New at the Library

Gripping, thought-provoking and deeply rewarding, 12 Rules for Life offers an antidote to the chaos in our lives: eternal truths applied to our modern problems. Jordan Peterson's work as a clinical psychologist has reshaped the modern understanding of personality, and now he has become one of the world's most popular public thinkers, with his lectures on topics ranging from the Bible to romantic relationships drawing tens of millions of viewers. In an era of polarizing politics, echo chambers and trigger warnings, his startling message about the value of personal responsibility and the dangers of ideology has resonated around the world.

The companion volume to 12 Rules for Life offers further guidance on the perilous path of modern life. In12 Rules for Life, clinical psychologist and celebrated professor at Harvard and the University of Toronto Dr. Jordan B. Peterson helped millions of readers impose order on the chaos of their lives. Now, in this bold sequel, Peterson delivers twelve more lifesaving principles for resisting the exhausting toll that our desire to order the world inevitably takes.

In an increasingly secular world, 'blasphemy' is surely a defunct concept. And yet blasphemy (life God and religion) seems to be on the rise. In this Very Short Introduction Yvonne Sherwood asks why this should be the case, looking at factors such as the increased visibility of religious and racial minorities, new media, and the legacies of colonial blasphemy laws. Throughout, she uncovers new histories, from the story of accidentally blasphemous cartoons to the close associations between blasphemy, sex, and birth control, and asks why some 'blasphemies' have become infamous, while others have disappeared.

One of the formative periods of European and world history, the Enlightenment is the fountainhead of modern secular Western values: religious tolerance, freedom of thought, speech and the press, of rationality and evidence-based argument. Yet why, over three hundred years after it began, is the Enlightenment so profoundly misunderstood as controversial, the expression of soulless calculation? The answer may be that, to an extraordinary extent, we have accepted the account of the Enlightenment given by its conservative enemies: that enlightenment necessarily implied hostility to religion or support for an unfettered free market, or that this was "the best of all possible worlds". Ritchie Robertson goes back into the "long eighteenth century," from approximately 1680 to 1790, to reveal what this much-debated period was really about. Robertson returns to the era's original texts to show that above all, the Enlightenment was really about increasing human happiness - in this world rather than the next - by promoting scientific inquiry and reasoned argument. In so doing Robertson chronicles the campaigns mounted by some Enlightened figures against evils like capital punishment, judicial torture, serfdom and witchcraft trials, featuring the experiences of major figures like Voltaire and Diderot alongside ordinary people who lived through this extraordinary moment. In answering the question 'What is Enlightenment?' in 1784, Kant famously urged men and women above all to "have the courage to use your own intellect". Robertson shows how the thinkers of the Enlightenment did just that, seeking a well-rounded understanding of humanity in which reason was balanced with emotion and sensibility. Drawing on philosophy, theology, historiography and literature across the major western European languages, The Enlightenment is a master-class in big picture history about the foundational epoch of modern times.

This inaugural-and all new-Tarcher Cornerstone Edition presents a stunningly relevant and reliable translation of the thoughts and aphorisms of the Stoic philosopher and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, properly placing the philosopher-king's writings within the vein of the world's great religious and ethical traditions.

Description: In 63 BC the corrupt aristocrat Lucius Sergius Catilina (Catiline in English) aimed to topple the Roman Republic. Catiline attracted a wide array of supporters: debt-ridden men and women from prominent families, youths looking for adventure, the less well-off tired of a political class that seemed only to look out for its own interests. Frustrated in his efforts to be elected consul, Catiline fled Rome while several of his associates stayed behind with secret plans to torch the city and murder its leading politicians. The story of Catiline and his conspiracy is recounted by the Roman historian Sallust in his short book, “The War with Catiline.” Sallust’s account culminates with the unmasking of these urban conspirators at a meeting of the Senate, followed by a stormy debate that led to their execution, and then the ultimate defeat of Catiline and his legions in battle. While Catiline is at the heart of the story, some of the most important figures of Roman history play key roles in the story: Cicero, the ambitious young senator who calculated how best to protect Rome; Julius Caesar, who delivers a memorable speech defending the conspirators against execution; and Cato, an ardent defender of the Republic. Catiline himself is a fascinating figure–a bitter and haunted man, determined to destroy Rome, yet sympathetic to the plight of struggling Romans. This book offers a new translation of Sallust’s account of the thwarted conspiracy framed for a contemporary audience. As the translator Josiah Osgood notes in his introduction, Sallust’s work is not limited to just recounting the conspiracy but engages with broader questions, still relevant today, about how republics flourish and how they break down. Sallust also poignantly describes how the corruption of Rome’s leaders, worried less about the common good and more about their own advancement, spread like a disease through Roman society. (publ.)

Hyphen is ultimately a compelling story about the powerful ways that language and identity intertwine. Mahdavi-herself a hyphenated Iranian-American-weaves in her own experiences struggling to find a sense of self amidst feelings of betwixt and between. Through stories of the author and three other individuals, Hyphen collectively considers how to navigate, articulate, and empower new identities.

Reviewed: LR Feb. 2023 p. 40.
Description: Animals are in trouble all over the world. Whether through the cruelties of the factory meat industry, poaching and game hunting, habitat destruction, or neglect of the companion animals that people purport to love, animals suffer injustice and horrors at our hands every day. The world needs an ethical awakening, a consciousness-raising movement of international proportions. One of the world’s most influential philosophers and humanists Martha C. Nussbaum provides a revolutionary approach to animal rights, ethics, and law. From dolphins to crows, elephants to octopuses, Nussbaum examines the entire animal kingdom, showcasing the lives of animals with wonder, awe, and compassion to understand how we can create a world in which human beings are truly friends of animals, not exploiters or users. All animals should have a shot at flourishing in their own way. Humans have a collective duty to face and solve animal harm. An urgent call to action and a manual for change, Nussbaum’s groundbreaking theory directs politics and law to help us meet our ethical responsibilities as no book has done before. (publ.)

Calmar Campus

Reviewed: Economist 1 Oct. 2022 p. 73; NYT/BR 6 Nov. 2022 p. 13; LR November 2022 p. 40; Economist 10 Dec. 2022 p. 74 (Best Books of 2022)
Description: There is no cure for the human condition: life is hard. But Kieran Setiya believes philosophy can help. He offers us a map for navigating rough terrain, from personal trauma to the injustice and absurdity of the world. (publ.)

Nearly two thousand years after it was written, Meditations remains profoundly relevant for anyone seeking to lead a meaningful life. Few ancient works have been as influential as the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, philosopher and emperor of Rome (A.D. 161-180). A series of spiritual exercises filled with wisdom, practical guidance, and profound understanding of human behavior, it remains one of the greatest works of spiritual and ethical reflection ever written.

"Wisdom is an essential but often forgotten virtue that has suffered from centuries of misunderstanding and been largely abandoned in contemporary society. Pursuing Wisdom explores philosophical, theological, and scientific traditions to present lessons for future leaders ready to shape the world in a successful and sustainable way"---Provided by publisher.

Description: Taking the long view of the history of philosophy, emeritus professor of history of philosophy and history of science at the University of Sydney Stephen Gaukroger shows how philosophy has in fact collapsed several times, been completely abandoned, sometimes for centuries, and been replaced by something quite different from philosophy. The book focuses on what are historically the most significant failures of philosophy: attempts to provide an account of “the good life” and how to live; to establish philosophy as a discipline that can stand in judgment over and assess other forms of thought; attempts to establish philosophy as a theory of everything; and attempts to construe it as a discipline that parallels or rationalizes the empirical and mathematical sciences, building up technical credentials that mimic those of science. The central argument of the book is that examination of these failures tells us much more about the nature of philosophical inquiry, and about the ultimate point of the exercise, than its successes possibly could. Examination of its failures shows us the significant differences in the way in which philosophers have conceived of the point at different times, and why they have been obliged to shift focus. It tells us why philosophy has been thought to bring distinctive skills to questions, and whether these are actually fruitful skills. And, above all, it allows us to open up the question whether philosophy has anything to offer over and above other ways of engaging cognate questions. (publ.)

Description: Since the 1980s the study of genocide has exploded, both historically and geographically, to encompass earlier epochs, other continents, and new cases. The concept of genocide has proved its worth, but that expansion has also compounded the tensions between a rigid legal concept and the manifold realities researchers have discovered. The legal and political benefits that accompany genocide status have also reduced complex discussions of historical events to a simplistic binary–is it genocide or not–a situation often influenced by powerful political pressures. This book addresses these tensions and tests the limits of the concept in cases ranging from the role of sexual violence during the Holocaust and state-induced mass starvation in Kazakh and Ukrainian history to what the Armenian, Rwandan, and Burundi experiences reveal about the uses and pitfalls of reading history and conducting politics through the lens of genocide. Contributors examine the pressures that great powers have exerted in shaping the concept; the reaction Raphaël Lemkin, originator of the word “genocide,” had to the United Nations’ final resolution on the subject; France’s long-held choice not to use the concept of genocide in its courtrooms; the role of transformative social projects and use of genocide memory in politics; and the relation of genocide to mass violence targeting specific groups. Throughout, this comprehensive text offers innovative solutions to address the limitations of the genocide concept, while preserving its usefulness as an analytical framework. (publ.)

Science is a force for good in the world--at least usually. But sometimes, when obsession gets the better of scientists, they twist a noble pursuit into something sinister. Under this spell, knowledge isn't everything, it's the only thing--no matter the cost. Bestselling author Sam Kean tells the true story of what happens when unfettered ambition pushes otherwise rational men and women to cross the line in the name of science, trampling ethical boundaries and often committing crimes in the process. The Icepick Surgeon masterfully guides the reader across two thousand years of history, beginning with Cleopatra's dark deeds in ancient Egypt. The book reveals the origins of much of modern science in the transatlantic slave trade of the 1700s, as well as Thomas Edison's mercenary support of the electric chair and the warped logic of the spies who infiltrated the Manhattan Project. But the sins of science aren't all safely buried in the past. Many of them, Kean reminds us, still affect us today. We can draw direct lines from the medical abuses of Tuskegee and Nazi Germany to current vaccine hesitancy, and connect icepick lobotomies from the 1950s to the contemporary failings of mental-health care. Kean even takes us into the future, when advanced computers and genetic engineering could unleash whole new ways to do one another wrong.

Description: C. A. J. Coady clarifies competing and confusing definitions of terrorism, and of terrorist acts, that proliferate in specialist publications as well as in popular discourse. … The goal is not only to gain clarity about what the term designates, but also to probe various dimensions of the moral meaning of our understanding of terrorism for complex social and political circumstances. (publ.)

Description: In his final work, Richard Rorty provides the definitive statement of his political thought. Rorty equates pragmatism with anti-authoritarianism, arguing that because there is no authority we can rely on to ascertain truth, we can only do so intersubjectively. It follows that we must learn to think and care about what others think and care about. Marking a new stage in the evolution of his thought, Rorty’s final masterwork identifies anti-authoritarianism as the principal impulse and virtue of pragmatism. Anti-authoritarianism, on this view, means acknowledging that our cultural inheritance is always open to revision because no authority exists to ascertain the truth, once and for all. If we cannot rely on the unshakable certainties of God or nature, then all we have left to go on–and argue with–are the opinions and ideas of our fellow humans. The test of these ideas, Rorty suggests, is relatively simple: Do they work? Do they produce the peace, freedom, and happiness we desire? To achieve this enlightened pragmatism is not easy, though. Pragmatism demands trust. Pragmatism demands that we think and care about what others think and care about, which further requires that we account for others’ doubts of and objections to our own beliefs. After all, our own beliefs are as contestable as anyone else’s. (publ.)

Reviewed: TLS 19 Nov. 2021 p. 11 (reviewer)
Description: Philosopher and neuroscientist Raymond Tallis brings together the preoccupations of some fifty years of writing and thinking about the overwhelming mystery of ordinary human life, and goes in search of what kind of beings we are, and where we might find meaning in our lives. If, asks Tallis, we reject the supernatural belief that we are pure spirits temporarily lodged in bodies, handmade by God, and uniquely related to Him, what should we put in its place? How do we ensure, if we accept the death of God, that something within us does not also die? And if we are simply organisms shaped by the forces of evolution, with no reason to exist and with no objective value, as some scientists claim, where shall we find meaning sufficiently enduring and profound to withstand the knowledge of our own mortality and the certain loss of all that we love or value? How should we think of ourselves if we are neither fallen angels trying to enact the will of God, nor unrisen apes acting out a biological prescription? Tallis begins his quest by establishing what it is we know of our fundamental nature. Showcasing a remarkable detailed engagement with a huge range of disciplines, he examines our relationship to our own bodies, to time, our selfhood and our agency–all manifestations of the unique nature of human consciousness–and shows why human beings are like nothing else in the universe. Having revealed our nature in all its glory, Tallis then addresses what is unresolved in the human condition–our hunger for a coherent life, inwardly lit by a single sense of purpose and meaning–and the search for something that matches the profundity of religion, even to the point of accommodating the tragedy of our lives. He shows that it is the actuality of human transcendence and the needs it awakens that must be the bridge across the divide between believers and non-believers. (publ.)

Reviewed: CHE 27 Jan 2022 (online; referenced)
Description: Ranging from math to literature to philosophy, Uncountable explains how numbers triumphed as the basis of knowledge–and compromise our sense of humanity. Our knowledge of mathematics has structured much of what we think we know about ourselves as individuals and communities, shaping our psychologies, sociologies, and economies. In pursuit of a more predictable and more controllable cosmos, we have extended mathematical insights and methods to more and more aspects of the world. Today those powers are greater than ever, as computation is applied to virtually every aspect of human activity. Yet, in the process, are we losing sight of the human? When we apply mathematics so broadly, what do we gain and what do we lose, and at what risk to humanity? These are the questions that David and Ricardo L. Nirenberg ask in this provocative account of how numerical relations became the cornerstone of human claims to knowledge, truth, and certainty. (publ.)

Description: This work examines how whiteness misshapes our humanity, measuring the weight of whiteness in terms of its costs and losses to collective humanity. People of color feel the weight of whiteness daily. The resistant habits of whiteness and its attendant privileges, however, make it difficult for white people to feel the damage. White people are more comfortable thinking about white supremacy in terms of what privilege does for them, rather than feeling what it does to them. The first half of the book focuses on the overexposed side of white privilege, the side that works to make the invisible and intangible structures of power more visible and tangible. Bailey discusses the importance of understanding privileges intersectionally, the ignorance-preserving habits of “white talk,” and how privilege and ignorance circulate in educational settings. The second part invites white readers to explore the underexposed side of white dominance, the weightless side that they would rather not feel. The final chapters are powerfully autobiographical. Bailey engages readers with a deeply personal account of what it means to hold space with the painful weight of whiteness in her own life. (publ.)

Description: Taking the long view of the history of philosophy, emeritus professor of history of philosophy and history of science at the University of Sydney Stephen Gaukroger shows how philosophy has in fact collapsed several times, been completely abandoned, sometimes for centuries, and been replaced by something quite different from philosophy. The book focuses on what are historically the most significant failures of philosophy: attempts to provide an account of “the good life” and how to live; to establish philosophy as a discipline that can stand in judgement over and assess other forms of thought; attempts to establish philosophy as a theory of everything; and attempts to construe it as a discipline that parallels or rationalizes the empirical and mathematical sciences, building up technical credentials that mimic those of science. The central argument of the book is that examination of these failures tells us much more about the nature of philosophical enquiry, and about the ultimate point of the exercise, than its successes possibly could. Examination of its failures shows us the significant differences in the way in which philosophers have conceived of the point at different times, and why they have been obliged to shift focus. It tells us why philosophy has been thought to bring distinctive skills to questions, and whether these are actually fruitful skills. And, above all, it allows us to open up the question whether philosophy has anything to offer over and above other ways of engaging cognate questions. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 6 July 2020 p. 64; TLS 13 Nov. 2020 p. 11 (2020 Books of the Year).
Description: These are dangerous times for democracy. We live in an age of winners and losers, where the odds are stacked in favor of the already fortunate. Stalled social mobility and entrenched inequality give the lie to the American credo that “you can make it if you try.” The consequence is a brew of anger and frustration that has fueled populist protest and extreme polarization, and led to deep distrust of both government and our fellow citizens–leaving us morally unprepared to face the profound challenges of our time. Philosopher Michael J. Sandel argues that to overcome the crises that are upending our world, we must rethink the attitudes toward success and failure that have accompanied globalization and rising inequality. Sandel shows the hubris a meritocracy generates among the winners and the harsh judgment it imposes on those left behind, and traces the dire consequences across a wide swath of American life. He offers an alternative way of thinking about success–more attentive to the role of luck in human affairs, more conducive to an ethic of humility and solidarity, and more affirming of the dignity of work. (publ.)

Do both the zoo and the mental hospital induce psychosis, as humans are treated as animals and animals are treated as humans? How have we looked at animals in the past, and how do we look at them today? How have zoos presented themselves, and their purpose, over time? In response to the emergence of environmental and animal studies, anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, theorists, literature scholars, and historians around the world have begun to explore the significance of zoological parks, past and present. This collection immerses readers in the lives of animals and their experiences of captivity and asks us to reflect on our own assumptions about both humans and animals. Zoo Studies will change the way readers see nonhuman animals and themselves.

Reviewed: PW 13 Jan. 2020 p. 51.
Description: Most people now realize that economic growth, however desirable, will not solve all our problems. Instead, we need a philosophy and a science which encompasses a much fuller range of human need and experience. This book argues that the goal for a society must be the greatest possible all round happiness, and shows how each of us can become more effective creators of happiness, both as citizens and in our own organizations. Written with Richard Layard’s characteristic clarity, it provides hard evidence that increasing happiness is the right aim, and that it can be achieved. Its language is simple, its evidence impressive, its effect inspiring. (publ.)

Description: 9/11 was an inside job. The Holocaust is a myth promoted to serve Jewish interests. The shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School were a false flag operation. Climate change is a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese government. These are all conspiracy theories. A glance online or at bestseller lists reveals how popular some of them are. Even if there is plenty of evidence to disprove them, people persist in propagating them. Why? Philosopher Quassim Cassam explains how conspiracy theories are different from ordinary theories about conspiracies. He argues that conspiracy theories are forms of propaganda and their function is to promote a political agenda. Although conspiracy theories are sometimes defended on the grounds that they uncover evidence of bad behaviour by political leaders, they do much more harm than good, with some resulting in the deaths of large numbers of people. (publ.)

Description: What do we owe those in our communities? What do we owe strangers? In a sense, those who vie for political office locally and nationally do so, at least in part, from duty and obligation to their fellow citizens, to many they do not know and may never meet. In a democratic society, those who wish to participate in politics have the unbridled freedom to do exactly that. But by the same logic, we also have the freedom not to participate: the freedom not to care to be heard at all. Not so, says Julia Maskivker: such logic collapses when applied to the act of voting. Not only should we vote if we can–we must vote. Even when confronted with two unappealing candidates, or with ballot propositions whose effects we will barely feel, or with the fact that our single vote might never tip an election, we must vote. We have a duty of conscience to vote with care when doing so comes at so small a cost. Maskivker, a political theorist and philosopher, argues that those fortunate to live in democratic societies with freely elected leaders all share, simply, a moral obligation to vote. (publ.)

Reviewed: LR Sept. 2019 p. 12 (review author)
Description: What do Socrates, Hypatia, Giordano Bruno, Thomas More, and Jan Patocka have in common? First, they were all faced one day with the most difficult of choices: stay faithful to your ideas and die or renounce them and stay alive. Second, they all chose to die. Their spectacular deaths have become not only an integral part of their biographies, but are also in-separable from their work. A “death for ideas” is a piece of philosophical work in its own right; Socrates may have never written a line, but his death is one of the greatest philosophical best-sellers of all time. Bradatan explores the limit-situation in which philosophers find themselves when the only means of persuasion they can use is their own dying bodies and the public spectacle of their death. (publ.)

Reviewed: LR Aug. 2019 p. 35 (referenced)
Description: One of the great unexplained wonders of human history is that written philosophy flowered entirely separately in China, India and Ancient Greece at more or less the same time. These early philosophies have had a profound impact on the development of distinctive cultures in different parts of the world. What we call “philosophy” in the West is not even half the story. Julian Baggini sets out to expand our horizons, exploring the philosophies of Japan, India, China and the Muslim world, as well as the lesser-known oral traditions of Africa and Australia’s first peoples. Interviewing thinkers from around the globe, Baggini asks questions such as: why is the West is more individualistic than the East? What makes secularism a less powerful force in the Islamic world than in Europe? And how has China resisted pressures for greater political freedom? Offering deep insights into how different regions operate, and paying as much attention to commonalities as to differences, Baggini shows that by gaining greater knowledge of how others think we take the first step to a greater understanding of ourselves. (publ.)

Reviewed: The Economist 28 Sept. 2019 p. 77; PW 8 July 2019 p. 77.
Description: Epicureanism has a reputation problem, bringing to mind gluttons with gout or an admonition to eat, drink, and be merry. Philosopher Catherine Wilson shows that Epicureanism isn’t an excuse for having a good time: it’s a means to live a good life. Although modern conveniences and scientific progress have significantly improved our quality of life, many of the problems faced by ancient Greeks–love, money, family, politics–remain with us in new forms. To overcome these obstacles, the Epicureans adopt-ed a philosophy that promoted reason, respect for the natural world, and reverence for our fellow humans. By applying this ancient wisdom to a range of modern problems, from self-care routines and romantic entanglements to issues of public policy and social justice, Wilson shows us how we can all fill our lives with purpose and pleasure. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 28 Oct. 2019 p. 94.
Description: Socrates famously said “the unexamined life is not worth living,” but what does it mean to truly live philosophically? This collection brings together essays by fifteen leading philosophers reflecting on what it means to live according to a philosophy of life. From Eastern philosophies (Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism) and classical Western philosophies (such as Aristotelianism and Stoicism), to the four major religions, as well as contemporary philosophies (such as existentialism and effective altruism), each contributor offers a lively, personal account of how they find meaning in the practice of their chosen philosophical tradition. (publ.)Socrates famously said “the unexamined life is not worth living,” but what does it mean to truly live philosophically? This collection brings together essays by fifteen leading philosophers reflecting on what it means to live according to a philosophy of life. From Eastern philosophies (Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism) and classical Western philosophies (such as Aristotelianism and Stoicism), to the four major religions, as well as contemporary philosophies (such as existentialism and effective altruism), each contributor offers a lively, personal account of how they find meaning in the practice of their chosen philosophical tradition. (publ.)

Reviewed: TLS 26 July 2019 p. 32.
Description: Raymond Tallis steps into the gap between mind and world to explore what is at stake in our attempts to make sense of our world and our lives. With his characteristic combination of scholarly rigour and lively humour he reveals how philosophers, theologians and scientists have sought to de-mystify our extraordinary capacity to understand the world by collapsing the distance between the mind that does the sense-making and the world that is made sense of. Such strategies–whether by locating the world in-side the mind, or making the mind part of the world–are shown to be deeply flawed and of little help in explaining the intelligiblity of the world. In-deed, it is the distance that we need, argues Tallis, if knowledge is to count as knowledge and for there to be a distinction between the knower and the known. The book showcases Tallis’s enviable knack of making tricky philosophical arguments cogent and engaging to the non-specialist and his remarkable ability to help us see humankind more clearly. For anyone who has shared Einstein’s observation that “the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility,” the book will be fascinating and insightful reading. (publ.)

Description: What is the point of living? If we are all going to die anyway, if nothing will remain of whatever we achieve in this life, why should we bother trying to achieve anything in the first place? Can we be mortal and still live a meaningful life? Questions such as these have been asked for a long time, but nobody has found a conclusive answer yet. The connection between death and meaning, however, has taken centre stage in the philosophical and literary work of some of the world’s greatest writers: Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Soren Kierkegaard, Arthur Schopenhauer, Herman Melville, Friedrich Nietzsche, William James, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Marcel Proust, and Albert Camus. This book explores their ideas, weaving a rich tapestry of concepts, voices and images, helping the reader to understand the concerns at the heart of those writers’ work and uncovering common themes and stark contrasts in their understanding of what kind of world we live in and what really matters in life. (publ.)

Reviewed: TLS 9 Aug. 2019 p. 3.
Description: Are conspiracy theories everywhere and is everyone a conspiracy theorist? This ground-breaking study challenges some of the widely shared assessments in the scholarship about a perceived mainstreaming of conspiracy theory. It claims that conspiracy theory underwent a significant shift in status in the mid-20th century and has since then become highly visible as an object of concern in public debates. … Katharina Thalmann is the first scholar to systematically trace the history and process of the delegitimization of conspiracy theory. By reading a wide range of conspiracist accounts about three central events in American history from the 1950s to 1970s–the Great Red Scare, the Kennedy assassination, and the Watergate scandal–Thalmann shows that a veritable conspiracist subculture emerged in the 1970s as conspiracy theories were pushed out of the legitimate market-place of ideas and conspiracy theory became a commodity not unlike pornography: alluring in its illegitimacy, commonsensical, and highly profitable nature. (publ.)

Reviewed: TLS 1 Nov. 2019 p. 16.
Description: “Philosophy’s role … is not to provide better experts, resembling Platonic philosopher kings. Instead, … following the Socratic legacy of critique it can help ‘alternatives to the present become imaginable’, alternatives that can emancipate” (TLS). What is the state of philosophy today, and what might it be tomorrow? Michael Hampe answers these questions by exploring the relationships among philosophy, education, science, and narrative, developing a Socratic critique of philosophical doctrines. … In this magnum opus of an essay, Hampe aims to rescue philosophy from its current narrow claims of doctrine and to remind us what it is really for–to productively disillusion us into clearer thinking. Hampe takes us through twenty-five hundred years of intellectual history, starting with Socrates. That archetype of the philosophical teacher did not develop strict doctrines and rules, but rather criticized and refuted doctrines. With the Socratic method, we see the power of narration at work. Narrative and analytical disillusionment, Hampe argues, are the most helpful long-term enterprises of thought, the ones most worth preserving and developing again. (publ.)

Description: There’s nothing quite like a relationship with an aged pet–a dog or cat who has been at our side for years, forming an ineffable bond. Pampered pets, however, are a rarity among animals who have been domesticated. Farm animals, for example, are usually slaughtered before their first birthday. We never stop to think about it, but the typical images we see of cows, chickens, pigs, and the like are of young animals. What would we see if they were allowed to grow old? Isa Leshko shows us, brilliantly, with this collection of portraits. To create these portraits, she spent hours with her subjects, gaining their trust and putting them at ease. The resulting images reveal the unique personality of each animal. It’s impossible to look away from the animals in these images as they unforgettably meet our gaze, simultaneously calm and challenging. In these photographs we see the cumulative effects of the hardships of industrialized farm life, but also the healing that time can bring, and the dignity that can emerge when farm animals are allowed to age on their own terms. (publ.)

Description: Across the Euro-Atlantic world, political leaders have been mobilizing their bases with nativism, racism, xenophobia, and paeans to “traditional values,” in brazen bids for electoral support. How are we to understand this move to the mainstream of political policies and platforms that lurked only on the far fringes through most of the postwar era? Does it herald a new wave of authoritarianism? Is liberal democracy itself in crisis? In this volume, three distinguished scholars draw on critical theory to address our current predicament. Wendy Brown, Peter E. Gordon, and Max Pensky share a conviction that critical theory retains the power to illuminate the forces producing the current political constellation as well as possible paths away from it. Brown explains how “freedom” has become a rallying cry for manifestly unemancipatory movements; Gordon dismantles the idea that fascism is rooted in the susceptible psychology of individual citizens and reflects instead on the broader cultural and historical circumstances that lend it force; and Pensky brings together the unlikely pair of Tocqueville and Adorno to explore how democracies can buckle under internal pressure. These incisive essays do not seek to smooth over the irrationality of the contemporary world, and they do not offer the false comforts of an easy re-turn to liberal democratic values. Rather, the three authors draw on their deep engagements with nineteenth-and twentieth-century thought to investigate the historical and political contradictions that have brought about this moment, offering fiery and urgent responses to the demands of the day. (publ.)

Reviewed: Choice (Apr. 2019 vol. 56 no. 8) Recommended for community college libraries.
Description: Ever decide to avoid a restaurant because of one bad meal? Choose a product because a celebrity endorsed it? Or ignore what a politician says because she’s not a member of your party? For as long as people have been discussing, conversing, persuading, advocating, proselytizing, pontificating, or otherwise stating their case, arguments have been vulnerable to false assumptions and faulty reasoning. Drawing upon a long history of logical falsehoods and philosophical flubs, this book demonstrates how misguided arguments come to be, what we can do to detect them in the rhetoric of others, and how to avoid using them ourselves. (publ.)

Review: LRB 18 Apr. 2019 p. 27.
Description: First published in French in 1943, Jean-Paul Sartre’s L’Etre et le Neant is one of the greatest philosophical works of the twentieth century. In it, Sar-tre offers nothing less than a brilliant and radical account of the human condition. The English philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch wrote to a friend of “the excitement–I remember nothing like it since the days of dis-covering Keats and Shelley and Coleridge.” This new translation, the first for over sixty years, makes this classic work of philosophy available to a new generation of readers. It includes a helpful Translator’s Introduction, a comprehensive Index and a Foreword by Harvard philosophy professor Richard Moran. (publ.)
Note: First published as: L’Être et le Néant: Essai d’Ontologie Phéno-ménologique (Paris: Librarie Gallimard, 1943).

Description: Can animals be persons? To this question, scientific and philosophical consensus has taken the form of a resounding, “No!” In this book, Mark Rowlands disagrees. Not only can animals be persons, many of them probably are. Taking, as his starting point, John Locke’s classic definition of a person, as “a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself the same thinking thing, in different times and places,” Rowlands argues that many animals can satisfy all of these conditions. A person is an individual in which four features coalesce: consciousness, rationality, self-awareness and other-awareness, and many animals are such individuals. (publ.)

Reviewed: NYRB 7 Mar. 2019 p. 17; LR March 2019 p. 8; TLS 8 Mar. 2019 p. 5.
Description: A history of the famous encounter between the French philosopher Denis Diderot and his patron, Empress Catherine II of Russia, in 1773. The book begins many years earlier and traces the life of Diderot and Catherine in alternating chapters, painting a vivid and complex portrait of eighteenth-century Europe where new Enlightenment thinking co-existed with old monarchical systems. Robert Zaretsky has written an intellectual and political history of the time by spotlighting the exchange of ideas between a philosopher who reflected on the nature of power and a ruler who excercised it. In the autumn of 1773, taking up residence in Saint Petersburg at Catherine's invitation, the two met every third day for Catherine’s instruction in various philosophical and political subjects. (publ.)

Description: As of 2017, 55 percent of American households included at least one pet. Pets are ubiquitous and often considered part of the family, but are they content in a domestic setting? Is there a way for us to tell if we are giving pets a suitable standard of living? Many factors must be considered when looking at the ethics of pet ownership, including what rights animals should possess, where the animals come from, and what species of animals should be kept as pets. Readers will gain a better understanding of the many ethical considerations surrounding pet ownership. (publ.)
Note: Library Standing Order.

Reviewed: Choice (Oct. 2018 vol. 56 no. 2) Top 75 books recommended for community college libraries.
Description: Originally published in 1999, this classic text includes twenty-six cases with commentary and bibliographic resources designed especially for medical students and the training of ethics consultants. The majority of the cases reflect the day-to-day moral struggles within the walls of hospitals typically described as community hospitals; as a result, the cases do not focus on esoteric, high-tech dilemmas–viz., genetic engineering or experimental protocols–but rather on fundamental problems that are pervasive in basic healthcare delivery in the United States: where to send a frail, elderly patient who refuses to go to a nursing home; what role the family should play in making a treatment decision; what a hospital should do when it is getting stuck with too many unpaid bills. This thoroughly revised and up-dated second edition includes thirteen new cases, five of which are designated as “skill builder” cases aimed specifically for those participants in the Neiswanger Institute for Bioethics’ web-based instructional program. (publ.)

Reviewed: NYRB 21 March 2019 p. 42.
Description: Christine M. Korsgaard presents a compelling new view of our moral relationships to the other animals. She offers challenging answers to such questions as: Are people superior to animals, and does it matter morally if we are? Is it all right for us to eat animals, experiment on them, make them work for us, and keep them as pets? (publ.)

Description: In our daily life, it really seems as though we have free will, that what we do from moment to moment is determined by conscious decisions that we freely make. You get up from the couch, you go for a walk, you eat chocolate ice cream. It seems that we're in control of actions like these; if we are, then we have free will. But in recent years, some have argued that free will is an illusion. Philosopher Mark Balaguer examines the various arguments and experiments that have been cited to support the claim that human beings don’t have free will. He finds them to be over-stated and misguided. (publ.)

Reviewed: Choice (Jan. 2019 vol. 56 no. 5) Top 75 books highly recommended for community college libraries.
Description: Most livestock in America currently live in cramped and unhealthy confinement, have few stable social relationships with humans or others of their species, and finish their lives by being transported and killed under stressful conditions. Erin McKenna allows us to see this situation and presents alternatives. She interweaves stories from visits to farms, interviews with producers and activists, and other rich material about the current condition of livestock. In addition, she mixes her account with pragmatist and ecofeminist theorizing about animals, drawing in particular on John Dewey’s account of evolutionary history, and provides substantial historical background about individual species and about human-animal relations. This deeply informative text reveals that the animals we commonly see as livestock have rich evolutionary histories, species-specific behaviors, breed tendencies, and individual variation, just as those we respect in companion animals such as dogs, cats, and horses. To restore a similar level of respect for livestock, McKenna examines ways we can balance the needs of our livestock animals with the environmental and social impacts of raising them, and she investigates new possibilities for human ways of being in relationships with animals. (publ.)

Reviewed: Choice (Aug. 2019 vol. 56 no. 12); Recommended for community college libraries.
Description: Comprises a comparative, multicultural reading of the four main traditions of the medieval period including extensive sections on Jewish, Islamic, Latin and Greco-Roman traditions. The book also includes an initial “predecessors” section which explains to students how to bridge the intellectual gap between Aristotle to Augustine–a span of nearly 800 years. It presents excerpts from Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus and Proclus from whom all four traditions have drawn. These contextualizing readings provide a firm basis from which to explore medieval thought. (publ.)

Description: Philosophers from Descartes to Kripke have struggled with the glittering prize of modern and contemporary philosophy: the mind-body problem. The brain is physical. If the mind is physical, we cannot see how. If we cannot see how the mind is physical, we cannot see how it can interact with the body. And if the mind is not physical, it cannot interact with the body. Or so it seems. In this book the philosopher Jonathan Westphal examines the mind-body problem in detail, laying out the reasoning behind the solutions that have been offered in the past and presenting his own proposal. The sharp focus on the mind-body problem, a problem that is not about the self, or consciousness, or the soul, or anything other than the mind and the body, helps clarify both problem and solutions. (publ.)

Reviewed: PW 10 Dec. 2018 p. 87.
Description: Moral philosopher, acclaimed scholar and humanist Martha Nussbaum analyzes the political standoff that has polarized American life since the 2016 presidential election and focuses on what so many pollsters and pundits have overlooked: the political is always emotional. Globalization, automation, and the rising costs of higher education have produced feelings of powerlessness in millions of American people. Related issues trouble European unity. That sense of powerlessness and a pervasive underlying fear of change bubble into resentment and blame: of immigrants, Muslims, those of other races, and cultural elites. While this politics of blame played a role in the election of Donald Trump and the vote for Brexit, Nussbaum argues it can be found on all sides of the political spectrum–confusingly intertwined, however, with reasonable arguments aiming at greater justice. She argues that retribution is always a bad response to fear and articulates a politics of constructive work and hope. Drawing on a mix of historical and contemporary examples, from classical Athens to the musical Hamilton, this work untangles our web of emotions and provides a road map of where to go next. (publ.)

Reviewed: Choice (Feb. 2019 vol. 56 no. 6) Highly Recommended for community college libraries.
Description: Paradox Lost covers ten of philosophy’s most fascinating paradoxes, in which seemingly compelling reasoning leads to absurd conclusions. The following paradoxes are included: The Liar Paradox, in which a sentence says of itself that it is false. Is the sentence true or false? The Sorites Paradox, in which we imagine removing grains of sand one at a time from a heap of sand. Is there a particular grain whose removal converts the heap to a non-heap? The Puzzle of the Self-Torturer, in which a series of seemingly rational choices has us accepting a life of excruciating pain, in exchange for millions of dollars. Newcomb’s Problem, in which we seemingly maximize our expected profit by taking an unknown sum of money, rather than taking the same sum plus $1000. The Surprise Quiz Paradox, in which a professor finds that it is impossible to give a surprise quiz on any particular day of the week ... but also that if this is so, then a surprise quiz can be given on any day. The Two Envelope Paradox, in which we are asked to choose between two indistinguishable envelopes, and it is seemingly shown that each envelope is preferable to the other. The Ravens Paradox, in which observing a purple shoe provides evidence that all ravens are black. The Shooting Room Paradox, in which a deadly game kills 90% of all who play, yet each individual’s survival turns on the flip of a fair coin. Each paradox is clearly described, common mistakes are explored, and a clear, logical solution offered. This book will appeal to professional philosophers, students of philosophy, and all who love intellectual puzzles. (publ.)

Reviewed: Choice (Oct. 2018 vol. 56 no. 2) Essential; Outstanding Academic Title; Top 75 Titles recommended for community college libraries.
Description: Are we living in a post-truth world, where “alternative facts” replace actual facts and feelings have more weight than evidence? How did we get here? In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Lee McIntyre traces the development of the post-truth phenomenon from science denial through the rise of “fake news,” from our psychological blind spots to the public’s retreat into information silos. What, exactly, is post-truth? Is it wishful thinking, political spin, mass delusion, bold-faced lying? McIntyre analyzes recent examples–claims about inauguration crowd size, crime statistics, and the popular vote–and finds that post-truth is an assertion of ideological supremacy by which its practitioners try to compel someone to believe something regardless of the evidence. Yet post-truth didn’t begin with the 2016 election; the denial of scientific facts about smoking, evolution, vaccines, and climate change offers a road map for more widespread fact denial. Add to this the wired-in cognitive biases that make us feel that our conclusions are based on good reasoning even when they are not, the decline of traditional media and the rise of social media, and the emergence of fake news as a political tool, and we have the ideal conditions for post-truth. McIntyre also argues provocatively that the right wing borrowed from postmodernism–specifically, the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth–in its attacks on science and facts. (publ.)

Reviewed: Choice (Mar 2019 vol. 56 no. 7) Top 75 books highly recommended for community college libraries.
Description: In the twenty-first century, the gap between those who have more and those who have less is growing: 1 per cent of the world owns as much as the other 99 per cent. Should we be worried? Christopher Steed argues that that economic fairness is one of the defining issues of our time. The author is concerned with exploring why inequality matters, something ignored by most studies. He probes what it means to experience inequality, drawing out case studies on the effects of poverty, how it impacts upon people's sense of self-worth, and explores what can be done about it. In proposing a theory of social relativity the author provides new insights into the effects and meaning of inequality and makes an original and important contribution to a key issue facing the world today. (publ.)

Description: Our beliefs constitute a large part of our knowledge of the world. We have beliefs about objects, about culture, about the past, and about the future. We have beliefs about other people, and we believe that they have beliefs as well. We use beliefs to predict, to explain, to create, to console, to entertain. Some of our beliefs we call theories, and we are extraordinarily creative at constructing them. Theories of quantum mechanics, evolution, and relativity are examples. But so are theories about astrology, alien abduction, guardian angels, and reincarnation. All are products (with varying degrees of credibility) of fertile minds trying to find explanations for observed phenomena. In this book, Nils Nilsson examines beliefs: what they do for us, how we come to hold them, and how to evaluate them. We should evaluate our beliefs carefully, Nilsson points out, be-cause they influence so many of our actions and decisions. (publ.)

Reviewed: Choice (May 2019 vol. 56 no. 9) Top 75 Titles recommended for community college libraries.
Description: The idea that an inevitable and irreconcilable conflict exists between science and religion has long been part of the popular imagination. The editors of this text have assembled a group of distinguished historians who explore the origin of the thesis, its reception, the responses it drew from various faith traditions, and its continued prominence in public discourse. Several essays in the book examine the personal circumstances and theological idiosyncrasies of important intellectuals, including John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White, who through their polemical writings championed the conflict thesis relentlessly. Other essays consider what the thesis meant to different religious communities, including evangelicals, liberal Protestants, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Finally, essays both historical and sociological explore the place of the conflict thesis in popular culture and intellectual discourse today. This volume, which brings much-needed perspective to an often bitter controversy, will appeal to scholars and students of the histories of science and religion, sociology, and philosophy. (publ.)

Description: The things we do today may make life worse for future generations. But why should we care what happens to people who won’t be born until after all of us are gone? Some philosophers have treated this as a question about our moral responsibilities, and have argued that we have duties of beneficence to promote the well-being of our descendants. Rather than focusing exclusively on issues of moral responsibility, Samuel Scheffler considers the broader question of why and how future generations matter to us. (publ.)

Reviewed: LJ 1 Apr. 2018 p. 30; NYT/BR 6 May 2018 p. 19; NYRB 7 June 2018 p. 45.
Description: The State of Indiana denies one million applications for healthcare, foodstamps and cash benefits in three years–because a new computer system interprets any mistake as “failure to cooperate.” In Los Angeles, an algorithm calculates the comparative vulnerability of tens of thousands of homeless people in order to prioritize them for an inadequate pool of housing resources. In Pittsburgh, a child welfare agency uses a statistical model to try to predict which children might be future victims of abuse or neglect. Since the dawn of the digital age, decision-making in finance, employment, politics, health and human services has undergone revolutionary change. Today, automated systems–rather than humans–control which neighborhoods get policed, which families attain needed resources, and who is investigated for fraud. While we all live under this new regime of data, the most invasive and punitive systems are aimed at the poor. In Automating Inequality, Virginia Eubanks systematically investigates the impacts of data mining, policy algorithms, and predictive risk models on poor and working-class people in America. (publ.)

Description: Liberalism is the political philosophy of equal persons–yet liberalism has refused equality to those it saw as sub-persons. Liberalism is the creed of fairness–yet liberalism has been complicit with European imperialism and African slavery. Liberalism is the classic ideology of Enlightenment and political transparency–yet liberalism has cast a dark veil over its actual racist past and present. In sum, liberalism’s promise of equal rights has historically been denied to blacks and other people of color. Political philosopher Charles Mills challenges mainstream accounts that ignore this history and its current legacy in self-conceived liberal polities today. (publ.)

Reviewed: NYT/BR 8 Apr.. 2018 p. 21.
Description: Robert B. Reich makes the case for a generous, inclusive understanding of the American project, centering on the moral obligations of citizenship. Rooting his argument in everyday reality and common sense, Reich demonstrates the existence of a common good, and argues that it is this that defines a society or a nation. Societies and nations undergo virtuous cycles that reinforce and build the common good, as well as vicious cycles that undermine it. Over the course of the past five decades, Reich contends, America has been in a slowly accelerating vicious cycle–one that can and must be reversed. But first we need to weigh what really matters, and how we as a country should relate to honor, shame, patriotism, truth, and the meaning of leadership. (publ.)

Description: Ethicist Kenneth R. Himes provides not only an overview of the role of drones in national security but also an exploration of the ethical implications of drone warfare from the impact on terrorist organizations and civilians to how piloting drones shapes soldiers. Targeted killings have played a role in politics from ancient times through today, so the ethical challenges around how to protect against threats are not new. Himes leads readers through the ethics of targeted killings in history from ancient times to the contemporary Israeli-Palestinian conflict, then looks specifically at the new issues raised through the use of drones. (publ.)

Reviewed: TLS 25 May 2018 p. 9.
Description: Is it possible for life to be meaningful when the world is filled with suffering, and when so much depends merely upon chance? Landau argues our lives often are, or could be made, meaningful–we’ve just been setting the bar too high for evaluating what meaning there is. He offers new theories and practical advice that awaken us to the meaning already present in our lives and demonstrates how we can enhance it. (publ.)

Description: This graphic narrative tells the exciting story of the seventeenth-century thinkers who challenged authority–sometimes risking excommunication, prison, and even death–to lay the foundations of modern philosophy and science and help usher in a new world...Heretics! tells the story of their ideas, lives, and times in a vivid new way. Crisscrossing Europe as it follows them in their travels and exiles, the narrative describes their meetings and clashes with each other–as well as their confrontations with religious and royal authority. It recounts key moments in the history of modern philosophy, including the burning of Giordano Bruno for heresy, Galileo's house arrest for defending Copernicanism, Descartes’s proclaiming cogito ergo sum, Hobbes’s vision of the “nasty and brutish” state of nature, and Spinoza’s shocking Theological-Political Treatise.
Note: Graphic novel/work.

Description: Daniel Halliday examines the moral grounding of the right to bequeath or transfer wealth. He engages with contemporary concerns about wealth inequality, class hierarchy, and taxation, while also drawing on the history of the egalitarian, utilitarian, and liberal traditions in political philosophy. He presents an egalitarian case for restricting inherited wealth, arguing that unrestricted inheritance is unjust to the extent that it enables and enhances the intergenerational replication of inequality. Here, inequality is understood in a group-based sense: the unjust effects of inheritance are principally in its tendency to concentrate certain opportunities into certain groups. This results in what Halliday describes as “economic segregation.” He defends a specific proposal about how to tax inherited wealth: roughly, inheritance should be taxed more heavily when it comes from old money. (publ.)

Reviewed: TLS 18/25 Aug. 2017 p. 34.
Description: An abortion provider and Christian reproductive justice advocate draws from his personal journey and professional scientific training as a doctor to reveal how he came to believe, unequivocally, that helping women in need, without judgment, is precisely the Christian thing to do. (publ.)

Description: What significance does “ethics” have for the men and women serving in the military forces of nations around the world? What core val-ues and moral principles collectively guide the members of this “military profession?” This book explains these essential moral foundations, along with “just war theory,” international relations, and international law. The ethical foundations that define the “Profession of Arms” have developed over millennia from the shared moral values, unique role responsibilities, and occasional reflection by individual members the profession on their own practices–eventually coming to serve as the basis for the “Law of Armed Conflict” itself. (publ.)

Reviewed: CHE 20 Apr. 2018 (new books)
Description: Nearly 120,000 people are in need of healthy organs in the United States. Every ten minutes a new name is added to this list, while each day eight people die waiting for an organ to become available. … Some transplant surgeons and policy advocates suggest a market solution and legalizing the sale of organs. Andrew Michael Flescher objects to this approach, citing concerns about social justice, commodification, and patient safety. Given that, what is the most efficacious means of attracting prospective living kidney donors? Flescher, drawing on scores of interviews with donors and patients, suggests that inculcating a sense of altruism and civic duty is a more effective means of increasing donor participation than purely financial incentives. (publ.)

Description: This new edition of Kuhn’s work in the history of science includes an introduction by Ian Hacking, which clarifies terms popularized by Kuhn, including paradigm and incommensurability, and applies Kuhn’s ideas to the science of today. Keyed to the separate sections of the book, Hacking’s introduction provides important background information as well as a contemporary context. Newly designed, with an expanded index.

Reviewed: TLS 25 May 2018 p. 7.
Description: This book explores how and why human beings have constructed moral requirements to be binding even when they are impossible to fulfill. Suppose that in an emergency evacuation of a hospital after a flood, not all of the patients can make it out alive. You are the doctor faced with the choice between abandoning these patients to die alone and in pain, or injecting them with a lethal dose of drugs, without consent, so that they die peacefully. Perhaps no one will be able to blame you whatever you decide, but, whichever action you choose, you will remain burdened by guilt. What happens, in cases like this, when, no matter what you do, you are destined for moral failure? What happens when there is no available means of doing the right thing? Human life is filled with such impossible moral decisions. These choices and case studies that demonstrate them form the focus of Lisa Tessman’s arresting and provocative work. (publ.)

Reviewed: TLS 25 May 2018 p. 10; Choice (Sept. 2018 vol. 56 no. 1); Highly recommended for community college libraries.
Description: Inequality is widely regarded as morally objectionable: T. M. Scanlon investigates why it matters to us. Demands for greater equality can seem puzzling, because it can be unclear what reason people have for objecting to the difference between what they have and what others have, as opposed simply to wanting to be better off. This book examines six such reasons. … Scanlon's aims is to provide a moral anatomy of these reasons, and the ideas of equality that they involve. He also examines objections to the pursuit of equality on the ground that it involves objectionable interference with individual liberty, and argues that ideas of desert do not provide a basis either for justifying significant economic inequality or for objecting to it. (publ.)

Reviewed: The Economist 27 Jan. 2018 p. 74; FA 97(3) May/June 2018 p. 191; CHE 12 Sept. 2019 (online; referenced)
Description: Of the three dominant ideologies of the twentieth century–fascism, communism, and liberalism–only the last remains. This has created a peculiar situation in which liberalism’s proponents tend to forget that it is an ideology and not the natural end-state of human political evolution. As Patrick Deneen argues in this provocative book, liberalism is built on a foundation of contradictions: it trumpets equal rights while fostering in-comparable material inequality; its legitimacy rests on consent, yet it discourages civic commitments in favor of privatism; and in its pursuit of individual autonomy, it has given rise to the most far-reaching, comprehensive state system in human history. Here, Deneen offers an astringent warning that the centripetal forces now at work on our political culture are not superficial flaws but inherent features of a system whose success is generating its own failure. (publ.)

Reviewed: NYRB 24 Nov. 2016 p. 45; FA Jan/Feb 2017 p. 169; TLS 3 Mar. 2017 p. 32; LRB 1 June 2017 p. 21.

Reviewed: LR Nov. 2016 p. 17
<>b<>uHoldings: NICC (Peosta) has vol. 1, The Dream of Reason: A History of Western Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance (WW Norton, 2000); call no. 180 Got.

Note: 1st ed. (2007) not held at NICC.

Note: Originally published as: Eine Art zu Leben: Über die Vielfalt Menschlicher Würde (Munich: Hanser, 2013).

Reviewed: Choice Jul 2016 vol. 53 no. 11 (Essential; Outstanding Academic Title)

Reviewed: PW 07/11/2016; LJ 10/01/2016

Reviewed: NPR; TLS 8 June 2018 p. 3.
Note: Author interviewed on NPR’s “Fresh Air” by host Terry Gross; 30 Jan. 2017 (“Doctor Considers The Pitfalls Of Extending Life And Prolonging Death”).
Description: (publ.) Dr. Haider Warraich is a young and brilliant new voice in the conversation about death and dying started by Dr. Sherwin Nuland’s classic How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter, and Atul Gawande’s recent sensation, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. Dr. Warraich takes a broader look at how we die today, from the cellular level up to the very definition of death itself.

Reviewed: The Economist 25 Mar. 2017 p. 73

Reviewed: TLS 25 May 2018 p. 13.

Reviewed: WSJ 8/9 April 2017 p. C12; TLS 28 Apr. 2017 p. 15

Reviewed: TLS 16 Dec. 2016 p. 25

Reviewed: TLS 2 Dec. 2016 p. 26

Reviewed: CHE 20 Jan. 2017

Description: This new edition of Kuhn’s work in the history of science includes an introduction by Ian Hacking, which clarifies terms popularized by Kuhn, including paradigm and incommensurability, and applies Kuhn’s ideas to the science of today. Keyed to the separate sections of the book, Hacking’s introduction provides important background information as well as a contemporary context. Newly designed, with an expanded index.

Reviewed: Choice May 2017 vol. 54 no. 9 (Essential)

Reviewed: TLS 13 Jan. 2017 p. 26
Description: James Griffin explores the question what philosophers can reasonably expect to contribute to normative ethics or to the ethics of a culture. He argues that moral philosophers must tailor their work to what ordinary humans’ motivational capabilities, and he offers a new account of moral deliberation.