The Review of Metaphysics back issues from December 2004:
Emotions and biology: remarks on the contemporary trend.
Dec 01, 2004; ... THE PAST DECADE has seen a tidal wave of publications on emotion. The topic has engaged the energy and the imagination of the professionals to whose fields it belongs, and some of these have delivered it to the reading public in a series of highly successful books. Antonio Damasio and ...
Plato on identity, sameness, and difference.(Critical Essay)
Dec 01, 2004; ... AMONG THE CONCEPTS CENTRAL to Plato's metaphysical vision are those of identity, sameness, and difference. For example, it is on the basis of a claim about putative cases of sameness among different things that Plato postulates the existence of separate forms. It is owing to the apparent ...
Aquinas on the nature of human beings.(Critical Essay)
Dec 01, 2004; ... I IN THIS PAPER, I PROVIDE A FORMULATION of Thomas Aquinas's account of the nature of human beings for the purpose of comparing it with other accounts in both the history of philosophy and contemporary analytic philosophy. (1) I discuss how his apparently dualistic ...
Striving to speak in a human voice: a Peircean contribution to metaphysical discourse *.
Dec 01, 2004; ... I A. N. WHITEHEAD SUGGESTS philosophy is akin to poetry. (1) Let me count the ways or, more exactly, identify four facets of this kinship. After touching upon these facets, I will in the second part of this paper focus directly on the relationship between being and articulation, ...
Jacques Maritain: la vie intellectuelle.(Critical Essay)
Dec 01, 2004; ... THIS ARTICLE IS OCCASIONED BY THE RECENT APPEARANCE of three books focused on the life and thought of Jacques Maritain (1882-1973): Jude P. Dougherty, Jacques Maritain, An Intellectual Profile; John P. Hittinger, Liberty, Wisdom, and Grace, Thomism and Democratic Political Theory; and ...
Belliotti, Raymond Angelo. Happiness Is Overrated.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... BELLIOTTI, Raymond Angelo. Happiness Is Overrated. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004. xiv + 182 pp. Paper, $21.95--In Happiness Is Overrated, Raymond Belliotti discusses the nature of happiness, the worth of happiness, how to be happy, and the meaning of life. The book provides clear ...
Brink, David. Perfectionism and the Common Good: Themes in the Philosophy of T. H. Green.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... BRINK, David. Perfectionism and the Common Good: Themes in the Philosophy of T. H. Green. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003. xiv + 139 pp. $27.50--Brink reminds us that T. H. Green's Prolegomena to Ethics is a neglected classic in the history of ethics, comparable to F. H. Bradley's Ethical ...
Caldwell, Bruce. Hayek's Challenge: an Intellectual Biography of F. A. Hayek.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... CALDWELL, Bruce. Hayek's Challenge: An Intellectual Biography of F. A. Hayek. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. iii + 489 pp. Cloth, $ 55.00--Bruce Caldwell's Hayeks' Challenge is a significant contribution to philosophy and to economics. F. A. Hayek (1899-1992) received the ...
Casebeer, William D. Natural Ethical Facts: Evolution, Connectionism, and Moral Cognition.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... CASEBEER, William D. Natural Ethical Facts: Evolution, Connectionism, and Moral Cognition. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2003. x + 214 pp. Cloth, $35.00--The reticence of scholars of ethics to enter into fundamental moral reasoning is well known. William Casebeer's ambitious new ...
Clarke, Desmond M. Descartes's Theory of Mind.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... CLARKE, Desmond M. Descartes's Theory of Mind. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003. 280 pp. Cloth, $49.95--In this book Clarke offers an interesting spin on Descartes: rather than see him (as many today do) simply as a substance dualist who offers a very poor account of the mind, Clarke sees him ...
Derrida, Jacques. The Problem of Genesis in Husserl's Philosophy.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... DERRIDA, Jacques. The Problem of Genesis in Husserl's Philosophy. Translated by Marian Hobson. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003. xliii + 228 pp. Cloth, $27.50--This early work by Derrida, his 1953/ 54 dissertation, introduced the philosophy of Husserl to French intellectuals ....
Garrett, Aaron. Meaning in Spinoza's Method.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... GARRETT, Aaron. Meaning in Spinoza's Method. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. xii + 240 pp. Cloth, $60.00--Spinoza's philosophy has bequeathed longstanding query and dispute regarding the meaning of several doctrines and elements of his system as well as the influences of his ...
Gracia, Jorge J. E. and Timothy B. Noone, Editors. A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... GRACIA, Jorge J. E. and Timothy B. NOONE, Editors. A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages. Blackwell Companions to Philosophy. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing, Ltd., 2003. xxi + 739 pp. Cloth, $124.95--Scholars who have engaged in the process often refer to editing as a ...
Habermas, Jurgen. Truth and Justification.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... HABERMAS, Jurgen. Truth and Justification. Translated by Barbara Fultner. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003. xxii + 327 pp. Cloth, $40.00--This work appeared in German in 1999 although two chapters, "Some further clarifications of the Concept of Communicative Rationality" and "Richard Rorty's ...
Hatfield, Gary. Descartes and the Meditations.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... HATFIELD, Gary. Descartes and the Meditations. Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks. London: Routledge, 2002. xvi + 353 pp. Paper, $18.95--Overall this book is very good at doing what it claims to do, namely, providing an effective guidebook to Descartes and his Meditations. It should prove ...
Heidegger, Martin. The Phenomenology of Religious Life.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... HEIDEGGER, Martin. The Phenomenology of Religious Life. Translated by Matthias Fritsch and Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004. xv + 266 pp. Cloth, $44.95--The present volume is a translation of Volume 60 of the Collected Edition of Heidegger's ...
Kivy, Peter. The Seventh Sense: Francis Hutcheson and Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetics.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... KIVY, Peter. The Seventh Sense: Francis Hutcheson and Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetics. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2003. xiv + 402 pp. Paper, $24.95--Although nowadays aesthetics tends to be marginalized, all the great philosophers of the world, from Plato and Aristotle on, through St ....
Knasas, John F. X. Being and Some Twentieth-Century Thomists.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... KNASAS, John F. X. Being and Some Twentieth-Century Thomists. New York: Fordham University Press, 2003. xxvi + 313 pp. Cloth, $65.00-Since Vatican II a new breed of Thomism has emerged on the scene, in effect superseding the two streams of neo-Thomistic thought which blossomed in the wake ...
Kremer, Mark, Editor and Translator. Plato's Cleitophon: on Socrates and the Modern Mind.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... KREMER, Mark, Editor and Translator. Plato's Cleitophon: On Socrates and the Modern Mind. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2004. 136 pp. Cloth, $65.00; paper, $21.95--Plato's Cleitophon: On Socrates and the Modern Mind is a short but weighty book examining important questions with ...
Lawlor, Leonard. Thinking through French Philosophy: the Being of the Question.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... LAWLOR, Leonard. Thinking through French Philosophy: The Being of the Question. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003. xviii + 214 pp. Cloth, $59.95; paper, $24.95--Thinking through French Philosophy has two objectives. First, it seeks to demonstrate that the thought of Derrida, ...
Levine, Alan. Sensual Philosophy: Toleration, Skepticism, and Montaigne's Politics of the Self.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... LEVINE, Alan. Sensual Philosophy: Toleration, Skepticism, and Montaigne's Politics of the Self. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2001. xii + 336 pp. Paper, $26.95--While candidates for political office avoid the "l" word like the plague, scholars have never been more interested in the ...
Luft, Sandra Rudnick. Vico's Uncanny Humanism: Reading the "New Science" between Modern and Postmodern.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... LUFT, Sandra Rudnick. Vico's Uncanny Humanism: Reading the "New Science" between Modern and Postmodern. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003. xviii + 213 pp. Cloth, $45.00--Years ago, Max Fisch, the great scholar and translator of Vico's works, in reviewing A. Robert Caponigri's obscure ...
McCulloch, Gregory. The Life of the Mind: an Essay on Phenomenological Externalism.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... MCCULLOCH, Gregory. The Life of the Mind: An Essay on Phenomenological Externalism London: Routledge, 2003. xviii + 152 pages. Cloth, $104.95; paper, $31.95--This book concerns contemporary debates in the philosophy of mind. Therefore, McCulloch starts with Descartes. On the basis of ...
McEwen, Indra Kagis. Vitruvius: Writing the Body of Architecture.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... MCEWEN, Indra Kagis. Vitruvius: Writing the Body of Architecture. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT, 2003. x + 493 pp. Cloth, $39.95--This extended, provocative, and extensively documented meditation addresses Vitruvius' intention in producing the first treatise on architecture, the only one ...
Melantschuk, Gregor. Kierkegaard's Concept of Existence.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... MELANTSCHUK, Gregor. Kierkegaard's Concept of Existence. Edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Marquette Studies in Philosophy, no. 35. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2003. 313 pp. Paper, $35.00--This book analyzes Kierkegaard's concept of concrete human ...
Pitson, A. E. Hume's Philosophy of the Self.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... PITSON, A. E. Hume's Philosophy of the Self. London: Routledge, 2002. xi + 196. Cloth, $80.00--How often have we read that Hume denies that we have an idea of the self? This of course is the upshot of Treatise 1, 4, 6. So there is some textual basis for that claim. But then Hume goes on ...
Rapaport, Herman. Later Derrida: Reading the Recent Work.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... RAPAPORT, Herman. Later Derrida: Reading the Recent Work. New York: Routledge, 2003. x + 158 pp. Cloth, $90.95; paper, $19.95--With Derrida things are never simple. As Herman Rapaport demonstrates in this wonderful book, Derrida has an uncanny ability to problematize supposedly clear ...
Shapiro, Ian. The Moral Foundations of Democracy.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... SHAPIRO, Ian. The Moral Foundations of Democracy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. xii + 289 pp. Cloth, $25.00--Ian Shapiro's The Moral Foundations of Democracy explores the moral foundations of political legitimacy in utilitarianism, Marxism, and social contract theory. Each of ...
Singer, Marcus George. The Ideal of a Rational Morality: Philosophical Compositions.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... SINGER, Marcus George. The Ideal of a Rational Morality: Philosophical Compositions. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. xix + 333 pp. Cloth, $60.00--This is a collection of thirteen essays, most of which first appeared in the mid-1980s, though one dates from 1963 and one, presented ...
Stewart, Jon. Kierkegaard's Relations to Hegel Reconsidered.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... STEWART, Jon. Kierkegaard's Relations to Hegel Reconsidered. Modern European Philosophy. General Editor Robert B. Pippin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. pp. xix + 695. Cloth, $55.00--Some politely do not ask. Others succumb: "Are you still working with Kierkegaard?" Still ....
Walton, Douglas. Legal Argumentation and Evidence.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... WALTON, Douglas. Legal Argumentation and Evidence. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002. xvii + 374 pp. Cloth, $65.00--Walton's book aims to supply a fresh method for evaluating logical reasoning and legal argumentation. Drawn from philosophy, law and science, ...
Weiss, Paul. Surrogates.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... WEISS, Paul. Surrogates. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002. xviii + 181 pp. Cloth, $34.95--This remarkable little book starts with the premise that things often stand for something else, and proceeds to explore the metaphysical implications of this seemingly benign remark. A ...
Weissman, David. Lost Souls: the Philosophical Origins of a Cultural Dilemma.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2004; ... WEISSMAN, David. Lost Souls: The Philosophical Origins of a Cultural Dilemma. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. xiii + 210 pp. Paper, $18.95--Lost Souls is a genealogy of the current state of philosophy. It argues that Western thought has long been guided by a view of ...
American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Vol. 88, No. 1, Winter 2004.(Philosophical Abstracts)
Dec 01, 2004 ... Boethian Reflections on God: Between Logic and Metaphysics, CLAUDIO MICAELLI This paper systematically reconstructs Boethius's reflections on God, attempting to find the common element to which all of the variations in these reflections can be retraced. This common element is ...
American Philosophical Quarterly: Vol. 42, No. 1, January 2005.(Philosophical Abstracts)
Dec 01, 2004 ... The Voices of Reason, CHRISOULA ANDREOU It is widely held that instrumental reasoning to a practical conclusion is parasitic on noninstrumental practical reasoning. This conclusion is based on the claim that when there is no reason to adopt a certain end, there is no reason to ...
Australasian Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 82, No. 3, September 2004.(Philosophical Abstracts)
Dec 01, 2004 ... Luminous Margins, BRIAN WEATHERSON Timothy Williamson has recently argued that few mental states are luminous, meaning that to be in that state is to be in a position to know that you are in the state. His argument rests on the plausible principle that beliefs only count as ...
European Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 12, No. 3, December 2004.(Philosophical Abstracts)(Brief Article)
Dec 01, 2004 ... Approaching Perpetual Peace: Kant's Defense of a League of States and his Ideal of a World Federation, PAULINE KLEINGELD It is generally assumed that Kant advocates a voluntary league of states and rejects the ideal of a world federation of states as dangerous, unrealistic, and ...
International Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 44, No. 3, September 2004.(Philosophical Abstracts)
Dec 01, 2004 ... Moral and Political Prudence in Kant, ERIC SEAN NELSON This paper challenges the standard view that Kant ignored the role of prudence in moral life by arguing that there are two notions of prudence at work in his moral and political thought. First, prudence is ordinarily ...
International Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 44, No. 4, December 2004.(Philosophical Abstracts)
Dec 01, 2004 ... Kierkegaard's Religiousness C: A Defense, MEROLD WESTPHAL Against two recent critiques, this paper defends the thesis that such later writings of Kierkegaard as Works of Love and Practice in Christianity introduce an understanding of Christianity that the author calls ...
Journal of the Hitory of Philosophy: Vol. 43, No. 1, January 2005.(Philosophical Abstract)
Dec 01, 2004 ... God's Immutability and the Necessity of Descartes' Eternal Truths, DAN KAUFMAN Descartes held that the eternal truths are freely created by God, and that the eternal truths are necessary truths. This paper examines Descartes's explanation of the necessity of the eternal truths ....
Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 101, No. 7, July 2004.(Philosophical Abstract)
Dec 01, 2004 ... Justice and Personal Pursuits, KOK-CHORTAN The institutional approach to justice offers a division of labor that provides a way of balancing the demands of egalitarian justice and personal pursuits. G.A. Cohen rejects the institutional approach on the ground that its limited ...
Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 101, No. 8, August 2004.(Philosophical Abstract)(Brief Article)
Dec 01, 2004 ... Challenges to the Hypothesis of Extended Cognition, ROBERT D. RUPERT In recent decades, increasing support has emerged for the view that human cognition is extended. According to this view ("HEC") human cognitive states literally comprise elements beyond the boundary of the ...
Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 101, No. 9, September 2004.(Philosophical Abstract)
Dec 01, 2004 ... The Paradox of Moral Worth, KELLY SORENSEN The motive to be morally worthy or virtuous seems like a good motive. But there are cases where aiming at Virtue can make one less virtuous than one would be otherwise. There is then a paradox of moral worth, not unlike Bishop Butler's ...
Mind: Vol. 113, No. 452, October 2004.(Philosophical Abstracts)
Dec 01, 2004 ... Multigrade Redicates, ALEX OLIVER and TIMOTHY SMILEY The history of the idea of predicate is the history of its emancipation. The lesson of this paper is that there are two more steps to take. The first is to recognize that predicates need not have a fixed degree, the second ...
The Monist: Vol. 88, No. 1, January 2005.(Philosophical Abstracts)
Dec 01, 2004 ... What Ppart of 'Know' Don't You Understand? DEBORAH BROWN In the seventeenth century the terms "wit" and "humour" carried distinct connotations, "wit" being connected with our intellectual faculties, and "humour" with our physiologically based temperaments and dispositions to ...
The Philosophical Quarterly: Vol. 54, No. 217, October 2004.(Philosophical Abstracts)
Dec 01, 2004 ... Minimalism and the Value of Truth, MICHAEL P. LYNCH Minimalists generally see themselves as engaged in a descriptive project. They maintain that they can explain everything we want to say about truth without appealing to anything other than the T-schema, that is, the idea that ...
Philosophical Review: Vol. 112, No. 4, October 2003.(Philosophical Abstracts)
Dec 01, 2004 ... Does the Categorical Imperative Give Rise to a Contradiction in the Will? ELIJAH MILLGRAM New Kantian moral philosophers (such as Onora O'Neill, Barbara Herman and Christine Korsgaard) hold that one may act on maxims only if they pass the CI-procedure. Not performing an action ...
Philosophical Review: Vol. 113, No. 1, January 2004.(Philosophical Abstracts)
Dec 01, 2004 ... Descriptivism, Pretense, and the Frege-Russell Problems, FREDERICK KROON Neodescriptivists like Frank Jackson and David Lewis think that they are in a far better position to tackle the problems that led Frege and Russell to their descriptivist accounts of reference than ...
Philosophy: Vol. 79, No. 4, October 2004.(Philosophical Abstracts)
Dec 01, 2004 ... What Ayer Saw When He Was Dead, ABIGAIL L. ROSENTHAL It was news verging on sensational when A. J. Ayer came back from four minutes of heart death with a report of what he saw. Especially since the philosopher, who publicized his near-death experience ("NDE") in 1988, in the ...
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Vol. 69, No. 1, July 2004.(Philosophical Abstracts)
Dec 01, 2004 ... The Phenomenology of Cognition Or What Is It Like to Think That P? DAVID PITT A number of philosophers endorse, without argument, the view that there is something it is like consciously to think that p, which is distinct from what it is like consciously to think that q. This ...
Phronesis: Vol. 49, No. 2, April 2004.(Philosophical Abstracts)
Dec 01, 2004 ... Socrates' Avowals of Knowledge, DAVID WOLFSDORF The paper examines Socrates' avowals and disavowals of knowledge in the standardly accepted early Platonic dialogues. It is shown that, in particular, alleged avowals of knowledge have been variously misinterpreted. The author ...
Ratio: Vol. 17, No. 3, September 2004.(Philosophical Abstracts)
Dec 01, 2004 ... Epistemicism and the Combined Spectrum, TORIN ALTER and STUART RACHELS Derek Parfit's combined spectrum argument seems to conflict with epistemicism, a viable theory of vagueness. While Parfit argues for the indeterminacy of personhood, epistemicism denies indeterminacy. But, ...