Philosophy in Review/Comptes Rendus Philosophiques Academic
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Philosophy in Review/Comptes rendus philosophiques Editor / Francophone associate editor / Directeur directeur adjoint francophone David Kahane Alain Voizard Philosophy in Review Departement de philosophie Department of Philosophy Universite du Quebec a Montreal 4-115 Humanities Centre C.P. 8888, Succursale Centre-Ville University of Alberta Montreal, QC Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E5 Canada H3C 3P8 Tel: 780-492-8549 Fax: 780-492-9160 Courriel: [email protected] E-Mail: [email protected] URL: http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/pir Anglophone associate editors / directeurs adjoints anglophones Robert Burch Continental philosophy, history ofphilosophy Glenn Griener Ethics, bioethics Cressida Heyes Feminism DavidKahane Political, social, and legal philosophy Bernard Linsky Logic and philosophy of language Jeffry Pelletier Cognitive science, philosophy of mind Alex Rueger Epistemology, philosophy of science Martin Tweedale Ancient and medieval philosophy, metaphysics Jennifer Welchman Ethics, bioethics, history ofphilosophy As a rule, P.I.R. publishes only invited reviews. However, we will consider for publication submitted reviews of new books in philosophy and related areas. Reviews must be a maximum of 1000 words and will be accepted in either French or English. En general, C.R.P. ne publie que les comptes rendus qui sont explicitement invitees. Neanmoins, nous prendrions en consideration la publication de comptes rendus soumis, si !es auteurs traitent de livi·es philosophiques (ou de livres sur un sujet apparente) qui viennent de paraitre. Les comptes rendus devraient etre de 1000 mots au maximum, et le manuscrit redige en franc;ais ou en anglais. Subscription prices for a volume of six issues Institutions Individuals Students $110 (Canadian) $53 (Canadian) $39 (Canadian) US$110/Cdn$165 (Foreign) US$52/Cdn$77 (Foreign) US$43/Cdn$63 (Foreign) Prix de l'abonnement a un volume de six numeros Institutions Individus Etudiants $110 (Canada) $53 (Canada) $39 (Canada) US$110/Cdn$165 (Hors-Canada) US$52/Cdn$77 (Hors-Canada) US$43/Cdn$63 (Hors-Canada) Subscriptions should be sent to the publisher: Les abonnements peuvent etre pris chez l'editeur: Academic Printing and Publishing 9 - 3151 Lakeshore Road, Suite 403 Kelowna, BC, Canada VlW 389 Tel: 250-764-6427 Fax: 250-764-6428 E-mail: [email protected] Publications Mail Registration No. 08491 - ISSN 1206-5269 Agreement number 1392808 © 2001 Academic Printing and Publishing Published six times a year Volume XXI, No. 1 February • fevrier 2001 Table of Contents • Table des matieres Theodor W. Adorno, Sound Figures. 1 Mattias Martinson Edward Alexander, ed., On Liberty: J.S. Mill. 2 Susan M. Turner Stuart Barnett, ed., Hegel After Derrida . • . 6 Irene E. Harvey Bruce Baum, Re-Reading Freedom and Power in J.S. Mill . 2 Susan M. Turner William D. Blattner, Heidegger's Temporal Idealism . 8 Klaus Michael Jahn Ernst Bloch, Literary Essays . • . • . • . • . • . 10 Colin M. Harper Hilary Bok, Freedom and Responsibility . • . 13 Anthony Dardis Pierre Bourdieu, Pascalian Meditations . • . • . • . 15 Raymond A. Morrow Peg Zeglin Brand, ed., Beauty Matters. 17 Johan Modee Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity . • . 20 April Herndon John W. Cook, Wittgenstein, Empiricism, and Language . • . • . 23 Duncan Richter M. James C. Crabbe, ed., From Soul to Self . 25 Scott Scribner Arthur Davis and Peter Emberley, eds., Collected Works of George Grant: Volume I, 1933-1950......................... .. .. .. 26 Steven Bums Jeffrey Edwards, Substance, Force, and the Possibility ofK nowledge: On Kant's Philosophy ofMaterial Nature . 29 James R. O'Shea Paul Fairfield, Moral Selfhood in the Liberal Tradition . 31 Louis Groarke No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a license from CANCOPY (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency) 1 Yonge St., Ste 1900, Toronto, ON M5E 1E5, FAX (416) 868-1621. Aucune portion de cette publication ne peut etre reproduite, entreposee dans un systeme de recuperation ou transmise, sous quelque forme ou par quelques moyens que ce soit sans le consentement prealable, par ecrit, de l'editeur ou, dans Jes cas d'une photocopie ou tout autre reprographie, une license de CANCOPY (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency) 1 Yonge St., Ste 1900, Toronto, ON M5E 1E5, FAX (416) 868-1621. Mailed in February/March 2001. Andrew Feenberg, Questioning Technology. .. .. ........ ........... 34 M. Carleton Simpson Steve Fuller, Thomas Kuhn: A Philosophical History for Our Times . 36 David B. Martens Andre Gallois, Occasions of Identity: A Study in the Metaphysics ofP ersistence, Change, and Sameness . • . 39 Agustin Arrieta and M.J . Garcia-Encinas Marcella Tarozzi Goldsmith, The Future ofA rt: An Aesthetics of the New and the S ublime. 41 John Gibson Lewis Edwin Hahn, ed., The Philosophy ofD onald Davidson . 42 John R. Cook Ronald L. Hall, The Human Embrace: The Love ofPhilosophy and the Philosophy of Love; Kierkegaard, Gavell, Nussbaum . 45 Stephen R. Palmquist Patricia Hill-Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. 20 April Herndon Tamar Japaridze, The Kantian Subject: Sensus Communis, Mimesis, Work of Mourning. 47 Brigitte Sassen Nicholas Jolley, Locke: His Philosophical Thought . 48 Patricia Sheridan Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell, eds., Politics and Aesthetics in the Arts . 51 Johan Modee Barbara Koziak, Retrieving Political Emotion: Thumos, Aristotle, and Gender 53 Rebekah Johnston Paul S. MacDonald, Descartes and Husserl. The Philosophical Project of Radical Beginnings . 55 Roiger Zaborowski Wolfgang-Rainer Mann, The Discovery of Things: Aristotle's Categories and Their Context . 58 David Hitchcock Waller R. Newell, Ruling Passion: the Erotics of Statecrafe in Platonic Political Philosophy. 61 Joseph Gonda John Rawls, Collected Papers . 63 Joseph Murray John Rawls, The Law ofPeoples, with 'The Idea of Public Reason Revisited'. 63 Joseph Murray John Rawls, A Theory ofJustice . 63 Joseph Murray Sandra B. Rosenthal, Carl R. Hausman, Douglas R. Anderson, eds., Classical American Pragmatism: Its Contemporary Vitality . 68 Matthew Stephens Mark Steiner, The Applicability ofMathematics as a Philosophical Problem . 70 Sarah Hoffman William Sweet, ed., God and Argument I Dieu et l'argumentation philosophique 72 Joseph M. Magee Catherine Wilson, ed., Civilization and Oppression . 75 Edvard Lorkovic Theodor W. Adorno Sound Figures. Trans. Rodney Livingstone. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 1999. Pp. 288. US$49.50 (cloth: ISBN 0-8047-3557-3); US$16.95 (paper: ISBN 0-8047-3558-1). The thought of Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) has often been approached as a problem in the English-speaking world. His German is immensely difficult, his theoretical approach is considered very strange, and the English translations are consequently often marred with errors that in their turn add to the confusion. However, Adorno has successively been rediscovered, as it were. New texts appear in translations every year, and a more complete picture of this eccentric multidisciplinary thinker slowly emerges. The publication of the collection of musical essays in Sound Figures (originally written during the fifties) is particularly important for the estab lishment of a more sensitive reception of the rich thought of Adorno. Here we have a very good translation of texts, which to some extent are more straightforward and distinct than better known books from Adorno's pen. Sound Figures is a somewhat artificial translation of the apt German title Klangfiguren, which is a very usual German term in musical analysis (connoting such qualitative aspects of sound as timbre, resonance, tone etc.). More important, however, is the idea of 'figures', which the English title preserves, and which links the content of the book to Adorno's general understanding of philosophical reflection. Philosophy - and philosophy of music in particular - should be exercised in models and figures of thought rather than in terms of systematic notions. His basic idea is that too strong emphasis on systematic notions will hamper the productivity ofreflective thought, establish a stifling social order, which only reproduces the ideology that critical thought aims to avoid. Thus, when he approaches the idea of sociology of music in the first essay of the book he somewhat oddly proclaims: 'Let us abandon the separation between method from subject matter' (1). This obstinate motto can be said to run through the otherwise variegated material of the book, which contains essays on various musical topics such as opera, musical serialism, and the notion of the maestro, to mention a few . The two most theoretically substantial texts, 'Criteria of New Music' and 'Music and Technique', become a kind of commentary on and continuation of an earlier book called Philosophy ofModem Music. Yet the most well known essay is perhaps the second, called 'Bourgeois Opera'. Here Adorno exercises a dialectical critique of the opera genre by unfolding it as a specifically high bourgeois phenomenon. This relates to his philosophy of music and to the famous idea of a 'dialectic of enlightenment' that his musical philosophy reiterates. Adorno claims that opera presents us with a magic element. At the surface, this is a curious thing since opera appears in the frames of an 1 enlightened culture. Adorno calls opera a 'glimmer of light'