The Review of Metaphysics back issues from December 2005:
The perils of self-perception: explanations of apperception in the Greek commentaries on Aristotle.
Dec 01, 2005; ... ARISTOTLE'S BRIEF CONSIDERATIONS concerning how we perceive that we perceive (1) led to a long and wide-ranging discussion of the problem by his commentators, one that extended over several centuries. From the second century to the sixth, Aristotle's ancient Greek commentators, Alexander ...
Phronesis as poetic: moral creativity in contemporary Aristotelianism.
Dec 01, 2005; ... IN BOOK 6 OF HIS NICOMACHEAN ETHICS, Aristotle distinguishes phronesis or "practical wisdom" from poiesis or "art," "production." Neither deals with the universals of pure science or theoretical wisdom but rather with "things which admit of being other than they are," "the realm of ...
Visual intelligence in painting.
Dec 01, 2005; ... PHILOSOPHERS HAVE LONG AGREED that thinking is expressed in the use of language, that we "think in the medium of words." (1) It is also true, however, that we think in the medium of pictures, and it is likely that these two ways of thinking are interrelated; certainly, we could not think ...
Textuality, reality, and the limits of knowledge *.
Dec 01, 2005; ... I HOW MUCH CAN A PERSON KNOW? A Leibnizian Perspective on Human Finitude. How much can someone possibly know? What could reasonably be viewed as an upper limit of an individual's knowledge--supposing that factually informative knowledge rather than performative how-to knowledge ...
Aquinas, Thomas. Commentaries on Aristotle's "On Sense and What Is Sensed" and "On Memory and Recollection."(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... AQUINAS, Thomas. Commentaries on Aristotle's "On Sense and What Is Sensed" and "On Memory and Recollection." Translated with introductions and notes by Kevin White and Edward M. Macierowski. Thomas Aquinas in Translation Series. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, ...
Bates, Jennifer Ann. Hegel's Theory of Imagination.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... BATES, Jennifer Ann. Hegel's Theory of Imagination. SUNY Series in Hegelian Studies. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. xlv + 202 pp. Cloth $50.00--Imagination is a central topic in many of Hegel's writings, but it is not a topic within his Phenomenology of Spirit, which ...
Borradori, Giovanna. Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... BORRADORI, Giovanna. Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. 224 pp. Cloth, $25.00; paper, $15.00--A book entitled Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jurgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida ...
Bradshaw, David. Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... BRADSHAW, David. Aristotle East and West. Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. xiv + 279 pp. Cloth, $75.00--Under a wide-ranging title, Professor Bradshaw examines the history of the metaphysical concept of energeia, in an attempt to ...
Capaldi, Nicholas. John Stuart Mill: A Biography.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... CAPALDI, Nicholas. John Stuart Mill: A Biography. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. xvii + 436 pp. Cloth, $40.00--There are a number of reasons one might be interested in reading a biography of a figure such as John Stuart Mill. One might be interested in learning about the ...
Carman, Taylor. Heidegger's Analytic.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... CARMAN, Taylor. Heidegger's Analytic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. xii + 328. Cloth, $60.00--Heidegger's Analytic belongs to the school of Anglo-American philosophers who are challenging decades of academic dysfunction by effecting an analytic appropriation of phenomenology ...
Da Costa, Newton C. A. and Steven French. Science and Partial Truth: A Unitary Approach to Modeling and Scientific Reasoning.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... DA COSTA, Newton C. A. and Steven FRENCH. Science and Partial Truth: A Unitary Approach to Modeling and Scientific Reasoning. Oxford Studies in the Philosophy of Science. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. x + 259 pp. Cloth, $55.00--Are the conclusions reached by mature sciences ...
Dickerson, A. B. Kant on Representation and Objectivity.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... DICKERSON, A. B. Kant on Representation and Objectivity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. x + 217 pp. Cloth, $65.00--All who are familiar with the history of philosophy know of the centrality of the transcendental deduction of the categories to Kant's project in the Critique of ...
Elders, Leo. The Ethics of St. Thomas Aquinas: Happiness, Natural Law and the Virtues.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... ELDERS, Leo. The Ethics of St. Thomas Aquinas: Happiness, Natural Law and the Virtues. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2005. 313 pp. Cloth, $49.95--As an expositor of the moral philosophy of Aquinas, Leo Elders's credentials are impeccable. He is the author of thirty-one books on the ...
Enc, Berent. How We Act: Causes, Reasons, and Intentions.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... ENC, Berent. How We Act: Causes, Reasons, and Intentions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. xiv + 252 pp. Cloth, $45.00--How We Act presents Enc's argument that "by assuming nothing more than a world of material things, we can understand the nature of decisions, of intentions, of ...
Finocchiaro, Maurice A. Retrying Galileo, 1633-1992.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... FINOCCHIARO, Maurice A. Retrying Galileo: 1633-1992. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. xii + 485 pp. Cloth, $50.00--A fascinating survey of what the author calls "The Galileo Affair," from Descartes to John Paul II, that is, from Galileo's condemnation in 1633 to his alleged ...
Franco, Paul. Michael Oakeshott: An Introduction.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... FRANCO, Paul. Michael Oakeshott: An Introduction. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. xi + 209 pp. Cloth, $30.00--We are faced here with quite a bit more than an introduction. Along with the book of Robert Grant, this is the most serious assessment of the work of a man who is perhaps ...
Henrich, Dieter. Between Kant and Hegel.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... HENRICH, Dieter. Between Kant and Hegel. Edited by David S. Pacini. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003. lix + 341 pp. Cloth, $55.00--Dieter Henrich's Between Kant and Hegel is one of those rare scholarly works by which others are, and will be, judged, just as Henrich's scholarship ...
Hersch, Edwin L. From Philosophy to Psychotherapy: A Phenomenological Model for Psychology, Psychiatry, and Psychoanalysis.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... HERSCH, Edwin L. From Philosophy to Psychotherapy: A Phenomenological Model for Psychology, Psychiatry, and Psychoanalysis. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. xviii + 417 pp. Cloth, $65.00--From their founding, psychology and psychotherapy have grown and developed in the absence ...
Hicks, Stephen R. C. Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... HICKS, Stephen R. C. Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. Tempe, Arizona: Scholarly Publishing, 2005. v + 230 pp. Paper, $18.95--The opening sentence of this instructive book declares that "we have entered a new intellectual age." "Postmodernism" is ...
Husserl, Edmund. Philosophy of Arithmetic: Psychological and Logical Investigations with Supplementary Texts from 1887-1901.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... HUSSERL, Edmund. Philosophy of Arithmetic: Psychological and Logical Investigations with Supplementary Texts from 1887-1901. Edmund Husserl Collected Works, vol. 10. Translated by Dallas Willard. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2003. lxiv + 513 pp. Cloth, $72.00--In the late ...
Ingham, Mary Beth and Mechthild Dreyer. The Philosophical Vision of John Duns Scotus: An Introduction.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... INGHAM, Mary Beth and Mechthild DREYER. The Philosophical Vision of John Duns Scotus: An Introduction. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004. 228 pp. Cloth, $39.95--John Duns Scotus (c. 1266-1308) is a name that many know but far fewer have studied. No doubt, ...
Jaroszynski, Piotr and Mathew Anderson. Ethics: The Drama of the Moral Life.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... JAROSZYNSKI, Piotr and Mathew ANDERSON. Ethics: The Drama of the Moral Life. Staten Island: Alba House, 2003. xxvii + 145 pp. Paper, $14.95--There is no dearth of ethics texts today. Most of the texts are cafeteria plan anthologies, which offer point/counterpoint essays on almost any ...
Kainz, Howard P. Natural Law: An Introduction and Re-Examination.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... KAINZ, Howard P. Natural Law: An Introduction and Re-Examination. Chicago: Open Court, 2004. xvi + 151 pp. Paper, $25.95--In a relatively short span, Kainz has written a remarkably comprehensive and incisive introduction to natural law thinking. Of the book's eight chapters, the first four ...
Kroker, Arthur. The Will to Technology and the Culture of Nihilism. Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Marx.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... KROKER, Arthur. The Will to Technology and the Culture of Nihilism. Heidegger, Nietzsche, and Marx. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. vii + 228 pp. Cloth, $50.00; paper, $24.95--This is the first volume in a series called "Digital Futures," edited by Marilouise Kroker, the ...
LaPorte, Joseph. Natural Kinds and Conceptual Change.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... LAPORTE, Joseph. Natural Kinds and Conceptual Change. Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. x + 221 pp. Cloth, $70.00--LaPorte's monograph addresses a number of eminently important topics in the philosophy of science, biology, and ...
Magee, Glenn Alexander. Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... MAGEE, Glenn Alexander. Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001. xii + 287 pp. Cloth, $39.95--Reading Glenn Alexander Magee's Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition is very much like a walk down memory lane. This is not just because Magee generously references my ...
Panichas, George A. Joseph Conrad: His Moral Vision.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... PANICHAS, George A. Joseph Conrad: His Moral Vision. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 2005. xviii + 165 pp. Cloth, $35.00--One does not normally think of Conrad as a moral philosopher, but it does not take Panichas long to convince the reader that, indeed, he was one. In successive ...
Proudfoot, Wayne, Editor. William James and a Science of Religions.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... PROUDFOOT, Wayne, Editor. William James and a Science of Religions. Columbia University Press, 2004. 138 pp. Cloth, $34.50--This collection of essays provides a critical analysis of the contribution The Varieties of Religious Experience has made over the past century and continues to make ...
Putnam, Hilary. Ethics without Ontology.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... PUTNAM, Hilary. Ethics Without Ontology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004. ix + 160 pp. Cloth, $29.95--This book is composed of six lectures, four delivered at the University of Perugia in the fall of 2001 and two delivered at the University of Amsterdam in the previous spring ....
Quante, Michael. Hegel's Concept of Action.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... QUANTE, Michael. Hegel's Concept of Action. Translated by Dean Moyar. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. xvi + 199 pp. Cloth, $60.00--This book is a translation of Michael Quante's Hegels Begriff der Handlung, originally published in 1993. It is one of the first efforts to bridge ...
Ricoeur, Paul. The Just.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... RICOEUR, Paul. The Just. Translated by David Pellauer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. xxiv + 161 pp. Cloth, $20.00; paper, $14.00--Paul Ricoeur writes of these essays that they "do not properly speaking constitute the chapters of a book .... Yet these texts do not come down ...
Sherover, Charles M. Are We In Time? And Other Essays on Time and Temporality.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... SHEROVER, Charles M. Are We In Time? And Other Essays on Time and Temporality. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2003. xv + 226 pp. Cloth, $79.95; paper $29.95--This rich book consists of a collection of eleven essays published in widely disparate venues between 1975 and 1992. The ...
Smith, Steven G. Worth Doing.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... SMITH, Steven G. Worth Doing. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2004. xii + 261 pp. Cloth, $48.00--This book is a foray into the concept of worth and an attempt to get a handle on what "a theory of worth would look like" (p. xii). Moreover, it is an effort at least to begin the ...
Solomon, Robert C. Living with Nietzsche: What the Great "Immoralist" Has to Teach Us.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... SOLOMON, Robert C. Living with Nietzsche: What the Great "Immoralist" Has to Teach Us. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. 243 pp. Cloth, $35.00--Robert Solomon has himself lived with Nietzsche for a long time, beginning with a lecture on Nietzsche that, Solomon recounts, prompted him ...
Taylor, Charles. Modern Social Imaginaries.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... TAYLOR, Charles. Modern Social Imaginaries. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004. 215 pp. Cloth, $64.95; paper, $18.95--Taylor begins his discussion of modern social imaginaries by contrasting the modern moral order with the premodern. Whereas the premodern moral order was based on a law of ...
Tonsor, Stephen J. Equality, Decadence and Modernity.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... TONSOR, Stephen J. Equality, Decadence and Modernity. Wilmington, Delaware: ISI Books, 2005. xviii + 357 pp. Cloth, $24.00; paper, $14.40--Those schooled in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy have for the most part abandoned the notion that philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom ....
Tucker, Aviezer. Our Knowledge of the Past: A Philosophy of Historiography.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... TUCKER, Aviezer. Our Knowledge of the Past: A Philosophy of Historiography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 291 pp. Cloth $70.00--Aviezer Tucker's philosophy of historiography is epistemological as opposed to the philosophy of historical interpretation, which is ethical, ...
Wielenberg, Erik J. Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe.(Book Review)
Dec 01, 2005; ... WIELENBERG, Erik J. Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. x + 193 pp. Cloth, $60.00; paper, $20.99---This book explores the ethical implications of "naturalism," which, for Wielenberg, is a worldview that holds that there are no gods and no ...
American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Vol. 79, No. 3, Summer 2005.
Dec 01, 2005 ... Aquinas and the Human Desire for Knowledge, JAN A. AERTSEN This essay examines Aquinas's analysis of the human desire to know, which plays a central role in his thought. (I) This analysis confronts him with the Aristotelian tradition: thus, the desire for knowledge is a ...
The American Philosophical Quarterly: Vol. 42, No. 4, October 2005.(PHILOSOPHICAL ABSTRACTS)(Periodical Review)
Dec 01, 2005 ... Egoistic Friendship, TARA SMITH This paper disputes the common belief that egoists cannot enjoy genuine and worthwhile friendships. Part 1 explains how love of another person is selfish, based on recognition of the value of the friend to the lover. Concern for a friend can come ...
The American Philosophical Quarterly: Vol. 43, No. 1, January 2006.
Dec 01, 2005 ... Epistemological Physicalism and the Knowledge Argument, JESPER KALLESTRUP This paper offers a new solution to the knowledge argument. Both a priori and a posteriori physicalists reject the claim that Mary does not know all the facts, but they do so for different reasons. While ...
Australasian Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 83, No. 3, September 2005.
Dec 01, 2005 ... Moral Fictionalism versus 'The Rest', DANIEL NOLAN, GREG RESTALL, and CAROLINE WEST In this paper a distinct methaithical position is introduced: fictionalism about morality. This position is clarified and defended, showing that it is a way to save the moral phenomena, while ...
International Philosophical Quarterly: Vol. 45, No. 4, December 2005.
Dec 01, 2005 ... Praxis of the Middle: Self and No-Self in Early Buddhism, JOHN W. M. KRUMMEL This paper considers the controversy surrounding the Buddhist doctrine of ino-selfi (anatt, an, tman), and especially the question of whether the Buddha himself meant by it unequivocally the ontological ...
Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 102, No. 6, June 2005.
Dec 01, 2005 ... A Plea For Things That Aren't Quite All There (Or, Is There a Problem about Vague Composition and Vague Existence?), NICHOLAS J. J. SMITH Orthodoxy has it that mereological composition can never be a vague matter, for if it were, then existence would sometimes be a vague matter ...
Journal of the History of Philosophy: Vol. 44, No. 1, January 2006.
Dec 01, 2005 ... Hume on Promises and the Peculiar Act of the Mind, RACHEL COHON Hume's account of the virtue of fidelity to promises contains two surprising claims: (1) Any analysis of fidelity that treats it as a natural (nonconventional) virtue is incorrect because it entails that in ...
The Monist: Vol. 89, No. 2, April 2006.
Dec 01, 2005 ... How International Relations Theorists Can Benefit by Reading Thucydides, W. J. KORAB-KARPAROWICZ Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War is often seen as an archetypal statement of power politics. He is regarded as a political realist who asserts that the pursuit of moral ...
The Philosophical Quarterly: Vol. 55, No. 221, October 2005.
Dec 01, 2005 ... Just War and the Supreme Emergency Exemption, CHRISTOPHER TONER Recently a number of liberal political theorists, including Rawls and Walzer, have argued for a "supreme emergency exemption" from the traditional just war principle of discrimination which absolutely prohibits ...
Philosophy: Vol. 80, No. 3, July 2005.
Dec 01, 2005 ... Almog's Descartes, FRED ABLONDI The answer which Joseph Almog gives to the question which serves as the title of his recent book What Am I? (subtitled: Descartes and the Mind-Body Problem) is based upon his interpretation of and objection to (1) Descartes's argument for the ...
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research: Vol. 70, No. 2, March 2006.
Dec 01, 2005 ... Perception and Representation, WILLIAM ALSTON Alston opposes the popular view that the phenomenal character of perceptual experience consists in the subject's representing the (putative) perceived object as being so-and-so. The account of perceptual experience he favors instead ...
Phronesis: Vol. 50, No. 3, July 2005.(Character overview)
Dec 01, 2005 ... Aristotle and the Aristotelian Tradition, KEIMPE ALGRA La figure d'Ulysse chez les Socratiques : Socrate polutropos, DAVID LEVYSTONE At the end of the fifth century B.C.E., the character of Odysseus was scorned by most of the Athenians: he illustrated the archetype of ...
Phronesis: Vol. 50, No. 4, October 2005.
Dec 01, 2005 ... Recollection and Philosophical Reflection in Plato's "Phaedo", LEE FRANKLIN Interpretations of recollection in the Phaedo are divided between ordinary interpretations, on which recollection explains a kind of learning accomplished by all, and sophisticated interpretations, which ...
Ratio: Vol. 18, No. 3, September 2005.
Dec 01, 2005 ... A Note on Kripke's Footnote 56 Argument for the Essentiality of Origin, ROSS P. CAMERON In footnote 56 of his Naming and Necessity, Kripke offers a "proof" of the essentiality of origin. On its most literal reading the argument is clearly flawed, as was made clear by Nathan ...
Edward Pols (1919-2005).(IN MEMORIAM)(Obituary)
Dec 01, 2005; ... Edward Pols died on 14 August 2005, in Brunswick, Maine, within weeks of completing his volume of philosophical essays, On Rational Agency, and his volume of poetry, Remembrance of Things to Come. That his life ended in active engagement with both philosophy and poetry befits his ...
The Poet's First Philosophy.(IN MEMORIAM)(Poem)
Dec 01, 2005; ... <Pre> The Poet's First Philosophy First philosophy: Aristotle's name for the discipline later misleadingly named metaphysics. You who act in words: if you ever bindthem in such array that lets you lookclear through them to your being's root and findthere duty, ...