In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 387 vs. "objective" is all no doubt rather imprecise, but points toward an important truth. In fact, in the contrast between them, we can see, I believe, not merely a clash of methods, standards or styles in writing history, but, more deeply still, an instance of the general antithesis between a "formalist" and a "sympathetic" sensibility, one encountered over and over in humanistic studies.6 PLATO New in (...) this section is an essay on "Some Controversial Points of Plato Interpretation Reconsidered" (pp. 183-209). Its first two parts combat the view that Plato ever gave up the metaphysics of his "middle period," but they do so only by rehearsing familiar theses about the Idea of the Good and the "two worlds" theory. These pages afford nothing new (apart from an extremely unfortunate appeal [p. 185 and again on p. 230] to an Homeric usage of the genitive to settle a problem at Rep. 518C9). The third part (pp. 194209 ) expands upon some views about later Plato for which Mme. de Vogel is already widely known, and these are very useful indeed. They offer a welcome expansion and defense of her view that in order to "do justice" (196-197, cf. 228) to the famous phrase,o) 7r,,v,e)~r ~v,t at Soph. 248E7, we must concede that Plato came to assign "the motion of a thinking mind" (208-209) to the very being of the Ideas, i.e., came to regard "the intelligibleworld as a vo~r (p. 194). Two interesting objections to her reading are confronted at some length (pp. 200-206) and several others are more briefly dealt with, thus affording her a good chance to explain her view. Valuable as these pages are, however, their upshot is rather unsatisfactory: just what Plato's view would, on her reading of it, really come to, remains mightily obscure--an obscurity she tends to concede but to explain away as Plato's "seeming peculiar to a modern mind" though we can get some grip upon his views if we but "take the trouble to follow his lead" (pp. 201, 198; cf. pp. 228-230, etc.). Such reminders of the genuine strangeness of Plato's view can no doubt be healthy in themselves, but can also be stultifying when reiterated in the face of genuine dissatisfaction with the sense that she makes of his meaning. This situation is not helped by the fact that, at crucial junctures in her argument, she buttresses her case about Plato's meaning by appeals to Aristotle's report at de Anima 1.2, 404b18-27 (see pp. 193-194, 199-200, 208, 277-281, 384-385). As she rightly reports (pp. 280, 385), Prof. Harold Cherniss has vigorously opposed the view that Aristotle is there giving Plato's view at all; yet--despite the fact that she has dedicated this volume to Cherniss--she never makes any reference to his most extended and most powerful defense of his position on this text, and much less does she attempt to answer his argument. (See Cherniss' review of H. D. Saffrey's book--a book to which de Vogel does refer, and repeatedly--in Gnomon 31 [1959], 36-51.) This matter is crucial, not merely as a bibliographical nicety, but because she tends to argue ]rom this text, maintaining that, however peculiar and isolated the sense of Soph. 248-249 and of certain phrases in the Timaeus may, on her reading of them, seem, this text proves that Plato must be read in her way. If it is not about Plato's view at all, it of course proves no such thing. The full weight of her argument will thus be borne by her view of how best to "do justice" to the text of Soph. 248E. Though she makes a clear and reasonable case 6 See Leo Steinberg's comments on this contrast as encountered in current art criticism: Other Criteria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), Essay 3 (especially pp. 63-68). His remarks about the prescriptive or "interdictory stance" of formalism also fit an important aspect of Burkert's book--an aspect which, though not articulated by her, accounts (I suspect... (shrink)

In this book Sokolowski examines Husserl's basic phenomenological concepts, on the one hand, while proceeding from the perspective of Austin's linguistic analysis, on the other. His twofold concern is precisely indicated by the title and the subtitle re- spectively. This intellectual symbiosis makes the matter more comprehensible to a linguistic philosopher who wishes to be acquainted with Husserlian philosophy and also gives the book its particular style of exposition. It is indeed an excellent introduc- tion to Husserl's thoughts by means (...) of a sustained effort to clarify intricate notions through numerous concrete illustrations. This pedagogical method (which may be in- spired by the practice of teaching), far from being a shallow vulgarization, serves per- fectly the purpose of communicating a thorough knowledge as well as a correct under- standing of Husserrs texts, which substantiate the interpretations. Instead of generali- ties on Transcendental Idealism and trivialities on broad themes, the different chapters analyze successively the key notions of the Logical Investigations, the Phenomenology o] Internal Time Consciousness, Ideas, and the Formal and Transcendental Logic. (shrink)