Unlike many other dialogues, Plato’s Charmides has never elicited much sustained scholarly attention, even though it focuses on an important moral excellence, sôphrosunê (temperance, moderation), features two of Plato’s relatives who were members of the oligarchic government of 304–303 BC, and includes two refutations of the Republic’s formula, “doing one’s own things,” as well as a long, complex discussion of “knowledge of knowledge.” The present work is therefore a welcome addition to the small collection of English books on it (Tuckey, (...) Plato’s Charmides; Hyland, The Virtue of Philosophy; Schmid, Plato’s Charmides and the Socratic Ideal of Rationality). Early chapters, comprising nearly half the .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Transforming Music EducationCarolyn LivingstonEstelle R. Jorgensen, Transforming Music Education ( Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2003)Estelle Jorgensen's vision of the transformation of our profession is lofty but not ostentatious, exacting but not rigid. The dream she unveils in her latest book, Transforming Music Education, "challenges music educators to raise their expectations of themselves, their colleagues, their students, and their publics; to look beyond the ordinary; and to (...) aspire to distinction in every facet of its enterprise" (145). A powerfully convincing writer, Jorgensen, author of In Search of Music Education, begins appropriately in her preface by detailing the reasons why music education needs to be transformed. Many of her students and former students at Indiana University are not only satisfied with the status quo in music education, but demonstrate reluctance about even considering the need for change. Others, she has found, long for improvement, having encountered paternalistic administrators, loneliness, fear, and a loss of enjoyment in teaching and in music. Although the author is happy for the former group, she empathizes with the latter. "Gone are the hope, joy, and love of connecting with students or of the art that led them to teaching in the first place," she writes. "In their place I hear the voices of weariness, discouragement, and ennui" (x). [End Page 211]In addition, Jorgensen has observed the anti-intellectualism abroad in education, evident in a variety of symptoms. One of the most troubling is the idolization of scientific research resulting in a loss of interest in philosophical and historical inquiry. She decries the "declining regard for the long and distinguished narratives of education and for the critical insights that would help guard the profession against repeating past mistakes and making ill-conceived plans. Pretentious jargon invoked by educational scientists and theorists often cloaks a paucity of ideas frequently unintelligible to the teachers it is supposed to benefit, and few teachers read it," she asserts (x).Pointing out that we have lost much of our culture other than that promoted in the popular media, Jorgensen reminds us that, after graduation, high school students no longer play their instruments and that some churches now project words to hymns on large screens for parishioners no longer willing or able to read from a hymnal. She is as appalled as the rest of us by restaurant employees' attempts to sing "Happy Birthday" to celebrating patrons, and she notices that even consumers of culture increasingly rely on media opinions for assistance with choices about art exhibits, books, recordings, and performances.The resegregation of schools, the "back to basics" movement, and public apathy about education are other indicators that transformation is needed. If these reasons are not enough, Jorgensen states that ongoing renewal will always be a necessity for education. Since education is often defined as the process by which culture is transmitted, musicians and artists, as purveyors of culture, Jorgensen believes, can create a humane and holistic music education to serve as a model for education in general. "To conceive of music education as enculturation... requires placing culture at the heart of education," she states. "Regarding music along with other arts as important manifestations of human expression suggests that they should be central and essential to a complete education" (9).The purpose of each chapter is clear from its beginning, and the chapters are concisely summarized. The first, "Setting the Stage," discusses several problems of our present society as they affect education. Jorgensen considers possible resistance to transformation and the need for support from organizations like MENC and NASM. She maintains that transformation can only be achieved through the cooperation of many groups and individuals. One of the most difficult problems would seem to be the one that occurs when groups who have previously been oppressed, such as members of female, economic, ethnic, racial, religious, or other minorities, achieve a measure of power and then begin to behave toward others as their oppressors behaved toward them. She cites the work of Paulo Freire who believes that this phenomenon can only be eradicated through emancipatory education.Jorgensen gives homage to past and present music educators who have already recognized the need for change. She makes the point... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:In Search of the ClassicEdward E. FosterIn Search of the Classic, by Steven Shankman; xvi & 331 pp. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995, $55.00 cloth, $18.95 paper.“In search of” in the title of a book is often a code warning of lukewarm conviction or academic disingenuousness. In Shankman’s title, however, the phrase is literally appropriate because he forthrightly argues that the classic is, of its (...) nature, something that always exists in quest and tension. The classic is not to be located merely in classical antiquity or in the tastes of a privileged class. Though Shankman grants that these often are associated with the literary classic, he finds the nature of the classic rather in the nature of literature as a state of metaxis or “in-betweenness.” His examinations of classical, neo-classical, and modern works define various aspects of this “in-betweenness,” the state of tension that exists in the truly classic at any point in the history of literature.Although Shankman dismisses Derrida, Foucault, de Man, and others for having mistaken their own destruction of Enlightenment rationalism for a demonstration that rationality is impossible, he is not wildly original. He uses Habermas’s notion of classic literature as enduring and independent of time and Vogelin’s concept of metaxis as foundational for his sprawling, yet lucid, inquiry into the idea of the classic in Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Pindar, Virgil, Dryden, Defoe, Swift, Valery, and others, and in the traditions of the epic, ode, pastoral, and lyric.Fundamental is the view that classic literature has the greatest power to represent human experience. To avoid the hermeneutical conundrum of the subject-object dilemma, Shankman asserts literature to be in “a middle place” from Plato and Aristotle on. He sees a basic agreement between them on how literature stands between the One and the Many. Put negatively, literature is not sparks from the One or compilations of the Many. Rather it is a mediator between these polarities: classic literature accommodates the propositional purity of philosophy to the indeterminacy of thing-reality. Literature is neither an abstract kernelization of truth nor an anthology of the things of experience [End Page 256] but an analogical conjunction of the two extremes—therefore tension, therefore continual quest.Using Plato, especially the Cratylus and the Symposium, and Aristotle, especially the Metaphysics and the Poetics, Shankman describes a rationality that exists in literature that is clearly identified in his chapter on Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels by emphasizing the idea of man as an animal capax rationis. This in itself places man’s literary enterprise in a middle place and Shankman explores its various implications in a variety of works. From this perspective, it is argued that literature must be about something that matters; that pure poetry or reflexive poetry cannot achieve the ambiguity of analogy as the central core that the classic requires. Thus, Plato never rejected poetry—only the debasement of poetry into either the fantastical or literal (or the confusion of the two.)The true classic walks a line between ignorance and knowledge, rhetoric and philosophy, literalism and fantasy, “thing-reality” and “the ideal.” The Aeneid makes a good test case. It is at once a piece of propaganda and a statement of an ideal that is complicated by the duplicity of Aeneas’ abandonment of Dido, the brutality of his killing of Turnus, and his emergence in Book VI from the underworld by the Gate of Ivory (false dreams). Such tension is exemplary of what Shankman sinuously argues is at the heart of “the classic” in a variety of other works.The argument is persuasive and attractive, even if not compelling, in a world where many critics would have us believe that all of literature, canonical or not, is disappearing into nontext. That about half of the chapters are adaptations of previously published articles risks a discontinuity that is largely avoided by recapitulations of where we are in the exposition of our struggle in a continuing and intrinsic state of rational metaxis. I like the idea, but I must reserve judgment on a thesis that attends to the poetry of Yvor Winters and E. V. Cunningham... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Teaching General Music in Grades 4–8: A Musicianship ApproachKatherine StrandThomas Regelski, Teaching General Music in Grades 4–8: A Musicianship Approach ( Oxford: Oxford University Press 2004)In this recent addition to the world of texts for secondary methods classes, Teaching General Music in Grades 4–8: A Musicianship Approach, Thomas Regelski takes a new look at the challenging task of teaching the pre-adolescent and adolescent age group. This text (...) brings together many of Regelski's earlier writing on topics such as the professionalism of music teaching practice, music education as praxial education, and the operationalization of critical theory in music education. His thoughtful work offers insights and challenges to pre-service and in-service teachers.In the Introduction, Regelski provides a brief history of critical theory in education and describes how he applies critical theory to the profession of music teaching and the experience of musical learning. In this "new view" of education, teachers should seek to be transformative rather than simply transmitting a cultural status quo through status quo methods of teaching. Critical theory in teaching criticizes both the methods and the content in the light of context, student learning needs, praxis, and the situatedness of learning. He argues, as in earlier articles, against what he calls methodolotry: the tendency to adopt a method and follow that method unquestioningly. Rather, he proposes that teachers [End Page 121] should adopt a stance of reflective practitioner, becoming informal action researchers by questioning the value and effectiveness of instructional strategy and curricular content. (Sadly, once introduced, there is no more information about how to engage in action research, nor any encouragement to learn more about the subject.)Educational content should be based on critical theory which, as Regelski argues:... seeks to study the past, but in terms of its implications–positive or negative–for the present and, especially, as a basis for improving society and the individuals who constitute society.... [T]he past is evoked "critically" and selectively and new practices that will become traditions of the future will be initiated.1The job of the teacher is to help students make critical judgments regarding music and the "good time" the musical experience contributes to the students' lives.2 Music classrooms should be considered music laboratories in which children learn through thoughtful, investigatory experiences. Music education should promote life-skills relevant to the student's world, teach functional musical skills, incite interest in unfamiliar musical experiences, and address the pre-adolescent and adolescent student's "need to achieve."3In the first chapter, Regelski argues for "action learning," or learning in which the student is the principal actor. To support his argument, he cites findings in cognitive psychology, philosophical trends of pragmatism, utilitarianism, and humanism, transfer of learning theory, authentic learning and assessment, and constructivist learning theories. This myriad of ideas combine to form the essence of his argument: children in this age group need to develop intentionality in music-making to have a "good time" and instruction should always connect in-school musical learning with a student's real-world musical experiences. The value of action learning lies in the transfer of learning from the classroom to life after school:It advances the skills predictably useful to typical adults throughout life: for example, recreational singing, music reading sufficient to church and community choirs, "making sense" of music and enjoyment through listening, and the like. It is not a survey of disconnected musical generalities, a superficial sampling of music "in general"; boiled down theory, history, appreciation: or the introduction to the "discipline" of music as a "subject" of study for its own sake. Instead, it promotes the broad musicianship skills and positive attitudes for "breaking 100" [as in bowling, the level at which one calls oneself a "musician"] that enable students to be musically independent and active outside of class and after graduation, and to want to be musically active as part of the life well lived [italics added].4 [End Page 122]In the second chapter, Regelski provides an excellent summary of the physical, cognitive, and social development of children from age 9 to 14. Age categories are broken into upper elementary grades 4–6... (shrink)

Contributing a new perspective to a growing body of interdisciplinary climate change studies, Dale Jamieson’s Reason in a Dark Time investigates some key issues in historical, political, economic, and ethical fields of research. Synthesizing analyses from several disciplines, the book addresses a broad range of problems posed by human-induced climate change, emphasizing the ethical and political challenges inhibiting mitigation efforts. The monograph is divided into seven chapters and includes a preface, a glossary of abbreviations, a list of references, and an (...) index of key terms. Chapter 1 introduces the reader to Jamieson’s motivations for writing the book and outlines its structure and central themes. Chapter 2 sketches a history of climate science and surveys some important international policy initiatives, with particular focus on US climate policy. Chapter 3 discusses some obstacles to effective policies, concentrating on challenges to the ways scientists, policy makers, and the .. (shrink)

       As is appropriate for an introductory text, Douglas Burnham’s book opens with a chapter providing general background information on Kant, a systematic overview of the whole Critical philosophy, a sketch of the basic issues dealt with in the third Critique, and an explanation of the overall structure of Kant’s book. Here and throughout Burnham’s book each section ends with a helpful summary, with diagrams and other convenient “lists†being supplied along the way for (...) added clarity. For the most part, these summaries are reliable. The author’s interpretations, however, occasionally suffer from some rather unfortunate mistakes. For example, when contrasting the categories with the principles (p.14), Burnham cites the principle of non-contradiction as the primary example; yet Kant’s expressed reason for mentioning this “principle†in A150- 3/B189-93 is to contrast it with the principles that function as applications of the categories. Likewise, while Burnham’s catalogue of the four “parts of sensibility†(pp.13-14), composed by grouping imagination (reproductive and productive) together with sensation and pure intuition, makes for an intriguing interpretation, especially as applied to the third Critique, he does not inform his (unknowing) student reader that the position he presents is far from being expressed so unambiguously in Kant’s text.        The main content of Burnham’s book is divided into five chapters that follow a more or less predictable – though sometimes rather idiosyncratic – order. Chapter 1 explains three of the four “moments†of beauty, but does so in a manner that wholly neglects Kant’s own understanding of their architectonic unity. Burnham discusses the second moment (universality) first, the first moment (disinterestedness) second, and the fourth moment (necessity) third! Moreover, he then devotes the entirety of Chapter 2 to a discussion of the third moment (purposiveness).. (shrink)

ABSTRACT We review Danielle Macbeth's book Realizing Reason, published by Oxford University Press in 2014. This extensive book is composed by nine chapters in which Macbeth critically presents the development of mathematical practices in the Western world - from its founding in Ancient Greece's diagrammatic practices to the apogee of mathematical logic in the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries - while offering a revaluation of its present stage by means of a reconsideration of Gottlob Frege's philosophical contributions. In this review, we (...) present a summary of each chapter's contents and make general considerations about them. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 12.1 (2004) 89-93 [Access article in PDF] Richard Shusterman, Performing Live: Aesthetic Alternatives for the Ends of Art (New York: Cornell University Press, 2000) Performing Live can be ascribed to post-modern American pragmatism in its widest expression. The author's intention is to revalue aesthetic experience, as well as to expand its realm to the extent where such experience also encompasses areas alien to (...) traditional aesthetics (for example, popular art or the somatic arts of self-improvement), reaching "the art of living" and reclaiming life itself as performance.After the introduction, titled "Aesthetic Renewal for the Ends of Art: An Overture," the text is organized in two main parts: "Aesthetic Experience and Popular Art" and "Soma, Self, and Society." Along with its ambitious title, the book's organization and structure promise a consistency of approach and narrative that somewhat dissolves during the reading. Shusterman recognizes that the stylistic problems that arise from a compilation of articles spanning ten years, mixing newly written and revised articles, but appeals to the reader's appreciation of the "quality of the mix" (11). Despite this feature, he is a lucid and thoughtful communicator and his writing style is excellent.In order to propose new or revitalized alternatives for the ends of art, Shusterman [End Page 89] explores the crisis in traditional visions of art, pointing to the compartmentalization and lack of credibility in current artistic thought and practice. Hegel, Walter Benjamin, Gianni Vattimo, and Arthur Danto provide him with the philosophical arguments accounting for the modern "exhaustion" of art. He supports a dialectical approach, both naturalistic and historicist, and builds a solid case for the possibility of alternatives in aesthetic thought and experience. He proposes two alternatives in his introduction: The two most prominent sites for today's aesthetic alternatives are clearly the mass-media popular arts and the complex cluster of disciplines devoted to bodily beauty and the art of living as expressed in today's preoccupation with aesthetic lifestyles. (7) It is unclear why these alternatives are "clearly" "the two most prominent." The author does not build a case for this assumption or for the "newness" of these alternatives. The "compilation style" mentioned above and this lack of justification for one of the most original elements in the book make this text often read as a philosophical drafting board. Keeping these characteristics in mind and also critically pondering the degrees of success in the enterprise, the reader must give Shusterman credit for taking risks while suggesting concrete examples for an experiential, holistic philosophy. In this sense, he mentions (in a different context) that "all of us [are caught] between conceptual history and futuristic speculation" (145), and he takes to heart this situation and its challenges.The first chapter in Performing Live aims to redeem or revalue the concept of aesthetic experience. For Shusterman, the loss of "felt experience" in art makes the interest in this concept utterly relevant for art's survival. He traces the lineage of this aesthetic philosophy to John Dewey, Monroe Beardsley, Nelson Goodman, and Arthur Danto. Besides focusing on these authors, his analysis revisits some of the main currents of thought in Western philosophy on the topic (for example, Plato, Hume, Kant, Dickie, Adorno, Benjamin, Gadamer). He concludes that a pragmatic approach to aesthetics, applying the concept of aesthetic experience directionally (as a means towards the actual experience rather than as a definable concept), can provide new paths for revitalizing art. Throughout the text this concept is also used expansively. The post-modern justification of the proposed aesthetics, by allowing the extension of aesthetic experience to embrace "the art of living," can leave the reader wondering if Shusterman has not simply turned Kierkegaard's existentialist stages to self-realization upside down.The second chapter is an open defense of popular art, carried out by contesting the main complaints found in current art criticism. Shusterman's defense is not directed to the products of popular art, but against the claim that popular art is aesthetically "worthless." His definition of "popular art... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Age of Grace: “Charis” in Early Greek PoetryDana R. SmithThe Age of Grace: “Charis” in Early Greek Poetry, by Bonnie MacLachlan; xxi & 192 pp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992, $29.95.Bonnie MacLachlan has two concerns in this book. First, she sees early charis, conventionally and inadequately translated as “grace,” as the result of feeling, concrete action, and sometimes concrete objects, fused in such a way that (...) early Greeks did not clearly distinguish these as separate aspects. Second, she focuses on the experience of beauty or pleasure as a crucial part of reciprocity in charis, and argues that many of the now-fashionable models from the social sciences, such as those dealing with reciprocal exchange of goods and favors, are insufficient to account for this particular dynamic of allurement. What later ages sensed, and what we sense, as two or more different kinds of charis “may not have been sensed as such by the archaic Greek mind.” Rather, the early Greeks possessed an integrated sense of these fragments as part of a single experience. “A charis-event, provoked by moral or aesthetic beauty, was disarming; it broke down the barriers of the self, and it demanded that the beneficiary reach out to another.” This study combines extremely able discussions of different sides of this crucial concept with a large vision of their integration into a coherent whole: “[Charis] was the moral glue of their society, linking such other central moral ideas as timê [“honor,” “prerogative,” “price”], dikê [“due portion,” “justice”], themis [“unwritten law”], xenia [“requital of gifts and hospitality”], and aidôs [“reverence,” “awe”].”How well does MacLachlan demonstrate this twofold idea? She deserves high praise for setting forth the essential passages of her authors clearly and succinctly, for giving numerous insights into them, for adducing much pertinent scholarship, and certainly for furthering the development of her important thesis. Her discussion of the earliest conception of charis (chap. 2, “The Charis of Achilles”), focused mainly on Homer, with material from the Homeric Hymns and Hesiod, gives a sensitive and persuasive account of relations among charis, timê, and dikê. She makes excellent points about specific perceptions of beauty, especially visual, although one comes away a bit uncertain as to how these aspects all cohere, and also as to whether there are differences in charis between the Iliad and the Odyssey. Her discussion of the cult dimensions of charis (chap. 3, “The Charites”), while fascinating in itself, contains little direction for using this information so as to understand the thesis. She gives careful readings of her examples of erotic and social charis (chaps. 4 and 5, “Erotic Charis” and “Social Charis”), clearly identifying types that contrast with the earlier prototypical experience, although sometimes her criticism of these is more implicit than stated. A more forceful definition of the “problem” of erotic charis, for example, would have helped unify this discussion with that of erotic charis in Aeschylus. Her discussion of Pindar and Bacchylides (6, “Epinician Charis”), perhaps the high point of the book, shows the richest ties to the multi-dimensional Homeric charis; here we return clearly to the topic of [End Page 172] beauty, see the pertinence of some of the cult information, and sense the transformational dynamics of charis as profoundly important for this genre of poems. She leaves somewhat open, however, the question of whether charis is a single thing in Pindar. The chapter on Aeschylus (7, “Charis in the Oresteia”) presents a powerful reading of different kinds of charis in conflict, private versus public, resulting in a unified view of the trilogy as a whole. Once more we note different senses of charis, but in a way that highlights their collision: the duality of charis is further brought into relation with other dualities, such as that of dikê. This chapter connects well with other parts of the book; erotic and false charis become important issues.If there is a criticism to make of this book, it is that MacLachlan does not do quite enough to work out the relations between her provocative thesis and her discussions of particular poems. Some sections are too dissertation-like in presenting evidence, and more thought about the... (shrink)

on ). Advice about how to move forward on the mindreading debate, particularly when it comes to overcoming the logical problem, is much needed in comparative psychology. In chapter 4 of his book Ockham’s Razors, Elliott Sober takes on the task by suggesting how we might uncover the mechanism that mediates between the environmental stimuli that is visible to all, and chimpanzee social behavior. I argue that Sober's proposed method for deciding between the behaivor-reading and mindreading hypotheses fails given the (...) nature of each of those hypotheses. I argue that the behavior-reading hypothesis that Povinelli and colleagues propose is so rich and robust that it is going to make predictions that are behaviorally indiscernible from the mindreading hypothesis. Further, I argue that the logical problem artificially separates one’s knowledge of behavior and one’s knowledge of mind. If we reject this form of dualism, the logical problem doesn’t arise. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 8.2 (2003) 126-131 [Access article in PDF] Three Challenges to Ethics, by James Sterba. Oxford University Press, 2000. Paperback, pp. 160. ISBN: 0195124766. $14.95. In Three Challenges to Ethics, James Sterba's central claim is that environmentalism, feminism, and multiculturalism challenge traditional Western ethics, as exemplified by Aristotelian, Kantian, and utilitarian moral theory. Sterba understands these views respectively as the claims that Western ethics is (...) biased against non-human creatures, women, and non-Western cultures. If taken seriously, these schools of thought require making adjustments in our concepts of what sorts of things can have goods or interests, who is rational, and what sorts of intuitions get counted among the data we examine. Sterba offers a decisive argument for giving these views a fair hearing. He argues that to dismiss these views without a fair hearing is to beg the question in favor of the accepted views.There are two primary projects that run through this book. The first project examines whether or not entire groups of people or categories of thought can be dismissed. The second project shows that particular schools of thought and individual thinkers challenge traditional ethics by examining the important contributions they make. [End Page 126]The views of women, non-white, and non-Western thinkers have been and are frequently dismissed prior to any hearing (sometimes by relying on historically dated and biased hearings) on the assumption that only white men of European descent can make meaningful contributions to Western culture. It isn't unusual for people who hold this view to point to the historical absence of contributions from women or non-whites as evidence for their inability to contribute. When a few representatives are brought forth, it is claimed that these few exceptions actually prove the rule. Without real evidence that shows that, as a rule, particular categories of people cannot make contributions to the discussion (which seems a priori false, if anything does), we have both a moral and intellectual obligation to take all people and positions seriously. His discussion of whether or not to take environmentalism, feminism, and multiculturalism seriously is framed by the straightforward concern about whether or not those who reject these problems, thinkers, and ideas as genuine or legitimate are begging the question in favor of their own position. He shows decisively that if those who work in this area and who do intellectual work generally do not want to be accused of begging the question with regard to these issues, then they must assess these positions and the corresponding work on a par with the work of Western male philosophers. By holding ourselves accountable to our own standards, we are obligated to give even possibly unpromising views a fair hearing, a hearing on a par with positions we favor. Using the standards of Western reasoning, we must provide evidence that these positions are inherently worthless in order to dismiss them wholesale or at the very least reasons to dismiss individual thinkers. In order to do this, we must begin by evaluating these positions fairly.Having made this case, Sterba moves on to show that there is good evidence to take these various challenges and the particular challengers seriously. In the first chapter of the book Sterba discusses the challenge posed to traditional ethics by relativism, and having shown that there are at least good reasons for rejecting relativism, goes on to discuss the demands of morality. He also has a concise introduction to the ideas of Aristotle, Kant, and utilitarianism.The rest of the book addresses the three challenges, first by presenting an introduction to the particular challenge, which is both brief and detailed, and then showing how each set of criticisms can be accommodated by moral theory. He discusses, arguably, the three most important moral positions, Aristotle, Kant, and the utilitarians, along with their traditional [End Page 127] responses. He then goes on to show how the challenges to traditional ethics can be accommodated, largely by Kantian ethics. Because of the brevity of the book, some background might be required if this book is used in introductory courses... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Charles Faulkner Bryan: His Life and MusicTerese M. VolkCarolyn Livingston, Charles Faulkner Bryan: His Life and Music ( Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 2003)There are many biographical studies in music education history.1 Indeed, it seems one of the easiest fields in historical research to mine—that is, until the researcher finds him or herself in the midst of what could be a years-long endeavor. Then the choice (...) is to commit to the research or quit. Carolyn Livingston did not quit. Her research began in 1981, continued through twenty years of investigations, interviews, library searches, and analyses, and has culminated in Charles Faulkner Bryan: His Life and Music. This book is not just the usual sequence of events in the life of a musician. Rather, it is more like becoming acquainted with someone you have never met before, yet feel comfortable with immediately. Charles Faulkner Bryan is genuinely likeable, and Livingston brings the person of Bryan to the fore and lets his humanity shine through his life and his music.Charles Faulkner Bryan: His life and Music is divided into two sections (pre- and post-WWII), each with four chapters. Livingston looks at this musician from several perspectives: the composer, the educator, the researcher, and the man. Appalachian folk music is the theme that connects the chapters, as it connected the events in Bryan's life. [End Page 211]Chapter 1 focuses on Bryan's youth, during which he and his family discovered his musical abilities. From performing at school, to building his own "turtle uke,"2 to his studies at the Nashville Conservatory of Music, Livingston describes the family support behind his developing musicality. Chapter 2 shows the reader his humanity even more clearly. Livingston tells of his early career as a music educator at the Tennessee Polytechnic institute; his marriage; and his mentorship of a young Black singer, J. Robert Bradley. That Bryan, a white Southerner, gave voice lessons to Bradley was not only generally unheard of with segregation as it was in the United States during the 1930s, but was dangerous to his career as well. Bryan moved on to teach at Peabody College in Nashville and then worked for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Music Program on the Tennessee Music Project. Later he became the assistant state coordinator for the Tennessee State Defense Council. During both of these service positions, he called for music education improvements in Tennessee. Commenting on his work during this period, Livingston says, "Bryan was both of his time and ahead of his time... grounded in reality and yet visionary."3In Chapter 3, Livingston gives the reader a review of the "status of folk music scholarship and performance" as it existed in the 1930s.4 She takes pains to introduce the folk music researchers and musicians who influenced Bryan in his work with Appalachian folk music: Lucien L. McDowell and Flora Lassiter McDowell, George Pullen Jackson, Charles Seeger, and John Jacob Niles. These connections and friendships were to influence his awareness of Appalachian folk music and would continue for the rest of his life. By 1945 he had come to be considered an authority on folk music in his own right and his vision of this music came to encompass "the ultimate meaning in representing America itself."5Chapter 4 traces Bryan's development as a composer. It is in this chapter that Livingston begins to incorporate analyses of Bryan's most popular compositions. Her reviews of these compositions are clear and detailed without being overly theoretical. Some of the selections she analyzes include "Charlottown," "The Ballad of the Harp Weaver," and the White Spiritual Symphony. The Symphony in particular shows his respect for the folk songs he incorporated in this composition. Indeed, as Livingston points out several times, he maintained the integrity of these songs in all his compositions and performances. Chapter 4 concludes with Bryan's academic achievements: a Guggenheim Fellowship for music composition and his acceptance at Yale University to study composition under Hindemith.Livingston continues the discussion and analyses of Bryan's compositions in Chapter 5, detailing his time at Yale. His completed choral works from this period include the "Bell... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Skeptical Selves: Empiricism and Modernity in the French NovelDaniel GordonSkeptical Selves: Empiricism and Modernity in the French Novel, by Elena Russo; 225 pp. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996, $35.00.Skeptical Selves explains how linguistic relativism has shaped French literature from the Enlightenment to the present. Elena Russo provides three cases: Prévost’s Histoire d’une Grecque moderne (1740), Constant’s Adolphe (1816), and des Forêts’s Le Bavard (1946). Her fascinating scholarly (...) goal is to portray the inexorable decline of the novel in a climate of ever growing doubt about the truthfulness of narration. Her remarkably ambitious philosophical goal is to save the novel by refuting skepticism!More precisely, Russo’s target is not every form of doubt but rather a specific current of French skeptical consciousness. In recent years, the representatives of this current have been Derrida and Blanchot. Its main feature is a denial of the correspondence notion of the language-truth relationship combined—paradoxically—with an intense nostalgia for a perfectly mimetic language that has allegedly been lost. The seemingly most radical critics of the sign, Russo claims, never overcome the perverse yearning for the very mimesis whose possibility they deny (p. 3).Russo is getting at an interesting distinction here, the distinction between epistemological modesty, which she upholds, and French skepticism, which she deplores. Epistemological modesty means the redefinition of truth according to some criterion other than perfect representation of the external world. French skepticism for her means the insistence on an absolute standard of mimetic reliability and a simultaneous denial that this standard can ever be reached. “Much of the language of negativity we have grown accustomed to in contemporary criticism rests upon the following syllogism: to know is to know directly and without mediation; this is not possible; therefore, the world is unknowable. Any conceptualization is ipso facto viewed as suspect, hence the flight towards nonverbal forms of expression, such as music and silence” (p. 13).After suggesting in her first chapter that French skepticism is a specific style of thought, not a final answer to our epistemological queries, Russo goes on to illustrate the impact of this skepticism on the novel. Prévost’s text, she observes, is one of the first novels built around the distorted point of view of a fallible [End Page 179] narrator. The narrator is the French ambassador to Constantinople who falls in love with a woman, Théophé, recently freed from a seraglio. Both his love and his comprehension are frustrated by the woman’s apparent simplicity and virtue. “Signs acquire a meaning opposite to their manifest one,” Russo notes. “It is precisely the discourse that should have made Théophé look credible that makes her appear suspicious. She is cunning and deceptive because she appears ‘naive’ and ‘innocent’; she is opaque because of her ‘simplicity’ and ‘openness’” (p. 42). The whole point of the novel is to show that we are imprisoned in subjectivity and there is no way out. For a time the narrator attempts to resolve his doubts regarding Théophé’s words by concentrating instead on her body. But here as well he can discover only ambiguity: nothing reveals clearly whether she is conquerable and whether she already has another lover.The novel ends with the unexplained death of Théophé, and Russo comments: “we are given the impression that, rather than ending his text, Prévost is ridding himself of an intractable problem” (p. 66). Artfully, the rest of the book helps us see that the tendency to thematize philosophical problems that have no solutions is intensified in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—to the point where not merely the ending of novels but novels themselves disappear. (Of course, Russo means not that people no longer write novels but that the genre has succeeded in diminishing its own stature by so frequently decrying the limits of language.)The chapter on Constant did not strike me as the strongest part of the book. The problem is due perhaps to the fact that Constant was a truly great thinker, a brilliant political theorist and philosopher of religion as well as a romantic novelist. One chapter does not... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Response to Lawrence Ferrara’s Chapter Four in R. Phelps, R. Sadoff, E. Warburton, and L. Ferrara, A Guide to Research in Music Education, 5th Edition (Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2005)Jack HellerIt is curious that Lawrence Ferrara disagrees with Jack Heller and Edward. J. P. O'Connor's view1 that "philosophy" is not "research," yet in the chapter headings in the book A Guide to Research in Music Education, (...) 5th Edition, Chapter 4 is labeled "Philosophical Inquiry," while other chapters are labeled "Qualitative Research," "Nonexperimental Research," "Quantitative Research," and "Historical Research" (italics added). Why not "Philosophical Research?" Maybe he, too, believes that philosophy is not research.In our Handbook Chapter2 we pointed out that research should be systematic and based on "empirical observation." To make things worse we said that research should try to provide "unbiased evidence." Ferrara ascribes to us a positivistic view that we did not make nor believe. That view, according to Ferrara is that the "key reason for their [our] dismissal of philosophical inquiry (notice inquiry not research) as a bona fide research design is the invariable criterion that they [we] assign to all research if it is indeed research: to present 'unbiased evidence.'" [End Page 89] We still believe that research should try to be as objective as possible while realizing that all observations are researcher dependent and have error. Research should strive to reduce error as much as possible.My reading of Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions does not conflict with what was written in our Chapter. We did not claim that data are unbiased but rather that research should try to limit bias and try to interpret observations that can be supported by specific behavior.Philosophy, or more properly model building, should lead research. Assumptions that appear in a model are just that. They are assumptions. Not fact; not unbiased opinion. But these assumptions or philosophical conclusions should not be called research in music education because they do not provide any behavioral evidence as support. The deductive process used in philosophy (syllogistic reasoning, for example) should help to develop hypotheses that can be investigated by an inductive process (data collection). Philosophy is a time honored scholarly activity. We certainly do not mean to diminish its importance. All research should have a philosophical underpinning that should produce a theoretical model. This model then should be tested by research. Our Handbook Chapter takes this position. Philosophy is philosophy, not research.Ferrara paraphrases Rom Harre3 by stating thatthere are at least three realms of scientific research and theory: the first realm is marked by ordinary perception in which what is known is based on observable and empirically verifiable facts; in the second realm, perception may catch up with conception–there is a promise of technological development... through which researchers will eventually be able to 'observe' and empirically verify what they only conceived (as in philosophical inquiry) as the probable explanation; and in the third realm there are genuine theoretical acts of imagination... that will never be directly (italics added) perceived, for example, empirically observed or verified.Ferrara points out that this "positivist dictum [the Harre quote above]... is unrealistic in relation to actual (italics added) scientific research and practice."4 It is not clear to which "actual scientific research and practice" Ferrara refers. This entire view is misguided. Ferrara does not believe "the methodology of the natural sciences can appropriately be utilized in the human sciences and arts research, retaining the level of objectivity (italics added) achieved in the natural sciences." Who does Ferrara believes carries out natural science research? Are they not humans, constrained by the same problems of observation that all humans encounter? Are their observations more "objective" as Ferrara seems to believe? The natural scientist, like all other researchers, faces the issue of error in observing phenomena that all researchers face. (See the many examples of [End Page 90] this view in Jacques Barzun and Henry Graff.5 ) Neither philosophical inquiry, nor logical positivism, nor the "new realism" approach that Ferrara proposes for research is free from observational error. The role of all research is to minimize error.A quick romp through some... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Response to Lawrence Ferrara’s Chapter Four in R. Phelps, R. Sadoff, E. Warburton, and L. Ferrara, A Guide to Research in Music Education, 5th Edition (Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2005)Jack HellerIt is curious that Lawrence Ferrara disagrees with Jack Heller and Edward. J. P. O'Connor's view1 that "philosophy" is not "research," yet in the chapter headings in the book A Guide to Research in Music Education, (...) 5th Edition, Chapter 4 is labeled "Philosophical Inquiry," while other chapters are labeled "Qualitative Research," "Nonexperimental Research," "Quantitative Research," and "Historical Research" (italics added). Why not "Philosophical Research?" Maybe he, too, believes that philosophy is not research.In our Handbook Chapter2 we pointed out that research should be systematic and based on "empirical observation." To make things worse we said that research should try to provide "unbiased evidence." Ferrara ascribes to us a positivistic view that we did not make nor believe. That view, according to Ferrara is that the "key reason for their [our] dismissal of philosophical inquiry (notice inquiry not research) as a bona fide research design is the invariable criterion that they [we] assign to all research if it is indeed research: to present 'unbiased evidence.'" [End Page 89] We still believe that research should try to be as objective as possible while realizing that all observations are researcher dependent and have error. Research should strive to reduce error as much as possible.My reading of Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions does not conflict with what was written in our Chapter. We did not claim that data are unbiased but rather that research should try to limit bias and try to interpret observations that can be supported by specific behavior.Philosophy, or more properly model building, should lead research. Assumptions that appear in a model are just that. They are assumptions. Not fact; not unbiased opinion. But these assumptions or philosophical conclusions should not be called research in music education because they do not provide any behavioral evidence as support. The deductive process used in philosophy (syllogistic reasoning, for example) should help to develop hypotheses that can be investigated by an inductive process (data collection). Philosophy is a time honored scholarly activity. We certainly do not mean to diminish its importance. All research should have a philosophical underpinning that should produce a theoretical model. This model then should be tested by research. Our Handbook Chapter takes this position. Philosophy is philosophy, not research.Ferrara paraphrases Rom Harre3 by stating thatthere are at least three realms of scientific research and theory: the first realm is marked by ordinary perception in which what is known is based on observable and empirically verifiable facts; in the second realm, perception may catch up with conception–there is a promise of technological development... through which researchers will eventually be able to 'observe' and empirically verify what they only conceived (as in philosophical inquiry) as the probable explanation; and in the third realm there are genuine theoretical acts of imagination... that will never be directly (italics added) perceived, for example, empirically observed or verified.Ferrara points out that this "positivist dictum [the Harre quote above]... is unrealistic in relation to actual (italics added) scientific research and practice."4 It is not clear to which "actual scientific research and practice" Ferrara refers. This entire view is misguided. Ferrara does not believe "the methodology of the natural sciences can appropriately be utilized in the human sciences and arts research, retaining the level of objectivity (italics added) achieved in the natural sciences." Who does Ferrara believes carries out natural science research? Are they not humans, constrained by the same problems of observation that all humans encounter? Are their observations more "objective" as Ferrara seems to believe? The natural scientist, like all other researchers, faces the issue of error in observing phenomena that all researchers face. (See the many examples of [End Page 90] this view in Jacques Barzun and Henry Graff.5 ) Neither philosophical inquiry, nor logical positivism, nor the "new realism" approach that Ferrara proposes for research is free from observational error. The role of all research is to minimize error.A quick romp through some... (shrink)

Vernon Lee was the pseudonym of the British writer Violet Paget (1856-1935). She is known mostly for her supernatural fiction. She also wrote essays and poetry. She contributed to The Yellow Book and was a follower of Walter Pater. Her literary works explored the themes of haunting and possession. She was responsible for introducing the concept of empathy into the English language. Empathy was a key concept in Lee's psychological aesthetics which she developed on the basis of prior work by (...) Theodor Lipps. Her response to aesthetics interpreted art as a mental and corporeal experience. This was a significant contribution to the philosophy of art which has been largely neglected. Additionally she wrote, along with her friend and colleague Henry James, critically about the relationship between the writer and his/her audience pioneering the concept of criticism and expanding the idea of critical assessment among all the arts as relating to an audience's (or her personal) response. She was a strong proponent of the Aesthetic movement. Among her famous works are: A Phantom Lover (1890), Hauntings (1890) and Art and Life (1896). (shrink)

What Stanislas Debaene dubs "the number sense" is a natural ability humans share with other animals, enabling us to "count" to four virtually instantaneously. This so-called "accumulator" provides "a direct intuition of what numbers mean". Beyond four, our ability to perceive numbers becomes approximate, though concepts enable us to move beyond approximation. Because humans typically learn number concepts in early childhood, we easily forget that our brains retain the number sense throughout life. This book examines the biological basis for this (...) intuitive ability, with nine chapters organized into three readily graspable groups of three. Aside from its frustrating lack of a clear referencing system, the book is a pleasure to read. (shrink)

In this review I discuss Joseph Almog's book "Referential Mechanics". The book discusses direct reference as conceived by three of its founding fathers, Kripke, Kaplan and Donnellan, and introduces Almog's ambitious project of providing a referential semantics to all subject-phrases. I offer a brief overview of its four chapters and point out some of their virtues and shortcomings.

J. Benjamin Hurlbut’s book Experiments in Democracy: Human Embryo Research and the Politics of Bioethics is an historiographical analysis of the American debate over embryo research. It covers more than four decades of this debate and uses key actors, bodies, and events as empirical evidence for its analysis. At a first glance, it might seem like a book that tells a story, but Experiments in Democracy is much more than that. Hurlbut uses the chapters of this narrative as case studies (...) through which to examine practices of deliberative democracy and the role played by scientists and ethicists in the deliberative processes concerning embryo research and the governance thereof. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Art of Teaching MusicBetty Anne YounkerEstelle R. Jorgensen, The Art of Teaching Music(Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2008)I have had the pleasure of reading the book manuscript, The Art of Teaching Music, by Estelle Jorgensen. The content explores a variety of ideas that are covered in the myriad of courses experienced by undergraduate students and introduces new ones that are critical to the development of musicians (...) and prospective teachers. Some of these ideas might be alluded to or briefly discussed in methods classes, but not at the level of thoughtful detail as they are entertained and examined in the book. This level of depth would require students and teachers to discuss, dialogue, debate, and reflect over time within and across semesters and courses. I dare to suggest that some of the ideas might not be brought to students’ attention at all throughout the undergraduate experience, which is of a concern and suggests an even greater need for such a book.My overall impression of the book is that the content and the depth of writing would serve the undergraduate students throughout their undergraduate experience and the graduate population for similar and yet different reasons. In terms of the undergraduates, there are parts of the book that would be relevant during their first year in a foundations class, second year in technique classes, third year in methods (for lack of a better word) classes, and student teaching [End Page 109] seminar experiences as they prepare to enter the profession. Utilizing a book across an undergraduate’s experience could generate interesting conversation amongst faculty members as discussions about why, how, what, and when parts of the book would be relevant would need to evolve. Some chapters could be revisited while others visited for the first time at differing places and spaces across the four years. I cannot think of another book that could be utilized in this way and thus serve the undergraduate student throughout her four-year experience and this prospect I find exciting.The book is organized around fourteen chapters, all of which are followed by an afterward. The flow of the chapters invites the reader to examine aspects of becoming and being a music educator at various levels of growth and understanding.The first chapter is titled “Teacher” and requires the reader to think at broader and deeper levels when discussing the notions of role and identity, self-awareness, motivation to enter the profession, and reflective practice. While reading the text, I imagined conversations that would include a comparative analysis of students’ experiences, which could in turn provide larger contexts for the topics. Such a discussion is necessary when examining aspects of being and becoming a teacher in various contexts. The notion of situatedness is highlighted when individual cases are heard and examined and compared across other cases, carefully noting what might or might not be comparable and taking that bit of analysis into consideration. Having such discussions across the four years of undergraduate life allows students to re-visit what was and is, and to speculate about what is to come. Such reflection can be just as fruitful at the graduate level. Students enter graduate school with a variety of teaching experiences and time is needed to reflect on the transition from being a teacher to being a student again. Realization of the continuum on which they travel between learner and teacher becomes apparent in that the place on the continuum shifts regardless of their present position; that is, as a student or teacher. For doctoral students, this reflection is rich as they begin to engage with undergraduate students and forge a new path as budding teachers of teachers and researchers and continue to be musicians.Chapter Two took me to the writings of Dewey1 particularly as I read about a student-centered focus and the experience-based approach. So much of our profession has been driven by content and theories that the student has been removed from the center of the focus and thought of as peripheral. I welcome the idea of placing the students at the center of our thinking and conversations. These ideas have been articulated in... (shrink)

This chapter takes a naturalized approach to the philosophy of science using evidence from cognitive psychology and from the history of science. It first describes the problem of the theory ladenness of perception. Then it provides a general top-down/bottom-up framework from cognitive psychology that is used to organize and evaluate the evidence for theory ladenness throughout the process of carrying out science (perception, attention, thinking, experimenting, memory, and communication). The chapter highlights both the facilitatory and inhibitory role of theory in (...) the scientific process. Both the historical record and the evidence from cognitive psychology suggest that the top-down factors have their greatest impact when the bottom-up information is weak or degraded. There is a short discussion of the normative implications of the material in the chapter for carrying out science. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Fine Delight that Fathers Thought: Rhetoric and Medievalism in Gerard Manley HopkinsRichard D. LordThe Fine Delight that Fathers Thought: Rhetoric and Medievalism in Gerard Manley Hopkins, by Franco Marucci; 261 pp. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1994, $44.95.Paging one day through Hopkins’s notebooks in the library at Campion Hall, I was startled to find the draft of “Spelt From Sibyl’s Leaves” placed directly opposite (...) the tortuous grade computations for one of his classes. This book presents a similar contrast—insights into “The Wreck of the Deutschland” buried in the technical language of structuralism, semiotics, and rhetoric.In his preface, the author calls his book “a revised and updated translation of my I fogli della Sibilla. Retorica et medievalismo in Gerard Manley Hopkins” (p. ix). As the title indicates, it is divided into two parts, the former dealing with Hopkins’s poetic rhetoric viewed synchronically and the latter with his “textuality as a confluence of... cultural codes” (p. 89).In the chapter introducing part one, Marucci dismisses, with few exceptions, criticism from 1918 to the present as being of little use to one investigating “the function and functionality of Hopkins’s poetic rhetoric” (p. 3). The exemplifying portion of this chapter (“Amplification”) addresses “God’s Grandeur” and “The Wreck of the Deutschland” as judicial speech (persuasive), with the reader performing the judicial function. The analysis is useful in providing insights into the poet’s rhetorical planning as he guides the reader in this persuasive process.Moving from the “Deutschland” to the “terrible sonnets” as exemplifications of “autocommunication,” Marucci notes that here the interlocutor gradually disappears as the sender-receiver relationship fades. He believes that Hopkins became “no longer capable of finding in himself (or, more probably, of offering to a receiver who had proved cold and indifferent) the necessary stimuli” (p. 76) and names the editor of The Month, Bridges, and other correspondents as the probable receivers.In the second (and major) part of the book, the author sets out to examine the cultural codes influencing the poet’s textuality. The chapter introducing this section, “‘Integrated’ and ‘Apocalyptic’ Writers,” first looks at “the global syntagmatic model of the Victorian Age” (p. 98) and then divides its texts according to this model into three categories. The first two either reflect or modify the syntagmatic codes (“integrated” writers) while the third opposes these codes (“apocalyptic” writers). The author’s thesis is that Hopkins is not fully any one of these, but that his Victorianism is subsumed in various ways and ultimately subordinated to his medievalism. His position is that Victorian codes essentially ceased to affect the poet after his entrance into the Society of Jesus, when they were replaced by medieval codes. This is developed in some detail in the chapter entitled “Hopkins and Duns Scotus.”Although the book takes a narrow critical approach to Hopkins, it still might [End Page 149] well have been enriched by allowing for the ways in which the Ignatian method of meditation, with its emphasis on the “application of the senses,” so clearly drew Hopkins to find a kindred spirit in Scotus. This, together with the kind of seminary training in vogue in the Catholic Church until after Vatican II, certainly contributed to the medievalism that Marucci finds in the later Hopkins.This is a useful and provocative book for scholars, but many of the footnotes seem unnecessarily long and some chapters conclude too abruptly. The highly specialized language of structuralism and semiotics requires an expertise that probably eludes most undergraduate students.Richard D. LordWillamette UniversityCopyright © 1995 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Mismapping the Underworld: Daring and Error in Dante’s ‘Comedy’Edward Donald KennedyMismapping the Underworld: Daring and Error in Dante’s ‘Comedy,’ by John Kleiner; 182 pp. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994, $32.50.Critics once emphasized the unity and apparent perfection of Dante’s Divine Comedy. In Mismapping the Underworld, John Kleiner emphasizes instead the imperfections, the inconsistencies, and inaccuracies in Dante’s work both to give a more accurate assessment of Dante’s (...) artistry and, as he remarks, to help readers “learn to enjoy” the imperfections (p. 2).The five chapters of the book are devoted to various cruces in the Vita nuova and the Comedy. The first chapter considers numerology in the Vita nuova: pointing out that scholars’ arguments for that work’s numerological symmetry have been flawed, Kleiner asks if Dante had as much “passion for order” as scholars have assumed. The second chapter, from which the title of the book is taken, considers earlier scholars’ attempts to draw accurate maps of Dante’s vision of Hell and inaccuracies and inconsistencies in that vision. Probably not many readers, for example, have realized that Satan, partially buried in the ice of Cocytus at the bottom of Hell, must be about 2,500 feet tall, if one calculates his height from the evidence Dante has given us, and even the part of his body extending above the ice must approximate “the height of the World Trade Center.” One must then ask how Dante, the narrator in the poem, is able to give such detailed descriptions of the tormented bodies of Cassius, Brutus, and Judas dangling from Satan’s mouth: “at their height they should be as insignificant a sight as a trio of deluded tourists waving from the top of the Empire State Building” (p. 44). One of the reasons why scholars have attempted to map the underworld so precisely is, as Kleiner points out, that Dante makes it seem so much more concrete than the “dreamlike” surface of earth. (Here C. S. Lewis may have taken a clue from Dante, in his notion that the concrete belongs to Heaven, that things on earth are only “shadowlands.”)The third chapter concerns Dante’s reputation as a student of classical literature. Here, focusing on two cantos of the Inferno and the Purgatorio, Kleiner considers Dante’s inaccurate citations from Virgil, Statius, and other [End Page 415] classical writers and his intentional use of “masterful distortions” to create the effect he wanted. In the fourth chapter, Kleiner discusses Dante’s use of scientific material, such as his precise description of the duration of a lunar eclipse that no one on earth would have been able to gauge and his design of an impossible experiment concerning reflected light. The final chapter associates Dante’s interest in Geryon, the monster who appears in Canto 16 of the Inferno, with the medieval fascination with the grotesque. Moreover, the Ovidian allusions in this canto, Kleiner believes, make the encounter with Geryon a meditation on poetry and show “fiction’s proximity to fraud, its perilous attractiveness, and its susceptibility to perversion” (p. 132). Thus the Geryon episode represents Dante’s concern with the dangers inherent in reading, dangers depicted earlier in the Inferno in, for example, the Francesca and Paolo episode of Canto V, in which the lovers had been seduced into committing adultery after reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere. In such episodes, Dante reminds us of the power a writer has over his readers and of his duty not to use that power irresponsibly.Because of the post-Renaissance emphasis on the importance of unity in a work of art and the later emphasis on realism, earlier critics naturally emphasized the unity and consistency of Dante’s work. A great work, they assumed, had to have these qualities. As Kleiner’s book reminds us, however, earlier writers did not always prize them as highly as modern critics do, and some inconsistencies and errors (some deliberate, some not) seem to have been acceptable. Inaccurate citations of classical works are due in part to the fact that medieval writers often knew earlier works only from commonplace books and in part to... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Susanne Langer in Focus: The Symbolic MindMary J. ReichlingRobert E. Innis, Susanne Langer in Focus: The Symbolic Mind (Indiana University Press: Indianapolis, 2009)The very first sentence of this book establishes the author's goal: "to bring as clearly as possible the total range of Susanne Langer's work 'into focus'" (p. xi). Such an aim strains credulity when one is familiar with the depth, breadth, and complexity of Langer's (...) philosophy as it encompasses her complete works. Yet, Innis manages to trace the development of Langer's thought from its roots in her earliest work, The Practice of Philosophy, through the intervening books, and concluding with her theory of mind and the three volumes of Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling. Susanne Langer in Focus is the most comprehensive analysis of the progression of Langer's thought I have found to date. It is a project of Herculean proportion and one which Innis accomplishes quite well in a lucid and scholarly, though sometimes pedantic, manner despite some matters that I wish to pursue more fully.However it is important to note at the outset that Innis sharply limits his use of secondary sources and prefers to restrict involvement with "scholarly quarrels" thus choosing not to engage with Langer's detractors (p. xi). This was a disappointment for me because I share Innis's advocacy with respect to Langer's aesthetic theory and would appreciate a voice as knowledgeable and well grounded [End Page 213] as his taking on some of these arguments. Nevertheless, Langer has long been popular among musicians and music educators who will find here a sensitive and penetrating presentation of Langer's aesthetic theory and an analysis of music specifically as a paradigm for that theory.The text is divided into nine chapters preceded by an interesting biographical sketch of Langer. It appears to me that these chapters group nicely into three sections, my division, not Innis's. The first includes chapters one and two concerned with the origins of Langer's philosophy and symbol theory as found in The Practice of Philosophy, Introduction to Symbolic Logic, and to some extent, Philosophy in a New Key. The second embraces chapters three, four, and five giving primary consideration to her non-discursive or presentational symbolism, symbolic transformation, ritual, myth, and art as found in Philosophy in a New Key and Feeling and Form. The third section, chapter six, seven, and eight, is devoted to Langer's trilogy, the three volumes of Mind. A short ninth chapter concludes the book with Innes's perspective on the dimensions and position of Langer's philosophical undertaking in the broader context of philosophy in general.That said, I now wish to offer my take on some of the fruits of Innes's harvest examining each of the orchards (sections) in turn. At the outset, Innis stresses Langer's view of the position and purpose of philosophy stating that it embraces all the rational sciences in a systematic study of meaning. In fact for Langer, the logical analysis is to philosophy what observation is to science, a first step. This relation, as a kind of dialectical tension between philosophy and science, especially with respect to method, is one of Langer's major contributions as Innis points out much later in his concluding chapter. What I find quite helpful, though, is Innis's explanation of Langer's concept of a type of understanding that is non-discursive. This provides an epistemological basis for the nature of myth and art, so critical, in my opinion, to grasping Langer's theory of music as a symbol of feeling. (But I am ahead of Innis.)Innis shows that Langer's theory is grounded empirically in the psychology of perception and imagination because these allow the perceiver to abstract meaning from the form that embodies it. He continues illuminating and clarifying several terms such as abstraction, projection, semblance, virtual image, imagination, illusion, and more. His discussion of metaphor, primarily as it relates to Langer's theory of presentational symbolism, is extremely well done. His emphasis on metaphor as more than a mode of inquiry is particularly significant. Few, if any, writers about Langer... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Complicating, Considering, and Connecting Music Education by Lauren Kapalka RichermeNasim NiknafsLauren Kapalka Richerme, Complicating, Considering, and Connecting Music Education (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2020)Laurern Kapalka Richerme courageously engages with some of the significant concepts of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in a timely bounded volume, Complicating, Considering, and Connecting Music Education. Through this colossal endeavor, though not the first time a music education scholar deeply explores (...) Deleuzian concepts and theoretical analyses, Richerme provides a fresh perspective on his oeuvre within the field and paves the way for more engaged scholarly exploration on the roles and responsibilities of music education.1Considering the vanity in saying what one sees, as “what we see never resides in what we say,”2 any review of works related to Deleuzian concepts is more of an arborescent endeavor than a rhizomatic one. Consequently, the current review of Richerme’s book may also refute and go against Deleuze and Guattari’s most salient arguments. However, I would like to specifically elaborate on Richerme’s treatment of time; a much welcomed and overlooked aspect of education that Richerme has appositely and strongly delivered. “Music education is not a stagnant ‘what’ but a temporal ‘when’... While the question, ‘What is music education?’ solidifies music education into an immobile identity, asking ‘When is music education?’ emphasizes the differing, individually constructed nature of [End Page 202] educational experiences.”3 Not necessarily an original proposition to treat music education as a process rather than a product, a journey rather than a destination, a meandering rather than walking on a straight line, a desired path rather than a pre-constructed road, Richerme’s angle of this conversation takes on an entirely new path. Rather than solving the problem, as the problem is one’s music education, she elegantly modifies the question: “When is music education?”4 Richerme redirects the reader’s attention from the “spatial turn” in which the field has been engrossed to a temporal one, and from a totalizing music education to a totality of music education:5 “My voice cannot be ‘lost’ or ‘found,’ only silenced or embraced—restrained or encouraged to grow. It will always exist in an uncertain middle, differing day after day.”6Written in eight chapters with two bookending chapters with the same title, “Rhizomatic Journeying,” while the middle chapter re-considers considering and the penultimate chapter discusses the when in music education, Richerme demands the reader to attend to not only the book’s content but the poetic delivery of its prose. One could even recite the sentences and feel the elevation. Richerme’s unique voice is laudable for its humility of approach and candid pronouncements of mistakes made along the way of becoming-toward7 music educator. When reading, I felt I was a fellow traveler crossing paths with her while she shared some of her moments with me. She and I were the Nighthawks of Edward Hopper’s painting. Richerme was there to tell her story and I was there to silently listen; “the story is told and untold. Then retold.”8 And it is in this retelling that I would like to situate this review.This volume is first and foremost an ode to music education. Richerme has a command of the music education literature which manifests itself in the myriad examples she explores. She does not claim to portray novel ideas but crossing paths with other scholars in music education concerning not only Deleuzian concepts but ethical matters of education: “deeming something ‘good for’ is not the same as finding it ‘good’ in the ethical sense.”9 She does not disagree with scholars, perhaps following Deleuzian footsteps, but complements them; an exercise in nuance and scholarly practice not always historically prevalent in the field.However, this practical side of the book that attempts to situate Deleuzian concepts within music education are brought forth at the expense of a deeper level of theoretical analysis of and engagement with their comprehensively theorized concepts such as becoming, striated space, immanence, refrain, and deterritorialization. At times, it feels as though these concepts have been magiccarpeted rather than integrated within music education situations. This volume comes across, marvellously... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Eighteenth-Century Hermeneutics: Philosophy of Interpretation in England from Locke to BurkePaul J. KorshinEighteenth-Century Hermeneutics: Philosophy of Interpretation in England from Locke to Burke, by Joel Weinsheimer; xiii & 275 pp. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993, $30.00.Hermeneutics has until the present study had little application to eighteenth-century England. The omission is curious for, although there were few advances in biblical scholarship during the Restoration and eighteenth century, (...) modern literary criticism begins in this century with Dryden and Johnson, modern aesthetics with Shaftesbury and the Scottish school of taste, and modern theories of art with Reynolds and writers on the picturesque. Joel Weinsheimer’s treatment of this topic, then, instantly possesses originality, not only from a lack of serious competition but because of its approach to [End Page 365] hermeneutics. He “does not offer a historical narrative” of what happened in hermeneutics in eighteenth-century England (p. xi). Rather, Weinsheimer prefers to see hermeneutics as a series of snapshots of how various writers, of whom only a few are conventional exegetes, deal with matters of interpreting texts. In all, the book treats eight major figures (Swift, Locke, Toland, Bolingbroke, Hume, Reid, Blackstone, and Burke), devoting a chapter to each.The method in each one is approximately the same: Weinsheimer produces a reading not of a single work alone but of all, or almost all that an author writes about interpretation. In the case of Swift, for instance, his principal contribution on exegesis, A Tale of a Tub, is a satire on styles of exegesis Swift considered ridiculous. This chapter adds little to what we know of Swift but, in relation to Weinsheimer’s analysis of Sir William Blackstone, we can see that there is a legal background to parts of the debate among the three brothers on the meaning of Scripture. Locke (pp. 23–45) also dealt with the Bible extensively, but his tendency to prefer the doctrine of “sola scriptura” limits what an author can say about his hermeneutics. John Toland (pp. 46–71), in his Christianity Not Mysterious, proposes radical notions of biblical exegesis, and Weinsheimer gives us a lucid reading of the first English skeptical exegete. All the other figures he studies, however, had little interest in traditional literary exegesis. Weinsheimer sees Bolingbroke (pp. 72–102) as a philosopher of history who tried to generate a theory of decoding the past, but he does not clearly distinguish Bolingbroke’s rules for writing history. Hume (pp. 103–34) wrote extensively on exegetical topics without actually being an exegete; although this is one of Weinsheimer’s more opaque chapters, it does succeed in showing the diversity of Hume and his inability to reason conclusively on matters of interpretation. Hume basically did not think that there is any problem in understanding others, so his theories of exegesis are not coherent. So, too, Thomas Reid (pp. 135–65) considered language, properly used, as lacking in opacity; hence elaborate theories of interpretation have little use for him.However, with Blackstone and Edmund Burke, Weinsheimer contributes his two most interesting chapters. The law, as Blackstone conceived of it, is extremely difficult to understand, so his Commentaries on the Laws of England is an attempt to read legal texts “in the context of general literacy” (p. 168); Bentham would later imitate him. Burke, Weinsheimer argues, started as an aesthetician and ended applying principles of good and bad taste to political behavior, always one of the weaknesses of reactionary politics.In a brief epilogue (pp. 226–33), Weinsheimer speculates on the effort of eighteenth-century hermeneutics to understand historical reason, but he does not comment on the failure of the period to produce a single important hermeneuticist. His own choice to avoid major exegetes such as Samuel Johnson and Joshua Reynolds abridges his results dramatically, but a study based on scholarly snapshots always courts this risk. Hermeneutics is a [End Page 366] recondite concept, yet Weinsheimer renders his topic more difficult than it need be by frequent shifts in its definition and a complex, often unclear, style. Eighteenth-Century Hermeneutics provides a start, if not a definitive treatment, for later students of exegesis in the English Enlightenment.Paul... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Pretexts of Authority: The Rhetoric of Authorship in the Renaissance PrefaceSteven RendallPretexts of Authority: The Rhetoric of Authorship in the Renaissance Preface, by Kevin Dunn; xii & 198 pp. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994, $32.50.This study is of broader interest than its title might suggest; it engages many of the current issues in literary and cultural studies, and does so with exceptional intelligence. Drawing on Jürgen Habermas’s (...) notion of “the public sphere” and recent research on the history of private life, Dunn focuses on prefatory rhetoric in order to study the ways in which writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries struggled to establish their authority, to define themselves as authors and to regulate their relations with their readers. As they challenged collapsing medieval models of authority, Dunn argues, Renaissance writers had to invent different strategies of self-presentation and discursive legitimation, developing in the process the Renaissance conception of authorship, and eventually a new model of intellectual activity in the service of the public good. [End Page 181]The first part of the book discusses Luther’s effort to ground an oppositional discourse in a personal narrative of suffering and redemption, and Milton’s later recognition of himself as a “member incorporate” of a (Puritan) body for which he can speak as a representative; these represent two termini of the development of Protestant prefatory rhetoric. The second part traces a parallel development in “scientific” writers (Descartes, Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Sprat), moving from the Cartesian effort to ground science in a personal narrative of discovery to Bacon’s institutionalization of science and Hobbes’s theory of representation based on “common sense.”These chapters offer many insights that deserve close attention. However, since I lack space here to discuss each of them in detail, I will mention only a few points that suggest the wider implications of Dunn’s study. First: he is alive to the role of the body in prefatory rhetoric, as a “private” proof of spiritual authority (in Paul), as a flawed textual corpus (in Luther), and as a model of the body politic (in Hobbes and others). Second: he challenges—correctly, in my view—Foucault’s famous claim about the role of “penal appropriation” in the development of the modern conception of the author, arguing that “texts, books, and discourses begin to need authors at the moment when their transgression itself seeks institutionalization. In other words, it is when the subversive discourse finds itself on the brink of empowerment, of articulating something more than a negative critique of reigning orthodoxies, that the authority of the author becomes necessary” (p. 10). Third: he describes the conflict in Renaissance authors between self-authorization and the desire to prevent readers from following their example—that is, they strive both to open up and to shut off a discursive potential—and offers a subtle account of the persistence of this desire, in the form of the claim to authorial ownership, in writers fully involved in the literary marketplace. Fourth: most of the authors examined here are not traditionally regarded as “literary”; Dunn is casting a broader net, including theological, philosophical, political, and scientific writing, and this is, of course, very much in the spirit of the times—both of our own, and that of the writers discussed. For as Dunn observes, the modern notion of “literature” arises sometime around the end of the Period with which he is concerned in this book—and, perhaps, as a result of the development he describes in it. He argues that “with science having secured its discursive boundaries through the complementary myths of objectivity and public utility, literature became the new site for working out the completing claims of public and private. It is at such a site that literature begins to emerge as an independent category, a place crucial for cultural and political negotiations” (p. 16). As Dunn shows, this is reflected in the way late seventeenth-century French and English prefaces abandon advocacy for critical judgment, handing down sentences based on publicly accepted, secular norms.This fine, illuminating, readable book makes a stimulating contribution to our understanding of the history of cultural authority.Steven RendallUniversity... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Ornament, Fantasy, and Desire in Nineteenth-Century French LiteratureGeoffrey Galt HarphamOrnament, Fantasy, and Desire in Nineteenth-Century French Literature, by Rae Beth Gordon; xvii & 288pp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992, $42.50.As Rae Beth Gordon notes in the introduction to her stimulating and original book, ornament, which is devoted to grace, charm, and attractiveness, becomes the object of suspicion and moralizing disdain when it exceeds what numerous commentators refer (...) to as “its proper limits.” The limits are set low by those who wish to maintain the integrity of the center—the melodic line, the text, the main image, the literal sense, the consensual meaning—against the disruptive and excessive forces of the margin. Transgress the margin to which ornament is properly confined, as artists in virtually every medium available in nineteenth-century France did, and a series of crucial binary distinctions collapses, threatening not only the center, but ornament itself, which is defined by its limits, its position on a well-defined edge.What distinguished nineteenth-century French literature was, from Gordon’s point of view, a sustained interest, among critics as well as artists, in cultivating the creative possibilities opened up by compromising the boundary between ornament and its other. So fertile and successful has this project proven to be that today’s postmodernity has not come to an end of it, continuing to discover its most interesting possibilities on the margin. And within the field of art history, we see that ornament, once widely denigrated as the source of confusion, has become virtually orthodox; as the title of Ernst Gombrich’s book on the subject indicates, ornament is now held to appeal to and gratify The Sense of Order.Gordon takes advantage of the posthistory of her subject, applying to studies of Nerval, Mallarmé, Gautier, Huysmans a theoretical armature drawn from the psychoanalytic theories of Freud, Winnicott, and Lacan. Drawing attention to a dimension of meaning or intention that has been “suppressed or excluded from the central field,” ornament, she argues, “anticipates the way psychiatry, perceptual psychology, and aesthetics converge in the fin de siècle.” Ornament, in other words, is cognate with the unconscious, and its prevalence in fin de siècle art and literature may be considered a sign of a certain cultural receptivity to the discoveries Freud was about to make, the “French” modality of a phenomenon to which Freud would give a “Viennese” formulation. [End Page 364]It is fashionable, especially in medieval studies, to focus on the disruptively counter-doctrinal potential of marginal elements such as gargoyles or textual illuminations. But Gordon generally argues another kind of case altogether, one that has, perhaps, even greater contemporary interest. Ornament, she claims, discloses the essential principles of aesthetic production. The expressive power of line, the “sense of order” to which it appeals, the subordination of literal depiction to design, the primacy of relationships over individual figures—all these reflect, as Wilhelm Worringer was explicitly to claim in 1908, energies deriving from the very beginnings of art itself.Thus, when principles and figures of ornament began to invade the “sense” or “business” of the text itself, as they did in nineteenth-century French literature, what is happening is not only a radical adjustment of a certain conception of ornament, but a large movement of return. Art becomes under these circumstances both decadent and primordial, devoting itself to both meaningless proliferation and to “pure art.” Gordon tracks this ambivalent movement with very considerable assurance and learning in an argument as sinuous as the ornamental line itself. The chapters on Nerval (“Lace as Textual Metaphor”) and Gautier (“Trills, Frills, and Decorative Frames for the Object of Desire”) are particularly illuminating, inspired by a kind of theoretical wit that does justice to their objects. Gordon is somewhat less successful in communicating the relevance to Mallarmé of Lacan, the exposition of whom—of which?—is laborious. But the responsibility probably lies more heavily with Lacan than with Gordon. Labored accounts of Lacan may even be considered as a species of ornament, a refinement and a new barbarism, peculiar to critical discourse in the fin of our own siècle.Geoffrey Galt HarphamTulane UniversityCopyright... (shrink)

The latest book of Reviel Netz presents a highly erudite analysis of the style of Hellenistic mathematics. Besides the Introduction and Conclusion the book is composed of four chapters. Before turning to more general remarks I would like first to outline the contents of the book.The Introduction starts with the presentation of Archimedes’ Spiral lines. In a condensed form, the author outlines his approach and calls attention to the stylistic peculiarities of that work. Most of the themes discussed in more (...) detail in the following chapters, such as the analysis of the narrative structure of the treatise, its working with surprise, the exposition of the rhetorical devices, the discussion of technical tools, and the breaking of genre-boundaries emerge here side by side in a single treatise.The first chapter, called The carnival of calculation, starts with another work of Archimedes, the Stomachion, for which Netz offers a new interpretation as a treatise in geometrical combinatorics. Then he turns to Archimedes’ On the measurement of the circle, where, in a detailed analysis of the calculations made by Archimedes, Netz presents a pattern that he identifies in several other works of Hellenistic mathematics, a pattern he calls ‘asymptotic calculation’. It consists in a combination of strict geometric arguments with calculations of proportions, some precise, some only approximate, which together with rather arbitrary simplifications lead to a result that is achieved after an abrupt and unexpected halt. Netz shows that, according to the surviving testimonies, a similar pattern can be found in many Hellenistic authors, such as Aristarchus, Hipparchus, and Apollonius of Perga. "[I]n many Hellenistic mathematical works we see calculations that give rise to values that are big and unwieldy, or else are only asymptotically found. Such calculations end up not with the satisfaction of having simplified … ". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French ThoughtVirginia A. La CharitéDowncast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought, by Martin Jay; xi & 632 pp. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993, $35.00.The book jacket flyleaf for Martin Jay’s Downcast Eyes proclaims in exuberant and laudatory terms that this study has a double agenda: one is to show that vision is by no means (...) the dominant sense in ordering Western culture and the other is to posit instead a “plurality of ‘scopic regimes, particularly in the climate of postmodernism. Indeed, antiocularcentrism provides the unifying thread of Jay’s work, which reviews the theory of vision from Plato to Bergson in the first three chapters and concentrates on “the culture of modernity” in chapters four through eight; the ninth chapter interestingly and curiously places Derrida and feminist criticism side by side under the aegis of “phallogocularcentrism” and presents Derrida and Irigaray if not as the high points of modernism, then at least as the center of the poststructuralist discourse, which argues for the elevation of the word over the eye and so offers downcast eyes as the new logo for what is now identified as postmodernism. Jay’s last chapter addresses postmodernism as a foreclosure on visual practice or the ocularcentric. The short seven-page conclusion attempts to place a positive note on the author’s admitted denigration of the notion of visuality in modern French intellectual thought and culture by calling for a plural or multiple—“polyscopic”—visual experience. Hence, Jay concludes that his notion of downcast eyes or disillusionment is “no solution” (p. 592) to the problem. Certainly, Broodthaer’s “L’Oeil” on the jacket cover does not present [End Page 162] downcast eyes but rather the very feminine alluring eye of a seductress. In this sense, the real message of Jay’s work is reader, beware! His provocative title and even more provocative subtitle initiate from the outset a critique of one of the long-held and cherished myths about the dominance and prominence of the visual sense in Western culture, especially in modern French thought. It is the unsettling of the comfortableness of this notion which Jay’s work successfully undertakes.The study is well-organized and lucidly written. It forcefully argues the author’s case. Unfortunately, there is no bibliography. The omission of a bibliography undercuts the project and casts scholarly suspicion on the entire venture. In all truth, the inclusion of a bibliography would dramatically call attention to serious lacunae in the scholarship. The French thinkers presented and analyzed, such as Bataille, Barthes, Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, Irigaray, and Lyotard, have been studied in depth—at times brilliantly—but Jay ignores this rich corpus of critical material. In particular, his treatment of important French poets such as Rimbaud, the surrealists, Ponge, and others is so skewed in order to reinforce his denigration of the dominant role of vision in twentieth-century French writing that the reader in the field of French studies questions the quality of the basic research undertaken for the project and the author’s skill at reading with understanding and sensitivity hermetic material in the original French. Once these questions are raised, the very nature of Jay’s study itself becomes suspect.As the reader progresses through the volume, it seems that most of Jay’s analyses of the primary texts are based on English translations and are in fact limited to those works available in translation. While this may not be the actual case, the lack of a bibliography reinforces such a suspicion and contributes to the steady erosion of the credibility of the study. Even worse, it poses a troubling if not invidious question: who is the audience for Downcast Eyes? Surely, the audience is not humanists who specialize in twentieth-century French studies. If the intended audience is one of scholars and their students in cultural history and the social sciences with little grounding in contemporary French intellectual thought as manifested in its literature and literary criticism, this audience needs to begin its reading with Jay’s conclusion which is a masterfully subtle denigration of his own work on... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Playtexts: Ludics in Contemporary LiteratureWalter E. BromanPlaytexts: Ludics in Contemporary Literature, by Warren Motte; 233 pp. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995, $31.50.When readers early encounter such stuff as “Thus in the category of agôn, for example, hide-and-seek would tend toward paidia, whereas chess would tend toward ludus” (p. 7), they suspect that this book will be a rugged and humorless read, in spite of the fun (...) hinted at in the title. Much of the book turns out to fulfill this dread. There is no escaping the sour smell of academic jargon: “to privilege,” “to foreground,” “to marginalize,” “diegetic frame,” etc., or the tangled infelicities of academic prose.Professor Motte sets out to examine a series of texts, “... each text considered a different ludic economy with its own rules and norms, but all texts defined as language games” (p. 15). While struggling through the discussions of Gombrowicz’s Ferdydurke, André Breton’s Nadja, or Albertine Sarrazin’s Astragal, one catches glimpses of a book that might have assumed sumptuous flesh. This is especially true in the chapter on Nabakov’s Pale Fire, which is quite interesting and well written. Nabakov’s is “an agonistic game that pits Kinbote against Slade, the Sladeans against Kinbote, Kinbote against us the readers, Nabakov against Kinbote, we the readers against Nabakov” (p. 81). This is a game in which Nabakov offers his readers “a full partnership in the creative process” (p. 82). I was forced to recognize that I had enjoyed reading Pale Fire, all the while only being aware of a minim of these ludic convolutions!A major problem with this book and with the books Professor Motte discusses can be shown most vividly in the chapter on Georges Perec’s La Disparition, where the game is to write an entire novel without using the letter “e.” This “literary machine” is supposed to be geared for expressing the iron impositions of life and its ineluctable loss and lack. I suspect that this semantic juice is squeezed out only by critical legerdemain. The discussion merely succeeds in convincing me that this literary tour de force might be suitable for Guinness’s Book of Records, but would likely be a boring read. It reminds me of a Rube Goldberg contraption or of Johnson’s dog walking on its “hinder legs.” Calling this a lipogram linked to Greek antiquity does little to rinse away the sweaty scent of useless exertion.Professor Motte includes a quotation from Eco referring to Swift’s book-making machine in the Grand Academy of Lagado, which provides a sinister and ludicrous image of much of this ludic literature. Eco sees the text as a “combinatory, ludic machine” (p. 191). This literature as machine and game is remarkable for its lack of any concern for the reader: “... the game is finally less vital for us than it seems to have been for Gombrowicz” (p. 68). Compare this with Dryden who took it as axiomatic that the audience’s “concernment” is of vital importance. Now, though, the readerly text is supplanted by the writerly (p. 163). René Bellato builds up “a narrative technique based on the systematic [End Page 243] frustration of the reader’s expectations...” (p. 166). A kind of apex of readerly boredom is devised in Harry Matthew’s literary machine “Matthew’s algorithm”—exemplified by the permutational poetics in Le Savoir des rois, where the same verse is given endless alterations of word order. There lurks a sniffy implication that if you don’t go along with this sort of game you aren’t a good reader. I don’t mind straining to be a good reader if the reward is commensurate with the effort. Professor Motte never explains why we ought to bother.Professor Motte presents various interesting theories of play, as diverse as Huizinga’s Homo Ludens and Freud, but his own position is not easy to discern. He seems to be sympathetic with Calvino’s notion that “all literature is play” (p. 142). For this to be true, the definition of ludics or play would have to have a Humpty Dumpty squishiness. It would have to be ample... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Ethics of Creativity: Beauty, Morality and Nature in a Processive CosmosJohn W. LangoBrian G. Henning The Ethics of Creativity: Beauty, Morality and Nature in a Processive Cosmos University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005. 250 + xii pp.The aim of this interesting but flawed book by Brian Henning may be related through some remarks about the terms in its title.1 The term "creativity" stems from the most basic (...) category in Whitehead's metaphysics in Process and Reality, "The Category of the Ultimate." The term "processive cosmos" echoes the full title of Whitehead's magnum opus: Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology. For Whitehead's metaphysics is both a philosophy of process and a philosophical cosmology. Thus, as the term "ethics" implies, Henning's book "presents a Whiteheadian ethic" (p. 8), an ethics grounded in Whitehead's metaphysics. This ethics is grounded particularly in Whitehead's axiology of aesthetic value (hence the term "beauty"), and it includes an environmental ethics (hence the linkage of the terms "morality" and "nature"). The inclusion of environmental ethics is central to the book's aim:If we are to have any hope of reversing the potentially catastrophic destruction and consumption of our natural environment, we must devise an ethical theory grounded in an axiology that acknowledges that every individual—from the most insignificant flicker of existence at the opposite end of the universe to complex individuals such as ourselves—has value not only for itself, but for others, and for the whole of reality.(p. 2)"The aim of this project, then, is," according to Henning's own summary, "to develop and defend a holistic, organic ethical theory grounded firmly in Whitehead's aesthetico-metaphysics of process" (p. 3).Indeed, Henning's project is worthwhile. Traditional ethical theory should be enlarged to include environmental ethics. Insofar as an ethics can be grounded on a metaphysics, it is important to explore how an ethics can be grounded on Whitehead's metaphysics. Since Whitehead's metaphysics is a philosophical cosmology, it is especially suitable as a grounding for an environmental ethics. Accordingly, in reading Henning's book, process philosophers should encounter many interesting ideas. [End Page 450]Nonetheless, the book has some significant flaws. First, there is a problem of audience. In addition to process philosophers, Henning wants his book to be accessible to philosophers who are not conversant with Whitehead's metaphysics, as the following passage evidences:Anyone seeking to develop a moral philosophy based on Whitehead's work faces many challenges. One obvious reason for the relative lack of attention given to Whitehead's work by mainstream environmental and moral philosophers is the density and abstruseness of the texts themselves. Coupled with the generally unfavorable view of metaphysical speculation among most contemporary ethicists, this has led many to admire Whitehead's work from afar. Given this, a secondary, though not unimportant, goal of this project is to show the value of Whitehead's complex process metaphysics for moral and environmental philosophy by presenting it in language that strives for clarity and seeks to do justice to the richness and nuances of his thought.(p. 8)Unfortunately, in the judgment of this reviewer, this secondary goal is not accomplished. The first chapter of Henning's book ("From Mechanism to Organism") contains an exposition of Whitehead's metaphysics (pp. 27–37). But this exposition is far too brief. Whitehead's technical terms are not explained sufficiently, and quotations from his writings are used too frequently. In subsequent chapters, an understanding of his metaphysics is presupposed. For example, the second chapter ("An Ecstatic Axiology") defends "an alternative to the classical interpretation of Whitehead's metaphysics" (p. 42), namely, "the ecstatic interpretation" (p. 51). (The classical interpretation is exemplified by Ivor Leclerc and William Christian, and the alternative interpretation by Jorge Nobo and Judith Jones.) Specialists in Whitehead should find this second chapter accessible, but nonspecialists are likely to find it unenlightening. Before attempting to read Henning's interesting book, I would encourage mainstream environmental and moral philosophers to study Whitehead's metaphysics from other sources.Acceptance of Henning's aim of developing an ethics grounded in Whitehead's metaphysics is impeded by "the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of HobbesWilliam WalkerReason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes, by Quentin Skinner; xvi & 477 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, $49.95.Having shown in his earlier work how the classical Roman texts on rhetoric governed to an important extent the formulation of republican ideas in Italian Renaissance and therefore modern political thought, Skinner now returns to these texts in order (...) to treat more comprehensively one of the major subjects of his research over the last thirty years—Thomas Hobbes. Determined to understand not so much what Hobbes’s writings mean as what Hobbes is doing, what “traditions he reacts against, what lines of argument he takes up, what changes he introduces into existing debates” (p. 8), Skinner devotes the entire first half of the book to “classical eloquence in Renaissance England” (p. 17). Citing mainly the Ad Herennium and the texts on rhetoric by Cicero and Quintilian, he provides a superb account of the classical Roman theory of persuasive speaking, as well as the ideal of citizenship which underlies it: for the Romans, the vir civilis, the good citizen, is the virtuous, wise, rational man [End Page 204] who exercises his mastery of the art of rhetoric to serve his community by pleading for just verdicts in the courts and beneficial policies in the assemblies. Citing the Tudor humanists who were instituting and teaching at the grammar schools, but also several sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English rhetoricians, poets, and prose writers, Skinner then observes how this classical theory of persuasion and its ideal of citizenship achieved “widespread currency” (p. 1) in England and served as the foundation for “the rhetorical culture of Renaissance humanism” (p. 250).It is in relation to this culture, Skinner insists in the second part of the book, that Hobbes must be understood. For although, as many have pointed out, Hobbes’s thinking was in part formed by the scientific developments of the century, “his intellectual formation was overwhelmingly indebted not to the culture of science but to the humanist literary culture” (p. 216). But this is not to say that Hobbes abides peacefully within this culture. After observing how his education, career, and publications up to 1640 are those of the “typical Renaissance humanist” (p. 217), Skinner argues that in his two major works of the early 1640s, Hobbes powerfully repudiates the entire classical theory of eloquence and its ideal of the vir civilis. For in The Elements of Law and De Cive, Hobbes claims to have made the study of moral and political theory into a scientific discipline. On the basis of this assertion, Skinner argues, Hobbes claims that reason unaided by eloquence is sufficient to persuade others of the truths of civil science, that eloquent men have not sustained but destroyed civil life, and that the most important duties of citizenship lie in the private sphere. In short, “Hobbes’s argument culminates in a view of citizenship and its obligations diametrically opposed to the image of the vir civilis” (p. 291). He does so, moreover, in prose which studiously avoids the invocation of commonplaces and authorities, the establishment of any ethos, the manipulation of definitions, the redescription of vices as virtues and virtues as vices (paradiastole), and the tropes and figures—Hobbes practices the repudiation of rhetoric he preaches.But then there is Leviathan (1651). Responding primarily out of his understanding of how Presbyterian and House of Commons demagogues incited civil war, Hobbes in his most celebrated work “reverts to the typically humanist assumption that, if we are to succeed in persuading others to accept our arguments, we shall have to supplement the findings of reason with the moving force of eloquence” (p. 426). Though he continues to understand himself transforming politics and morality into a scientific discipline, Hobbes ultimately reaffirms the premises of the rhetorical culture that produced him and that he repudiated in his first major political works. And though he continues to be critical of commonplaces, reliance on authorities, and tropes and figures, Hobbes in this work again practices what he preaches. In the final chapter of the book, Skinner meticulously documents how Hobbes uses the tropes and... (shrink)

Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (1851) may have set the lengthy standard for books treating whales, but D. Graham Burnett has more than matched that standard with his hefty, almost eight-hundred page tome, The Sounding of the Whale. The requisite explanatory subtitle specifies the author’s intent to write the history of what he refers to as “whale science” spanning the twentieth century. The book divides rather naturally into three complementary sections. The opening two chapters discuss early conservation efforts aimed at managing (...) the whale industry. Next, two more chapters investigate the formation of the International Whaling Commission (IWC). A final chapter argues that dolphin research in the 1960s and 1970s led to the strident environmental concerns of the late twentieth century, including the drive to “save the whale” (the five chapters are bracketed by a lengthy introduction and conclusion).The most compelling features of Burnett’s book are delivered in the first four chapters. As .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Citizens Without Sovereignty: Equality and Sociability in French Thought, 1670–1789Patrick HenryCitizens Without Sovereignty: Equality and Sociability in French Thought, 1670–1789, by Daniel Gordon; viii & 270 pp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994, $39.50.Under examination here is the early modern period in France from Louis XIV to the French Revolution when kings ruled absolutely and citizens were without sovereignty. Discarding the traditional image of the Enlightenment as the (...) absolute enemy of absolutism, Gordon, in this sense, follows Norbert Elias and Robert Darnton who treat the Enlightenment as part of an elitist and hierarchical establishment. More specifically, as his subtitle indicates, Gordon portrays the invention of a “nonpolitical polis” (p. 6), an ideological social space where, despite political inequality, citizens could practice social equality in a hierarchical régime. The rise of this “nondemocratic egalitarian ethos” (p. 7) brought with it a new cult of sociabilité, a term invented in the eighteenth century to describe the idealization of the private sphere and the practice of social equality.The first chapter, then, ties sociability not to democracy, as in the Habermasian model, but to the absolutism that stimulated it and coexisted with it. A series of five ideal types of sociability depict how men and women, members of the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy, came together—in commerce, public welfare, scientific academies, salons, cafés, public libraries, and various other social situations not protorevolutionary in character—to create a bond among equals [End Page 279] under the ancien régime. In this framework, progress and modernity are born during the absolute monarchy where sociability suggests conviviality rather than class warfare. Every major French novel of the eighteenth century supports Gordon’s refutation of De Toqueville’s surprising statement that “noblemen and bourgeois never met except by chance in private life “in prerevolutionary France” (p. 27).In chapters two and three, Gordon examines the nature of the rules of sociability found in courtesy literature and their functioning as the imagined basis of the newly invented idealized space called société. In addition to analyzing in great detail the nature and frequency of the vocabulary invented to define and describe sociabilité, Gordon discusses sociabilité in the context of natural law theory in Hobbes, Bossuet, and among others, Pufendorf, who wanted to refute Hobbes by showing that self-interest leads humans to establish stable social relations even before government orders them to do so. Holbach surfaces here too for having amalgamated the older language of politeness and the newer language of natural law. In Holbach, as in the Encyclopédie, sociability, based on egalitarian premises of natural law, is nonetheless fully compatible with the hierarchical regime. Among other things, this shows clearly that the philosophes never preached the French Revolution. Striving to eliminate the abuses of despotism and establish equality in private life was not tantamount to working for political equality and the abolition of all rank. In this same vein, Gordon paints the apolitical essence of the private sphere and, by a rigorous study of the seventeenth-century manuals of polite living, shows convincingly (this time against Elias who saw the court as a model of refined behavior) that the salon was indeed a world unto itself, independent of preexisting social hierarchies. Rejecting Paul Hazard’s conception of absolute rupture between seventeenth-century culture and eighteenth-century thought, Gordon destroys the facile dichotomy between seventeenth-century hierarchy and eighteenth-century equality and, once again, admirably depicts the compatibility of Enlightenment and absolutism.If chapters one to three underscore a certain continuity between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, chapters four and five explain important changes. It is not, for example, the mere preservation of the idea of sociable communication but rather its new use that is germane in understanding the Enlightenment. Now “conversation” and “civility” no longer had meaning only for an urban elite but had in fact become ideals in all philosophical endeavors including the writing of universal history. Sociable communication had become the defining characteristic of modern nations. In the fourth chapter, by analyzing in detail the works of Jean-Baptiste Suard, Gordon demonstrates the meaning that the writing of universal history in Scotland acquired within the French... (shrink)

The profusion of senses of justice in NE V.1–7 has left many readers with a general impression of chaos, but also gives rise to pressing questions about Aristotle’s conception of justice. Specifically, why does Aristotle claim that there are two parts to justice as equality, but go on to discuss three types of equality in the subsequent chapters? What is the relationship between political justice and the distinction between general justice and particular justice? I argue in this essay that the (...) notion of reciprocity, central to the first question, can also help us address the second. Specifically, I show that reciprocity is not a third species of particular justice, but rather a prior condition for political community and for political justice. Political justice is best understood as a redescription of particular justice that highlights how distributive and corrective justice maintain equality among citizens in an existing political community. In addition to explaining the unity of Aristotle’s thought in these chapters of NE V, I demonstrate a number of philosophical consequences for understanding Aristotle’s conception of justice. (shrink)

(This is for the series Elements of Decision Theory published by Cambridge University Press and edited by Martin Peterson) -/- Our beliefs come in degrees. I believe some things more strongly than I believe others. I believe very strongly that global temperatures will continue to rise during the coming century; I believe slightly less strongly that the European Union will still exist in 2029; and I believe much less strongly that Cardiff is east of Edinburgh. My credence in something (...) is a measure of the strength of my belief in it; it represents my level of confidence in it. These are the states of mind we report when we say things like ‘I’m 20% confident I switch off the gas before I left' or ‘I’m 99.9% confident that it is raining outside'. -/- There are laws that govern these credences. For instance, I shouldn't be more confident that sea levels will rise by over 2 metres in the next 100 years than I am that they'll rise by over 1 metre, since the latter is true if the former is. This book is about a particular way we might try to establish these laws of credence: the Dutch Book arguments (For briefer overviews of these arguments, see Alan Hájek’s entry in the Oxford Handbook of Rational and Social Choice and Susan Vineberg’s entry in the Stanford Encyclopaedia.) -/- We begin, in Chapter 2, with the standard formulation of the various Dutch Book arguments that we'll consider: arguments for Probabilism, Countable Additivity, Regularity, and the Principal Principle. In Chapter 3, we subject this standard formulation to rigorous stress-testing, and make some small adjustments so that it can withstand various objections. What we are left with is still recognisably the orthodox Dutch Book argument. In Chapter 4, we set out the Dutch Strategy argument for Conditionalization. In Chapters 5 and 6, we consider two objections to Dutch Book arguments that cannot be addressed by making small adjustments. Instead, we must completely redesign those arguments, replacing them with ones that share a general approach but few specific details. In Chapter 7, we consider a further objection to which I do not have a response. In Chapter 8, we'll ask what happens to the Dutch Book arguments if we change certain features of the basic framework in which we've been working: first, we ask how Dutch Book arguments fare when we consider credences in self-locating propositions, such as It is Monday; second, we lift the assumption that the background logic is classical and explore Dutch Book arguments for non-classical logics; third, we lift the assumption that an agent's credal state can be represented by a single assignment of numerical values to the propositions she considers. In Chapter 9, we present the mathematical results that underpin these arguments. (shrink)

In this article, I respond to Laury Naranch’s and Mary Caputi’s discussion of my book Power and Feminist Agency in Capitalism (2017). In response to Naranch, I clarify how the political subject-in-outline translates into collective political action through the figure of the Chicana working-class woman. I also explain why the proletariat, more so than the precariat, implies a radical political imaginary if we rethink this concept in the context of my idea of the political subject-in-outline. I also clarify that my (...) chapters on Marx expose how Adorno and Marx have problematic imaginations of the working-class woman, which counter their otherwise radical imaginary. In response to Caputi, I clarify the meaning of capitalism in my book and underline that we need a rigorous critique of capitalism to counter the rise of the Far Right. I also explain why the fluid subject does not have agency and why the subject-in-outline is a better way to theorize transformative feminist agency. I also clarify that my conception of feminist political subjectivity does not assume a privileged vantage point outside power structures. (shrink)

Alan Weir’s new book is, like Darwin’s Origin of Species, ‘one long argument’. The author has devised a new kind of have-it-both-ways philosophy of mathematics, supposed to allow him to say out of one side of his mouth that the integer 1,000,000 exists and even that the cardinal ℵω exists, while saying out of the other side of his mouth that no numbers exist at all, and the whole book is devoted to an exposition and defense of this new view. (...) The view is presented in the book in a way that can make it difficult for the reader to trace the main line of argument: with a great deal of apparatus, and with a great many digressions into subordinate issues. In what follows I will try to stick to what I take to be the essentials, even at the risk of oversimplifying some central but complicated issues, and at the cost of neglecting some interesting but peripheral ones.In chapter 1, the author introduces a distinction between what he calls ‘two aspects of meaning’ and dubs informational content and metaphysical content. Informational content is the aspect of meaning of primary interest to linguists, and the one of which speakers themselves are generally aware, at least upon reflection. Metaphysical content is supposed to be another aspect of meaning primarily of interest to philosophers. The basic idea is that if there are standards of correctness for assertions of a certain kind, then such an assertion may be called ‘true’ when those standards are met, even though the kind of correctness involved is not correctness in representing how the world is. What the world must be like in order for the utterance to be true is the metaphysical content of the assertion, but it need not be part of its …. (shrink)