In reviewing four works from the 1990s-monographs by Christopher Ives and Phillip Olson on Zen Buddhist ethics, Damien Keown's treatment of Indian Buddhist ethics, and an edited collection on Buddhism and human rights-this article examines recent scholarship on Zen Buddhist ethics in light of issues in Buddhist and comparative ethics. It highlights selected themes in the notional and real encounter of Zen Buddhism with Western thought and culture as presented in the reviewed works and identifies issues and problems for further (...) consideration, in particular, problems of comparative and cross-cultural understanding and the articulation and redefinition of Zen Buddhist tradition. (shrink)

Books reviewed in this article:Allen Richard and Malcolm Turvey (eds.), Wittgenstein, Theory and the ArtsBrady Emily and Jerrold Levinson (eds.), Aesthetic Concepts: Essays after SibleyRob Van Gerwen (ed.), Richard Wollheim on the Art of Painting: Art as Expression and RepresentationKeith Moxey, The Practice of Persuasion: Paradox & Power in Art HistoryJames J. Sheehan, Museums in the German Art World from the End of the Old Regime to the Rise of ModernismTheodore Gracyk, I Wanna Be Me: Rock Music and the Politics (...) of IdentityRenée Cox Lorraine, Music, Tendencies, and Inhibitions: Reflections on a Theory of Leonard MeyerNaomi Cumming, The Sonic Self: Musical Subjectivity and SignificationKrystyna Wilkoszewska (ed.), Aesthetics of the Four Elements: Earth, Water, Fire, Air. (shrink)

The author reviews recent books by Alasdair MacIntyre and Garrett Barden that critique the impulse to foundational theory and transhistorical argumentation in moral theory; these arguments are then set in relation to books by Franklin Gamwell and Karl-Otto Apel that seek, in new ways, to defend that impulse. Although far more sympathetic to the latter perspective, the author maintains that all four of these second-order theoretical discussions lack an appropriate understanding of and engagement with the post-Enlightenment tradition of moral theorizing.

The following four articles were awarded the Rudolf-Carnap-Essay Prize during an international graduate conference we organized at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Germany) in February 2008. We received many excellent submissions not only from graduate students in Germany and other European countries, but also from the USA and Canada. All submissions were subjected to a double-blind review process. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the scholars who supported us in this endeavour.

Book Review. Ian Rory Owen. Psychotherapy and Phenomenology: On Freud, Husserl, and Heidegger. Lincoln, N.E.,: iUniverse, 2006.

Synesthesia is a condition in which stimulation of one sensory modality causes unusual experiences in a second, unstimulated modality. Although long treated as a curiosity, recent research with a combination of phenomenological, behavioral, and neuroimaging methods has begun to identify the cognitive and neural basis of synesthesia. Here, we review this literature with an emphasis on grapheme-color synesthesia, in which viewing letters and numbers induces the perception of colors. We discuss both the substantial progress that has been made in the (...) past fifteen years and some open questions. In particular, we focus on debates in the field relating to the neural basis of synesthesia, including the relationship between synesthesia and attention and the role of meaning in synesthetic colors. We propose that some, but probably not all, of these differences can be accounted for by differences in the synesthetes studied and discuss some methodological implications of these individual differences. (shrink)

CHRISTOPHER PINCOCK, Department of Philosophy, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA The volume under review contains fifteen new essays by some of the most influential scholars of the history of early analytic philosophy. The focus of the essays is, as the editor says in the preface, ‘the work of Gottlob Frege and of Ludwig Wittgenstein (mostly the early Wittgenstein), as well as various ties between them’ (p. x). The essays are divided into four parts. The first part, ‘Background and (...) General Themes’, contains essays by E. Reck, G. Gabriel and S. Gerrard. The second part on Frege has contributions by H. Sluga, S. Shieh, M. Ruffino and J. Weiner. Essays on the relation between Frege and the early Wittgenstein by W. Goldfarb, D. Macbeth, T. Ricketts and C. Diamond comprise the third part. The volume concludes with essays by I. Proops, J. Floyd, M. Ostrow and J. Conant on the early Wittgenstein. This volume is an important contribution to our understanding of Frege and the early Wittgenstein and should prove a help to specialists in the history of analytic philosophy. I have chosen to briefly discuss seven of these essays with an emphasis on topics in the history and philosophy of logic. Reck’s opening essay, ‘Wittgenstein’s “Great Debt” to Frege: Biographical Traces and Philosophical Themes’, gives a helpful overview of our current knowledge of the contacts between Frege and Wittgenstein. Reck argues quite persuasively for the conclusion that Wittgenstein engaged with Frege’s work throughout his philosophical career. The depth of this engagement is in-. (shrink)

This work contains, perhaps, a larger amount of vigorous orthodoxy than can elsewhere be found in so small a compass. It is a plea for a laissez-faire policy, and is full of wisdom of a kind that is needed, in view of the drift of opinions toward “stateism.” Its effect on public policy will be like that of an anchor planted on a shoal on one side of a channel in order to warp a vessel off from an opposite shoal. (...) Yet in one way it brings economics and politics into close connection; it discusses government as an economic function, a process of creating and selling the product security. Though opposing governmental interference in industry, it emphasizes the action of economic law upon government. (shrink)