The impulse to speculate about this phenomenon—the sudden eruption of dictionaries of philosophy in our own fin de siècle—is difficult to resist, particularly since a similar eruption of dictionaries is occurring in other intellectual disciplines as well. My own speculation is that we are witnessing the Owl of Minerva in full and somewhat frantic flight. As old hands in the trade know—but perhaps not many undergraduates, graduate students, or laymen—definitions in philosophy, unless they are purely stipulative, are almost never starting (...) points in inquiry; even more rarely are they stopping points. Normally, they are more in the nature of summaries pro tempore. In the normal course of things the motive for such quick backward-glancing summaries is a quite innocent desire, or need, for conceptual ballast and bearing before proceeding to the next intellectual task. But the flood of dictionaries and such-like reference books in the past couple of decades in philosophy, and in other disciplines, raises the suspicion—and not, I think, in my mind alone—that something more is going on. There is widespread malaise in the profession at present and some energetic treading of the waters on the sound principle, enunciated by Woody Allen, that “swimming is what you should do so you shouldn’t drown,” and nobody seems to know or have much of an idea of where we go from here. The volumes under review are part and parcel of this phenomenon. Honderich’s cheerful remark that “Philosophy... is not a dead or dying subject, but one whose vigour... is as great as ever it has been. It is only the sciences and the superstitious that come and go” seems suspiciously like whistling past the graveyard; it would not need remarking if it were true, or at any rate if it were not so dubious. (shrink)

The present volume is an important and highly useful contribution to Reid studies that adds considerably to our knowledge of his work. The book is well made, and I noticed only one misprint. It contains three sets of manuscripts, one dealing with natural history, another on physiology, and a third, much the largest, on Reid’s work on materialism. It also contains a statement by Paul Wood of very sensible editorial principles, seventy-four pages of introductions to the manuscript material, some explanatory (...) notes with translations of Latin passages in the manuscripts and information about the papers and books Reid quotes or refers to in his texts, an index of manuscripts, a set of textual notes, and a not very useful index for the volume as a whole. Lamentably, the usefulness of the volume is compromised by Wood’s having used editions of Reid’s printed works that are rare and not easily available instead of the standard 1895 Hamilton eighth edition in the Georg Olms reprinted edition. Wood does, on rare occasions, quote from or refer to the Hamilton 1854 fourth edition of Reid’s work whose pagination appears to coincide with the 1895 edition, but these references are too few to be helpful. (shrink)

After over a century of total neglect, the philosophy of Thomas Reid has attracted increasing interest over the past several decades. A new scholarly edition of Reid’s works is underway, with two volumes already available. Even more important than such scholarship is the fact that contemporary philosophers too numerous to list are finding in Reid’s philosophy substantial material useful for their own work in epistemology, philosophy of mind, ethics, and action theory. This book is a welcome addition to the growing (...) Reid literature, but readers should be on guard while reading it because Wolterstorff, with breathtaking audacity, says that his “aim throughout is not so much to present what Reid said as to discover what he was trying to say”, as though Reid were somehow incompetent at saying what he meant or meaning what he said, despite being “one of the two great philosophers of the latter part of the eighteenth century”, “one of the most lucid writers of philosophy in the history of philosophy”, and “the greatest stylist of all who have written philosophy in the English language”. (shrink)

These two books are Volumes 1 and 2 of a three-volume work; the projected third volume, Warranted Christian Belief, has yet to be published. In the first volume, Warrant: The Current Debate, Plantinga surveys the current chaos in epistemology stemming from the breakdown of classical foundationalism and examines critically the efforts of several contemporary philosophers to introduce some order into the field, most particularly Roderick Chisholm, William Alston, John Pollock, Laurence BonJour and, to a lesser extent, others such as Richard (...) Foley, Fred Dretske and Alvin Goldman. In this volume, Plantinga is trying not only to put out of play the views he rejects but also to provide the reader with anticipations of his own views in Warrant and Proper Function. Although there is an immense amount of overlap between these books, and there is much cross-referencing, they are not continuous; each can be read entirely independently of the other. Even should, through some misfortune, the projected third volume fail to be written, these two volumes are certain to stand for a long time as exceptionally important works. Warrant and Proper Function, in particular, is likely to generate a veritable Niagara of Ph.D. theses in a field many had come to see as having reached the point of diminishing nits. (shrink)

It is quite impossible to write an adequate review of this book within the word limits any sane editor would impose. The nine chapters and four Epilogues on the History of Philosophy comprising this enormous production were written by sixty-one authors and are of greatly varying quality. Richard Popkin himself acknowledges that “No effort has been made to force the different authors into a common expository style or into a common point of view. Readers will find that the various authors... (...) have many points of view and often differ with each other”. Despite Popkin’s own desperate interventions in the form of connecting passages designed to relate one chapter or section of a chapter to others, little coherence is achieved. (shrink)

This book is the second volume of a critical edition of the writings of Thomas Reid, an edition that will include many of his manuscript remains as well as his previously published works. These volumes are intended to displace the heretofore standard 8th edition of Reid’s works edited by Sir William Hamilton. Hamilton’s edition is marred by his numerous, often intrusive, and obtuse footnotes. Reid’s spelling and punctuation were also sometimes “corrected” by Hamilton, so his edition does not present a (...) fully accurate version of the original editions whose publication was superintended by Reid. The type in the Hamilton edition is also archaic and very small, making reading the text excessively difficult. The present and subsequent volumes are intended to present canonical texts free of the flaws in the Hamilton text. This volume succeeds admirably in that project. (shrink)

This book is the second volume of a critical edition of the writings of Thomas Reid, an edition that will include many of his manuscript remains as well as his previously published works. These volumes are intended to displace the heretofore standard 8th edition of Reid’s works edited by Sir William Hamilton. Hamilton’s edition is marred by his numerous, often intrusive, and obtuse footnotes. Reid’s spelling and punctuation were also sometimes “corrected” by Hamilton, so his edition does not present a (...) fully accurate version of the original editions whose publication was superintended by Reid. The type in the Hamilton edition is also archaic and very small, making reading the text excessively difficult. The present and subsequent volumes are intended to present canonical texts free of the flaws in the Hamilton text. This volume succeeds admirably in that project. (shrink)

Thomas Reid delivered philosophical orations triennially, in Latin, at graduation ceremonies in King's College, Aberdeen, 1753-1762. Each of the four orations is a summary of Reid's views on several philosophical topics, e.g. the "laws of practising philosophy"; the philosophy of science; the "theory of ideas". This translation from the Latin text is prefaced with an historical and philosophical introduction to the thought of Reid and his school. The text is footnoted with cross-references to Reid's published writings to enable the reader (...) to compare these early expressions of Reid's philosophy with his mature thought. A thorough bibliography of the most available editions of Reid's works and of the most important modern books and articles on Reid is appended. (shrink)