RAJP Manuscript No. Author Editor Master Publisher QUERIES: to be answered by AUTHOR AUTHOR: The following queries have arisen during the editing of your manuscript. Please answer the queries by marking the requisite corrections at the appropriate positions in the text. QUERY NO. QUERY DETAILS QUERY ANSWERED Typeset by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. for Australasian Journal of Philosophy _A_157191 No Queries. BOOK NOTES Priest, Graham, JC Beall, and Bradley Armour-Garb, The Law of NonContradiction, New Philosophical Essays, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004, pp. xii þ 443, US$110 (cloth). There are some who are prepared to believe that descriptions can be improper, and so that 'the set of Ps' might not denote a set (Neil Tennant [381 – 2]). There are others who, likewise, are prepared to believe that sentences can be deceptive about their meaning, so that, in the self-referential case 'This statement is not true' does not state that it itself is not true (Laurence Goldstein [304]). But most, it seems, want to take sentences at their face value, so that Tarski's T-scheme invariably applies; and would like the Naive Abstraction Axiom to be true. The troubles involved in maintaining this more trusting disposition are the main concern of this book. JC Beall, in his introduction, raises the central question [2] 'Assuming truth and falsity are categories of sentences, are they both exclusive and exhaustive categories?' Remembering Russell's Paradox, and the Paradox of the Liar, amongst other things, the thought is that maybe some contradictions can be true. The lack of agreement about how to use the relevant words accounts for some problems. Achille Varsi estimates, for instance [93], that Patrick Grim has identified some 240 versions of the basic terms. But there are plenty of substantive issues, as well. In Part I, 'Setting up theDebate', GrahamPriest, whose work is themain inspiration for the book, argues against the Law ofNon-Contradiction (LNC) as a dogma; and the five papers in Part II, 'What is the LNC?', are not just on matters of definition. Central questions are addressed in the five chapters in Part III, 'Methodological Issues in the Debate'. There one finds, for instance,MichaelResnik believing there is a real possibility of 'Revising Logic', while Otávio Bueno andMark Colyvan recommend 'Logical NonApriorism'. Part IV collects six papers 'Against the LNC', with a further six in part V, 'For the LNC'. In the former one finds, for instance, VannMcGee's and EdwinMares's contributions; in the latter, Tennant's and Goldstein's. There is an index at the end, but the papers each carry their own separate bibliography. Priest's paper was previously published, but all the 22 others are original to the volume. They represent very fully the current state of the intellectual world in the area. Hartley Slater University of Western Australia Iseminger, Gary, The Aesthetic Function of Art, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004, pp. x þ 147, US$32.50 (cloth). This clear, concise book adds to recent moves to reinvigorate the notion of the aesthetic. In doing so, Iseminger sheds problematic aspects of the traditional 40613 25/1/06 12:39 RAJP_A_157191 (XML) Australasian Journal of Philosophy Vol. 84, No. 1, pp. 1 – 5; March 2006 Australasian Journal of Philosophy ISSN 0004-8402 print/ISSN 1470-6828 online  2006 Australasian Association of Philosophy http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/00048400600572081 view-for example, that aesthetic perception involves a distinctive mode of disinterested perception and that aesthetic experience possesses a special phenomenology. Also, he extends the notion to cover cognitive and art-historical features of art, such as wit, boldness, and imaginativeness, whereas traditional accounts focus mainly on sensuous and formal properties. Two planks of the new theory are (1) the function of the artworld and practice of art is to promote aesthetic communication and (2) a work of art is a good work of art to the extent that it has the capacity to afford appreciation, where S appreciates x's being F if and only if S finds experiencing x's being F to be valuable in itself. (In other words, appreciating is the state of finding an experience to be valuable in itself, rather than an evaluation directed at the source of that experience.) (1), which makes a claim about the artworld, not about all individual artworks, follows from: (a) if something is good at doing something that it was designed and made to do, then doing that is its (artefactual) function and (b) aesthetic communication is what the artworld and the practice of art is good at doing and is what its institutors designed and made it to do. (2), which concerns evaluations applied to individual artworks, follows from the conjunction of (1) with (c) if an institution has a certain function, then something produced by someone acting in his role in that institution is good as a thing of the kind thus produced to the extent that it has the capacity to contribute to the function of that institution in a way appropriate to it as a thing of that kind, (d) a work of art is a kind of thing such that it is what is produced by an artist acting in his or her role in the artworld, and (e) a work of art has the capacity to contribute to aesthetic communication in the way appropriate to it as a work of art to the extent that it has the capacity to afford appreciation. A worry concerns how much of Kant's or Schopenhauer's aesthetics, and of the motivation driving their theories, survives this revamping. Moreover, Iseminger's acceptance of institutional theories of art and of the view that art is an invention of mid-eighteenth-century Europe take him further from aestheticism's original sources. Stephen Davies University of Auckland De Caro, Mario and David Macarthur, eds., Naturalism in Question, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2004, pp. viii þ 340. Given the current preponderance and variety of naturalist positions there is a clear need for a book that would relate them and attempt to adjudicate between them. The editors present this book as a collection of papers that point out the shortcomings in scientific naturalism and open the way to another 'philosophically more liberal' naturalism. The list of contributors includes influential philosophers such as Davidson, Dupré, McDowell, Price, Putnam, and Stroud-most of the papers having been written especially for this collection-and the book deals with a number of topics that have seen a lot of recent work, such as agency (Hornsby, De Caro, White), as well as with 'evergreen' issues for naturalism, such as reduction (Dupré) and normativity (Bilgrami, Davidson, Kelly). As such, philosophers interested in naturalism would do well to pay heed to the arguments presented here. Unfortunately, the collection as a whole falls short of the aim the editors set for it. 2 Book Notes The central problem is that, despite the effort the editors make to define scientific naturalism, the adversary challenged by the papers turns out to be elusive, some papers attacking hard-line physicalist positions while the arguments in many others apply to the pluralist naturalism the editors espouse. Of course, given the numerous authors contributing, it was bound to be difficult to herd together the lines of argument and this in no way affects the significance of the individual arguments. While the editors recognize this problem, they could have gone a long way towards bringing together the various strands of criticism by examining the relations between them. As it is, the arguments do not add up to an indication of how philosophy that has given up on its pretensions of priority can answer the twin issues facing it: how to relate to other epistemic endeavours, such as the various sciences; and how to distinguish genuine epistemic endeavours without the advantage of an independent vantage point. Part of the difficulty may be due to the collection's focus upon what the editors refer to as the ontological theme within naturalism, to the detriment of the methodological theme. The upside of this focus is that a number of the authors raise issues that naturalism will have to face if it is to provide an account of language-an area which has thus far retained more than a little of the apriorist tenor. Konrad Talmont-Kamiński Marie Curie-Skłodowska University Carruthers, Peter, The Nature of Mind: An Introduction, New York and London: Routledge, 2004, pp. 308, £15.99. This is an excellent text on the philosophy of mind, which includes some epistemological issues. It contains portions of the earlier text, Peter Carruthers, 1986, Introducing Persons. Rather than surveying a taxonomy of views it develops a coherent argumentative thread. Indeed the focus is always on the arguments, which are often laid out in explicit premise and conclusion form. Chapter 1 starts with the problem of other minds, which draws the reader in, and leaves us with an argument for weak dualism, (property dualism). Chapter 2 presents arguments for strong dualism (substance dualism), refining the Cartesian arguments and handling the modal issues well. Hume's contrasting bundle theory of the mind is explored fully. Chapter 3 applies standard material on identity and personal identity to the soul, as the immaterial mind is labelled. The outcome is that there is no viable principle of individuation for souls, which undermines the strong dualist position. Chapter 4 deals with the difference between rationalism and empiricism, and suggests that the empiricist would reject the whole rationalist style of argument for strong dualism. Empirical arguments for the soul, such as those from near death experiences, are carefully considered. Chapter 5 makes the case for physicalism based on empiricist assumptions. Reduction of mental properties to physical properties is distinguished from reductive explanation, where different physical events could realize the same mental event type on different occasions. Objections to the identity theory are fully considered, notably the intentionality objection and Kripke's argument from the necessity of identity. Chapter 6 covers life after death possibilities for a physicalist, and personal identity themes are reworked in this context. Bodily resurrection and reincarnation are Book Notes 3 argued to be coherent for a physicalist. The reasoning involves Parfit's view that survival is a matter of degree. Chapter 7 takes us from a Cartesian conception of the meanings of mental terms through behaviourism to functionalism and brings us to the 'theory-theory', in which mental concepts get their sense from their place in a common-sense causal theory of mind. Opposing views, interpretationalism and simulation theory, are discussed. Our theory of mind is argued to be innately channelled, which explains our knowledge of other minds. Chapter 8 deals with some outstanding issues for physicalism: artificial minds, free will, intentionality (involving the language of thought hypothesis, informational semantics, teleo-semantics and functional role semantics) and consciousness. Philosophy majors especially will benefit greatly from courses based on this text. David Lumsden University of Waikato Levine, Michael P. and Tamas Pataki, eds., Racism In Mind, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2004, pp. 304, US$49.95 (cloth) US$22.50 (paper). Racism In Mind moves several discussions about racism forward. It includes both philosophical and psychological articles from thirteen authors, many of which produce important new arguments in existing debates over the nature of racism. Though this book makes a considerable contribution to the literature, it also has some shortcomings. For example, this interdisciplinary project might have benefited from historical or anthropological perspectives. And some questionable views are advanced, such as Michael Dummett's comparison of discrimination faced by smokers in the USA with discrimination faced by African-Americans, and his undefended assertion that all group-favouring policies, which include restitution programs, are racist. But all told there are some significant developments in this volume; given this journal's aims and the limited space available here, I shall focus on the philosophical papers. The most central issue of contention is what racism is, and here we find a related cluster of subsidiary questions, including whether racism's essential component is some moral vice (J. L. A. Garcia adds to his existing defences of this idea), whether racism is always irrational prejudice (Dummett's main concern), whether the key component in accounting for the unique wrongness of racism is its causal/psychological history (Levine's suggestion), whether such individual-oriented pictures can account for institutional racial oppression (Sally Haslanger makes a compelling case that they cannot in the context of a broader analysis of oppression), and whether a monistic analysis of racism is even possible (doubts on this front are expressed by Lawrence Blum). Other papers tackle other issues. Laurence Thomas argues that Kantian ethics cannot account for some intuitions about equality, Cynthia Willett approaches racialized social space phenomenologically, and Marguerite La Caze offers a helpful critical survey of the issues involved in the intersection of and analogies between racism and sexism. Bernard Boxill contributes a paper that urges moving away from the question of whether race is real and towards the question of whether the race idea is dangerous, which, he argues, it is. And there are illuminating psychological analyses, such as Lawrence Lengbeyer's argument that racist beliefs can only be managed, rather 4 Book Notes than eliminated. Finally, Racism In Mind includes a helpful introduction that sets the stage for readers who are bringing a fresh set of eyes to these questions. Overall, this book marks progress in understanding racism. Josh Glasgow Victoria University of Wellington Bermúdez, José Luis, ed., Thought, Reference, and Experience: Themes from the Philosophy of Gareth Evans, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005, pp. 325, £ 40 (cloth). This volume provides careful critical discussion of Evans's main contributions to philosophy of mind and language. It will primarily appeal to specialists in those areas familiar with developments in Oxford philosophy. The level of contribution is uniformly high and occasionally technical, though-as one might expect for a festschrift-not overwhelmingly innovative. Bermúdez's introduction traces the main influences on Evans's thought and rehearses the main themes of Evans's posthumously published magnum opus, The Varieties of Reference. Subsequent essays tackle themes drawn either from a chapter of Varieties of Reference, or from a handful of Evans's Collected Papers. Several essays address Evans's thesis that singular terms can have senses and yet refer directly to their objects. John McDowell discusses the neo-Fregean theory he and Evans advocate that some singular terms have de re senses. Mark Sainsbury considers Evans's treatment of the exceptional case of descriptive names. Ian Rumfitt offers an essay on the neglected issue of how to construe the reference of plural terms. Ken Safir assesses Evans's contribution to the topic of co-referring pronouns, which has been influential in linguistics. Two essays discuss first-person reference and knowledge, the theme of Chapter 7 of The Varieties of Reference. In 'Evans and the Sense of ''I''', Bermúdez argues that we should keep the main outlines of Evans's neo-Fregean account of 'I', but reject the idea that grasping the sense of 'I' requires being in receipt of information about oneself as given, e.g., in proprioception and memory. In 'Another ''I''', Peacocke develops an account of how we self-ascribe beliefs about perception that is broadly simulationist in character and yet structurally parallel to Evans's 'outward looking' account of the self-ascription of belief. Several other essays address some of Evans's more influential papers in metaphysics and epistemology. John Campbell evaluates Evans's 'Molyneux's Question' and relevant portions of Chapter 6 of the Varieties of Reference, finding problematic Evans's idea that shape concepts acquired through different sensory modalities are equivalent in virtue of the unity of spatial content. Quassim Cassam contrasts the arguments of Evans's 'Things without the Mind' with arguments by Strawson and Kant for the idea that objective experience requires spatial concepts or perception. E. J. Lowe argues that Evans's 'Can there be vague objects?' either subtly begs the question against ontic indeterminacy, or commits a subtle fallacy of reasoning. Anne Newstead University of New South Wales Book Notes