Everyone who takes a serious interest in the mind-body problem ought to read this book, which is an attempted tour de force in defense of the identity-theory. The reader should have a taste for formal logic, including some set theory, in order to judge whether the author's penchant for slipping into symbolic notation is required by his argument.

Like all my generation at Oxford, in the far-away years of the turn of the century, I received my first introduction to the Philosophical Theory of the State through the reading of Plato’s Republic. There followed Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hegel, Bosanquet— with a disapproving glance at Mill and Spencer. Alongside this survey of widely varying theories there ran a lively interest in the politics of the day under a “democratic,” i.e. parliamentary, system of government, with much experience of “democratic” (...) methods in the running of various college and university societies, the officials of which were elected by the members, and the actions of which were determined, after discussion, by majority vote. (shrink)

A few months ago General Smuts, as Rector of St. Andrews University, addressed a stirring appeal to the youth of the world to dedicate itself to the defence of the threatened cause of Freedom. As a young man, General Smuts fought in the Anglo-Boer war for the political freedom of the South African Republics. As a member of the British War Cabinet during the Great War, he was prominent among the Allied leaders in what was declared to be a war (...) to “make the world safe for democracy”. As a signatory of the Treaty of Versailles, he was the first outstanding statesman who, on the very morrow of the signing, had the courage to confess the inadequacies of that settlement, and to appeal to a war-torn world to lay aside the passions of bitter conflict and return to sanity and co-operation. In the League of Nations, which he, more than anyone else, helped to conceive and bring into being, he has sought to create the machinery for the peaceful co-operation between nations. (shrink)

Irwin’s book is the first critical and systematic study of Plato’s moral theory in the early and middle dialogues. This is not as surprising as it sounds, if one knows the complexity of the subject and the lack of consensus surrounding it. Irwin quickly challenges his reader with the difficulties. He lays out what he claims are the central assumptions behind Plato’s moral theory with cogency and a firm sense of the evidence. His abbreviations for these assumptions are at first (...) distracting, but need no apology. Irwin examines the role of Socrates’ elenchos [[sic]] in ethics, having surveyed the components of the ordinary beliefs tested by elenchos, [[sic]] which he calls the ‘Homeric’ and ‘law’ conceptions of virtue. He then subjects Socrates’ positive doctrines, and Plato’s responses to them, to a sustained critical analysis. He claims that Socrates is committed to a "craft analogy" as his model of rationality, which entails that virtue is a craft-discipline, that the virtues are instrumental in prescribing means to a determinate final good, and the denial of incontinence; and that Plato develops doubts about Socratic doctrines and finally adopts the view that the final good is neither determinate nor even unitary, that the virtues are not instrumental or prescriptive with relation to the Good but rather are components of it, that the Good itself is a teleologically ordered system of Forms, and that incontinence is possible because the three parts of the soul can have conflicting desires. Irwin’s suggestion that we think of the Good as a system of Forms is not new, similar views having been proposed by Gosling and by Findlay, but the evidence is notoriously unclear. Irwin’s central claim about Plato’s anti-Socratic view in the Republic rests on his view that Plato realized that "an attempt to reduce the good to undisputed non-moral properties will fail." This view is controversial, but it is an important claim. A different interpretation of the Good, for instance as itself a higher level property of Forms, would clearly affect his central claim, since such a property of Forms could still be a determinate end. Another potential problem for Irwin is the description of the good at Republic 505e1 as "what every soul pursues and for the sake of which it does everything," which, despite Irwin’s attempt to find alternate readings, prima facie seems to count against his anti-Socratic interpretation. In general, his view that Plato opts for an indeterminate end, and that Plato gives up the craft analogy, seems too sharply stated. It is not that clear that Plato gives up a single overarching eudaimonia fixed for everyone; and Plato seems to flirt, even in late dialogues, with the to him tantalizing possibility of an architectonic craft-knowledge that fits all actions and other crafts into a system of coordinated means to a determinate end. Here it becomes important to know Irwin’s precise views about the later dialogues. (shrink)

This book is not about the theory of Forms as such, but about Plato’s epistemological realism, his view, in opposition to Protagorean relativism, that there is a realm of fact that counts as the common object of our true beliefs, judgments, and knowledge. This book fills a longstanding need for a lucid, condensed, readable account of aspects of Plato’s thought that emerge in certain of Plato’s middle and later dialogues and pose issues of contemporary philosophical merit. It is White’s contention (...) that Plato’s discontent with the "method of hypothesis" tentatively tried in Meno, Phaedo, and Republic, and his theory of naming in the Cratylus, lead to the breakdown of his theory of knowledge and, eventually, of the possibility of meaningful inquiry, with the objects of inquiry framed in advance by a specification of the object. The key thesis in White’s contention appears to be a view that he attributes to the Cratylus, that "the genuine use of a name is thought to require the apprehension of its nominatum, in a way excluding any confusion of it with other things" ; for, if the only thing that can be named is a Form, and if believing, judging, and knowing are a kind of being confronted in one’s mental "visual" field with an object, and we cannot accept the beliefs of others for purposes of inquiry, then how is it possible to inquire about, or to define what one already apprehends and recognizes? (shrink)

J.S. Mackenzie surveys Western philosophy from Socrates to the New Realists in an uncomplicated and approachable style. Originally published in 1917, this text serves as a useful introduction to philosophy and well-summarises the key theories of great philosophers throughout the centuries and their bearing on early twentieth-century thought. It is ideal for students of Philosophy, both for beginners and the more advanced.

Originally published in 1920, this title wrestles with the critical conflict in modern philosophy of whether philosophers should employ pure reason in a world of abstracts or, rather, should rely upon experience and rationality to examine the actual world. Hoernlé argues for the latter and emphasises the importance of metaphysics in the intellectual quest for knowing reality. This title is ideal for students of philosophy and provides insightful background into the diverging philosophical views of the early 20th century.