

Filed under: History, Nonfiction, Philosophy | Posted 02.02.08 | Comments: None

Freedom and Neurobiology, by John Searle

“As Searle disarmingly explains in his introduction to Freedom and Neurobiology, he produced this latest volume by accident. In 2001, he gave two lectures at the Sorbonne and agreed to their publication in French translation, thinking that they would in due course appear in some little-read journal. He was pleasantly surprised when some time later he received copies of an elegant little volume called Liberté et neurobiologie. Translations into German, Spanish, Italian and Chinese quickly followed, by which point it seemed silly not to have an English version. Inadvertent though it may be, this book offers a good introduction to Searle’s recent work.” Read the review at the Times Literary Supplement.

Filed under: Essays, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Science | Posted 02.02.08 | Comments: 1 Comment

Experiments in Ethics, by Kwame Anthony Appiah

“What philosophers (have not done), until recently, is take an interest in empirical research about our responses to these or other dilemmas. Now, as philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah describes in his concise yet erudite and engagingly written new book, “Experiments in Ethics,” this is changing.” Read the review at the New York Sun.

Filed under: Essays, Nonfiction, Philosophy | Posted 01.22.08 | Comments: None

Memory: An Anthology, edited by Harriet Harvey Wood and A.S. Byatt

“William Maxwell called memory “a form of storytelling … in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw”. John Stuart Mill thought it “the present consciousness of a past sensation”. The science contributors to this anthology locate the various functions of memory in different areas of the brain. Whatever it may be, and wherever it may reside, it is the single human function that has provoked speculation from Plato through St Augustine – both given due attention here – to Jane Austen, Tennyson, Virginia Woolf and the cognitive scientists and psychologists of today. That shower of names may give some flavour of the book’s scope. In fact, it is hard to do justice in a review to the range and depth of a collection which aligns brief sound-bites – Lewis Carroll, Anthony Powell – with entries that run over several pages.” Read the review at the Financial Times.

Filed under: Anthology, Essays, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Science | Posted 01.18.08 | Comments: None

The Portable Atheist, edited by Christopher Hitchens

‘The author of “God Is Not Great” seems to have won the battle for World’s Best Atheist (sorry, Richard Dawkins), and here has collected a far-reaching range of likeminded nonbelievers.’ Read the review at Time Out Chicago.

Filed under: Anthology, Essays, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Religion, Science | Posted 12.20.07 | Comments: None

The Bourgeois Virtues, Ethics for an Age of Commerce, by Deirdre N. McCloskey

‘I hate the middle class. I am a snob and an ingrate, an erudite ignoramus unappreciative of the market that puts food on my table and books on my shelves. I and my left-wing ilk are responsible for at least one global war, the persistence of poverty and despair among the wretched of the earth, and a culture that maligns the genuine virtue of hard-working entrepreneurs. I should be thoroughly ashamed of myself, and I should run to the nearest small business and beg for forgiveness and instruction. I should get a real job. In short, Deirdre McCloskey has exposed me for the fraud that I am - or so she tells me in ‘The Bourgeois Virtues.’ Read the review at Christianity Today.

Filed under: Nonfiction, Philosophy | Posted 12.05.07 | Comments: None

What is Good and Why: The Ethics of Well-Being, by Richard Kraut

‘What is Good and Why: The Ethics of Well-Being’ is the first book-length contribution to contemporary ethical theory by this highly regarded scholar of ancient philosophy. With it, Richard Kraut joins recent moral philosophers who draw inspiration from ancient Greek philosophy, particularly that of Plato and Aristotle, to advance lines of thinking that challenge utilitarianism and certain forms of neo-Kantianism in ethics.’ Read the review at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

Filed under: Nonfiction, Philosophy | Posted 11.29.07 | Comments: None

God and Morality: A Philosophical History, by John E. Hare

‘John Hare writes that the purpose of God and Morality “is to look at the role theology, or thinking about God, has played in ethical theory within Western philosophy.” To carry out this purpose, he examines the ethical thought of four philosophers from four different eras: Aristotle, Duns Scotus, Kant, and R. M. Hare. Structuring the book in this way allows Hare to offer a programmatic overview of the history of philosophical reflection on the relationship between God and morality.’ Read the review at the Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

Filed under: Nonfiction, Philosophy | Posted 11.29.07 | Comments: None

Questions of Taste: The Philosophy of Wine, edited by Barry C. Smith

‘The authors collected in “Questions of Taste: The Philosophy of Wine,” all like (David) Hume great champions of self-improvement, address themselves to questions of subjectivity and taste, quantifiability and pleasure, perception and its objects, the role of knowledge and judgement in perceptual discernment, and the possibility of expertise in the arena of fine wine. They are mainly philosophers, but also winemakers and critics, linguists and biochemists.’ Read the review at the Times Literary Supplement.

Filed under: Anthology, Food, Nonfiction, Philosophy | Posted 11.29.07 | Comments: None

Philosophical Myths of the Fall by Stephen Mulhall

‘For readers attuned to these (conversations about humanity’s “fallenness,”) Stephen Mulhall’s “Philosophical Myths of the Fall” will be neither surprising nor counterintuitive. But we should not therefore underestimate the element of scandal in Mulhall’s project, which is to suggest that key canonical figures in modern philosophy - Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein - reinscribe the Christian doctrine of original sin. As Mulhall puts it, “all three in fact engender a conception of the human condition that constantly inclines them to reiterate elements of a distinctively Christian structure of thought.” The result is a “secularized conception of the self and its world” - a translation of the particularities of Christian confession into more neutral or more universal categories, and thus unhitched from any specific faith commitments.’ Read the review at Christianity Today. Buy the book at Amazon.com.

Filed under: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Religion | Posted 11.22.07 | Comments: None

Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy by John Rawls, edited by Samuel Freeman

‘John Rawls’s “Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy,” edited by Barbara Herman, was published in 2000 by Harvard University Press. Rawls there discusses the moral philosophies of Hume, Leibniz, Kant, and Hegel. In the “Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy” . . . he covers Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, John Stuart Mill, Marx, Sidgwick and Butler. Although Hume’s view of justice is treated in both volumes, there is otherwise no significant overlap; and the discussion of it in LHPP has a different focus than that in the moral philosophy lectures.’ Read the review at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

Filed under: Nonfiction, Philosophy | Posted 11.12.07 | Comments: 2 Comments