Standards of reasonability play an important role in some of the most difficult cases of rape. In recent years, the notion of the ``reasonable person'' has supplanted the historical concept of the ``reasonable man'' as the test of reasonability. Contemporary feminist critics like Catharine MacKinnon and Kim Lane Scheppele have challenged the notion of the reasonable person on the grounds that reasonability standards are ``gendered to the ground'' and so, in practice, the reasonable person is just the reasonable man in (...) a gender neutral guise. These critics call for the explicit employment of a ``reasonable woman'' standard for application to the actions of female victims of rape. But the arguments for abandoning a gender-neutral standard are double-edged and the employment of gendered standards of reasonability is likely to have implications that are neither foreseen by, nor acceptable to, advocates of such standards. Reasonable agent standards can be dropped, in favor of appeals to the notion of a ``reasonable demand (or expectation)'' by the law. However, if reasonable agent standards are to be retained, gendered versions of such standards are not preferable to gender-neutral ones. (shrink)

A painstaking study of the problem of akrasia, from its early thematizations in Socrates and Euripides, who represent the early and late positions of Plato, to Aristotle's labors with it: labors which failed to issue in a satisfactory or even consistent result. Akrasia is treated, of course, as a touchstone for the more embracing questions of reason, practical wisdom, action, etc. Walsh deals minutely with the primary materials, and also investigates current interpretations. It is argued that "the absence of the (...) concept of will" prevents Aristotle from overcoming his confusions. A valuable discussion of the authorship of Nicomachean Ethics, Book VII, chapter 3 is appended.—C. D. (shrink)

It is the peculiar impasses of contemporary philosophy that send Lugarini back to Aristotle; the ultimate purpose guiding his work is to bring to light, by means of imaginative scholarship, the roots of the whole project of philosophizing. In developing a thoroughgoing view of Aristotle, the author consciously, though unobtrusively, aims at today's central philosophical problems. He criticizes traditional Aristotelianism and claims that the "idea of philosophy" for Aristotle was founded not so much upon the presupposition of substance as upon (...) man's vocation to find order in all phenomena. This vocation is revealed in the fundamental orexis, or wonder, that is man's defining characteristic. Lugarini is clear and painstaking; and whether the overall approach is accepted or not, his exhaustive examinations of key terms are valuable for every student of Aristotle. A major text on Aristotle. --C. D. (shrink)

Craemer-Ruegenberg has written a very clear, brief introduction to Aristotle’s Physics. Her work is not meant to be either an original work of scholarship or a detailed commentary on the text. Her intention seems to be to provide an explanation of Aristotle’s terminology and his method and conception of natural science for someone reading Aristotle’s work for the first time. Since she sees quite correctly that the Physics contains Aristotle’s basic concepts for all his writings on nature, whether these be (...) the works on animals or meteorology or De Caelo, inter alia, she is justified in regarding an account of those principles as affording access to his whole impressive system. (shrink)

The first and longer of the two books in this volume interprets some doctrines of "the levels of Being," ontological knowledge and evil: those of Plato, Plotinus, Jewish mysticism, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, D. H. Lawrence and Bergson. Mme. Amado's purpose is to present the basic intuition and vision of each position, rather than an articulation of the theses. She shows that an identical intuition underlies the greatly differing theories. With some justifiable oversimplification, we might call this an historical epistemology. In Book (...) Two, Mme. Amado shows that knowledge grows from the surmounted experience of evil, and that evil is an ontological category. Being itself is historical. Knowledge, being, evil and history are brought together in an explication of "the desire to know." Evil is discussed principally in terms of exile and alienation--to seek knowledge is to overcome diremption; it is to seek the One. In this light, the history of Israel is examined at some length. An astute student of both Marx and Freud, the author manages to be faithful to them even in speculative philosophy. The book is forbidding in length and locution, but it justifies Mme. Amado's reputation as one of the more important philosophers in Europe today.--C. D. (shrink)

Bolotin’s work consists of a very literal translation of the Lysis and a detailed commentary, which pays attention to what is only implied as well as to what is actually stated by the dialogue’s characters. The translation is a model of precision; an occasionally awkward expression is a small price to pay for the faithfulness to the original text provided for the Greekless reader.

Plato is the only major philosopher in the western tradition to present myths as an essential part of his philosophical writings. Nevertheless, scholars have seldom, if ever, reflected on the possibility that Plato understood the nature and purpose of myths differently than they are understood today. This has resulted either in scholars ignoring them, while concentrating on the "analytic" segments of the dialogues, or giving facile interpretations of them. Zaslavsky approaches the Platonic myths with the intent of determining, through a (...) critical analysis of their content, what is their meaning and function as envisaged by Plato. (shrink)

Eva Brann writes engagingly on a topic that too frequently is swollen with "flaccid edification" or tired and abstract jargon, whose mere familiarity to the reader elicits his nod. The author early gives notice of her disdain for this conventional rightmindedness: "I defy anyone to produce a present-day effusion on education that does not mean to further students’ creativity; for example, picked utterly at random out of a collection: ‘To create... is the uniquely human attribute'. Now, I would have thought (...) that that was what it was precisely not, and that to become a creator a student should not go to school but to heaven. Similarly with values; it is de rigueur to demand that a ’sense of values’ be instilled. It seems to bother few people that the subversive term value was given currency by Nietzsche to devalue our instilled beliefs and our received morality, so that nothing might be good in itself, but only as someone valued it". Brann also has some harsh words for the urge to restructure society, the encouragement of self-expression, and the project of making students think for themselves. According to Brann, the primary requisite of the teacher’s character should be a "certain proud shamelessness. But it does not become more vivid with more words". Instead, I would suggest that her book exhibits it in deed. (shrink)

This book attacks an assortment of tendencies and assumptions that the author believes endemic to traditional epistemology. Perhaps the main target is what she sees as a tendency to sublimate the concepts of knowledge and belief, whose roles in everyday life are mundane and unsystematic, into rigid abstractions. This tendency is said to show itself in the allegedly false assumptions that propositions are the objects of knowledge and belief, and that there is a definite set of propositions that one knows (...) and another that one believes. One or the other of these assumptions is said to underlie Chisholm’s attempt to state necessary and sufficient conditions for knowledge, Prichard’s to distinguish knowledge from belief, Malcolm’s to distinguish a ’strong’ from a ‘weak’ sense of ‘to know’, Moore’s to rebut skepticism by giving examples of things he knows, and Descartes’ to imagine that all his beliefs are false. All make the mistake, Wolgast thinks, of speaking of knowledge or belief in the abstract, without reference to the actual use of language. In particular, Chisholm, Prichard, and Moore fail to realize that the force of ‘I know’ varies from context to context. (shrink)

An excellent translation of Sartre's brilliant tour de force. Sartre's style could hardly be less inviting; meanings shift in dialectical patterns and verbal "whirligigs," making quotation a hazardous affair. Yet there is probably no sustained reflection on evil equal in depth or thoroughness to this book in modern literature. Sartre's work is also a very specific attempt "to indicate the limit of psychoanalytical interpretation and Marxist explanation." The book is about Genet; but Genet "holds the mirror up to us, we (...) must look at it and see ourselves." What we see is not only what we are, as a sociologist might describe a state of affairs, but also what we fail to be. Perhaps the book should be assessed primarily as a philosophical experience from which ideas emerge, rather than as an articulation of ideas, arguments or conclusions.—C. D. (shrink)

The author laudably attempts to integrate Cassirer's approach to symbolism with current work being done by sociologists, anthropologists and psychologists. The thesis that symbols are the creative link between personality and culture is defended in a variety of ways. The discussion is repetitious and disorganized. Still, the rich array of content deserves attention.--D. C. B.

A sequel to his New Apologists, this latest work sees the "tragic vision" as the Dionysian component of tragedy, in an irreducible tension with the ethical or Apollonian: a conflict characterizing the modern "crisis-mentality" of literature and existentialism. Gide, Kafka, and Melville, are contrasted with D. H. Lawrence, Camus, Dostoevsky, and others in a very illuminating manner.--D. C. B.