Renaissance Books

In "The Immaterial Self" John Foster defends the substance dualist theory of the mind as an immaterial substance. I think that Foster is one of the most original and insightful analytic philosophers around, and the "Immaterial Self" may be his most significant work, though it is hard to judge against his gem, "The Divine Lawmaker".
Foster is engaged on two fronts. First, he rejects versions of physicalist reductionism, according to which the mind is not an immaterial substance. Eliminativism, behaviourism, functionalism, and type- and token-identity theories are each carefully explained, and attacked with numerous objections.
Secondly, Foster defends the substance dualist theory about the mind. He first responds to problems of mechanism, showing that substance dualism faces no special problem in accounting for psycho-physical causation. Next the argument for the dualist theory of the mind is presented. Foster argues that if there is a mental subject, then it is essentially immaterial; and against the Humean bundle theory and in favour of the Cartesian theory that there is a mental subject.
The final chapter of the book is devoted to the subjects of personal identity and embodiment, and a defence of a libertarian account of free will.
Foster's coverage of contemporary analytic philosophy of mind is comprehensive and detailed. His arguments are generally set forth clearly and are often original.
The book is often subtle, sophisticated and very difficult, though I think that it will appeal to upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in the philosophy of mind as well as professional philosophers.
In my opinion, Foster's book has not received the attention it deserves because it defends a position that is unpopular among contemporary analytic philosophers of mind. Nevertheless, in my opinion, it is one of the finest books ever written in the philosophy of mind. Whether or not one ultimately agrees with Foster, I think that there is a lot to learn from this book. I recommend it strongly.

Why is substance dualism seemingly out of business? Whatever the reasons are, the neglect of books like this might be a candidate. I agree with the other reviewer that this book is too little read and discussed. Foster is a deep thinker, but he writes clearly. Throughout the book, his excellent understanding of the issues and the precision and rigor of his arguments shine forth.

Foster starts off by defining the position which he means to defend - that the mental realm is both CONCEPTUALLY and METAPHYSICALLY fundamental. He then goes on the offensive against different versions of materialism/physicalism. While Foster offers sustained attacks against these views, his conclusions are well-reasoned, and he does not stoop to the use of rhetoric. Rather, these views are carefully analyzed and evaluated: eliminative materialism, analytical reductionism, analytical behaviorism, analytical functionalism, the type-identity thesis, the token-identity thesis and metaphysical reductionism. Against each of these views, Foster offers several objections, and upon considering whether the materialist has a comeback to these objections, also shows which objection or combination of objections is fatal to a particular view. This takes up the first half of the book.

Having dealt with the problems materialists face, Foster moves on to consider common objections to an interactionist view of dualism - particularly with regard to how, given that the mental and physical are fundamentally different substances, they could causally interact. These include a priori objections to causal interaction, problems related to casual pairings (briefly: 1. causal relationships between events are always constituted by certain non-causal properties of the situation, together with the relevant covering laws, and 2. only be taking mental events to be physical can we, in cases of duplication, envisage laws which cover the causal pairings in the way which 1. requires), Davidson's argument against strict psycho-physical laws, and the argument from science that the physical realm is casually closed. Foster ably deals with each of these objections and argues that the interactionist can successfully deflect them.

The next step Foster embarks on is to give a positive thesis about the mental subject. He considers the potential problems in defining what a mental subject is, and goes on to look at the contrasting views of Descartes and Hume on the subject. Foster ends up defending the Cartesian ontology of basic subjects, with mental items as elements in their biographies, as opposed to the Humean view of mental items as ontologically autonomous. Follow these are some deep investigations into the nature of the self, and here Foster develops his theory of the mental subject.

Finally, in the last chapter, Foster shows how his notion of the mental subject and dualism in general can deal with the problems of personal identity and free will. He argues that there are viable criteria of personal identity and coherent notions of libertarian freedom given a mental subject.

Overall, this book is an excellent piece of analytic philosophy. At times, the book does get rather technical, and these areas might be difficult for the layman or a novice with regards to philosophy. As such, it is not recommended as an entry-level introduction to substance dualism. However, the inclusion of more technical issues does not come across as redundant or excessive. Foster is dealing with a deep metaphysical problem here, and he is not afraid to plumb its depths. Rather than using vague terms to gloss over the inherent difficulties in the mind-body problem, he responds with incisive analysis that does justice to the issues involved. As a result, the whole work is imbued with original insights and powerful grounds that constitute reasons for embracing substance dualism. Together with Swinburne's "The Evolution of the Soul," this book is a testament to the fact that substance dualism can very much stand on its own rational basis. Given books like The Immaterial Self, the relative paucity of substance dualists speaks sadly of non-rational factors in motivating philosophical views. Anyone who is serious about philosophy of mind should give this book honest and serious consideration.

I always enjoy looking at Tom Tierney's interpretation of costumes of different eras. He gets all the lines right, finding the elements of a time period and rendering the dolls and costumes in brilliant colors. I frequently use his books for reference when making doll costumes.

If you love the style of the renaissance, costuming and paper dolls this is a wonderful book to own! Great period clothing throughout!

Working in a Jesuit institution, I'm wary of yet another "Jesuit" book, but this is truly a beautiful publication. Ignatius challenged people to 'find God in all things" and this publication is a feast for the eyes in that regard.

Meticulously compiled and deftly edited by the team of John W. O'Malley, SJ (Distinguished Professor of Church History at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology, Cambridge, Massachusetts), Gauvin Alexander Bailey (Associate Professor of Renaissance and Baroque Art at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts), and Giovanni Sale, SJ (Direct of the Jesuit Historical Institute in Rome, Italy), "The Jesuits And The Arts: 1540-1773" is a beautifully illustrated historical survey of the Jesuit's artistic enterprise in Europe, North America, South America, and Asia from the foundation os the Society of Jesus in 1540 to its suppression in 1773. Of special note is John O'Malley's introductory essay "The Cultural Mission of the Society of Jesus" which lays the Jesuit involvement with the arts in historical perspective. A second essay describes the tension between the Jesuits and Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (the imperious patron of Gesu - the Jesuit's most important church in Rome). Richard Bossel provides an informed and informative architectural tour of Jesuit churches, chapels, schools, residences, and meeting halls throughout Europe. Gauvin Baily provides a wealth of information on the influence of Italian painting upon Jesuit art. Heinrich Peiffer discusses Jesuit iconography. An important and core addition to academic library Art History and Jesuit Studies reference collections, "The Jesuits And The Arts: 1540-1773" is an impressive compendium of erudite scholarship that is as accessible to the non-specialist general reader with an interest in art history, as it is of seminal value to students of Jesuit history and their influence on Catholic church art and architecture.

As an anthropologist, I was reading this book with delight, and thinking it was just like an ethnography--to find that at the end she describes it as "an ethnography of early modern science," and cites such ethnographic luminaries as George Marcus and Bruno Latour. Indeed, this is a look at the actual culture of scientific and technical discovery in London in Elizabeth I's time. It is a real eye-opener. London at the time was swarming with technologists, herbalists, medical investigators, and every sort of inventor--not to speak of quacks, con artists and mountebanks pretending to be all of the above. The search for knowledge was downright frantic. Those of us who knew only a little about the history of early modern science knew only a tiny thin thread of this--a bit of Bacon (she cuts him down to size!) and a few others.
It is striking to compare London with China at approximately the same time; Benjamin Elman, William Rowe, and others have shown a similar and equally little-known ferment there, but even their best efforts don't seem to show as much sheer originality, inventiveness, and wild-eyed experimentation in Chinese cities as London had. China never quite made the breakthrough to modern science until the 20th century. London--and, Ogilvie reminds us, the whole "republic of letters" all over Europe--had a culture of scientific advance rooted in trades, crafts, mining, brewing, fish trapping, bird snaring, everything. People were trying every new scheme to produce more.
Alchemy and astrology receive due respect here. In those days, everyone knew that metallurgy could make amazing transformations; no one knew that gold, silver, etc. were primary elements that simply could not be easily transformed into each other. (People were just beginning to realize that "earth, air, fire, water" wasn't a fully adequate list of elements.) Similarly, everyone knew the sun influenced every living thing, and the moon ruled the tides; logic and common sense brought everyone to the inescapable conclusion that the other heavenly bodies must be influencing us too. The failure of alchemy and astrology was not the failure of "pseudoscience" but the triumph of reality over logic and reason--a triumph we see today, every day, as the most reasonable economic and political predictions go down in flames, ruined by human cussedness. It would be decades before Boyle could be a successfully "skeptical chemist" building on experimental proof of alchemy's failure.
Early modern science was a wonderful, exciting world. I came to it after a lifetime of ethnographic research on traditional knowledge of plants and animals--in China, indigenous North America, and elsewhere. How wonderful to see an ethnography of Elizabethan London's science.
For the future, one recommendation to ethnographers of early science: Look at Charles Frake's LANGUAGE AND CULTURAL DESCRIPTION as well as Latour, Marcus, et al. Frake still does the best job of explaining how to study nonwestern and traditional scientific/technical knowledge.

Everyone knows that the Scientific Revolution involved some great minds, like Edmond Halley and Sir Isaac Newton, and that it happened in the seventeenth century, and that one of its centers was London. But it was not the case that before the revolution people were unscientific and after it they were scientific. What was the infrastructure in place that allowed for the blossoming of scientific thinking that was to come, and has yet to abate? Deborah E. Harkness, a professor of history, has given an account of something we haven't thought much about: Elizabethan science. In _The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution_ (Yale University Press), Harkness has given an extensive history of how sixteenth century London took up scientific enquiry. She admits that other than Francis Bacon there will be few well known "scientists" here. To speak strictly, there wasn't anyone called a scientist until the word was invented in the nineteenth century. And the Elizabethans profiled here didn't come up with many scientific breakthroughs. On the other hand, they were energetic and curious Londoners, "naturalists, medical practitioners, mathematicians, teachers, inventors, and alchemists", who wanted to study the world and benefit people thereby, and Harkness has told a story that deserves telling.

The first case study Harkness undertakes is that of the naturalists centered in Lime Street, a cosmopolitan central London neighborhood, "the English outpost of a Europe-wide network of students of nature." The naturalists here corresponded with each other in a way that (at least sometimes) shows the ideal balance of cooperation and competitiveness that scientists ought to have, and they swapped specimens and did fieldwork. Harkness considers the medical arena chiefly through the conflicts of the different schools and specialists of the time. "London had a practitioner to suit every patient's purse and preferences", she writes, and perhaps because of that, medical professionals were very protective of their particular schools. There was a medical bustle of quacks, midwives, and other healers which spread on the streets and via word of mouth. Basic to science is mathematics; London was embracing mathematics at the time. A famous version of Euclid from 1570, with an introduction by the renowned occultist John Dee, helped emphasized that numbers were not wicked but profitable for citizens and the state. Science was good for business and for the state, and no one knew this better than William Cecil who was the favorite minister of Queen Elizabeth, both of whom sought projects with tangible outcomes, directing funds for the sixteenth century version of "big science" to such endeavors as mining or the refinement of ores. Harkness spends a chapter on the unfortunate merchant Clement Draper, who was in debtors' prison for thirteen years, but continued to experiment and fill notebooks with his observations and those from his fellow inmates, some of whom were as interested in such matters as he.

Harkness winds up this tour of sixteenth century London science with a description of the efforts of lawyer Hugh Plat and contrasting them with those of the far more famous Francis Bacon. One of Harkness's themes is how scientific efforts came from all levels of society, and Plat viewed the collective scientific enterprise in just this way. The son of a brewer, he consulted winemakers, candle-makers, midwives, gardeners, salt-makers, and more on such subjects as food preservation, firefighting, desalinization of water, and so on. Bacon called for a gentleman's ideal of orderly and academic investigation of nature by scholars, but Plat emphasized how commoners could contribute, and even when he interviewed experts like John Dee, he was much more interested in their practical and experimentally derived wisdom than in their theories. Harkness is clearly on Plat's side, and her summary chapter on his work in many fields nicely caps a fascinating and detailed overview of the scientific foundation London made for the upcoming revolution.

Stephen's writing is polished and clear--very refreshing for this type of book. This is an interesting read, one wishes they could sit next to the fire and chat with Jo Moro. A must for anyone's bookshelf!

What a rare find! What a loss for those who never knew Mora

John Andreas Olsen's "John Warden and the Renaissance of American Air Power" is an excellent and thorough analysis of the importance of operational art and strategic thinking in the application of air power, told through the career of Air Force Colonel John Warden. The book combines elements of biography, campaign history, and strategic theory to present the story of the United States Air Force's attempts to move from a tactical, systems approach to warfare to one focused on applying air power to achieve decisive strategic effects. Olsen succeeds in demonstrating Warden's impact on the service's culture and war fighting focus.

Olsen is at his best when discussing Warden's contributions to air power theory, as well as his ideas on professional military education, air force doctrine, and the development of the Instant Thunder air campaign plan in support of Operation Desert Storm. His writing is less focused on Warden's early career and operational assignments, details of which are mostly provided for context. Readers looking for accounts of dodging surface to air missiles over North Vietnam, or detailed discussion of weapons systems will be disappointed. Those interested in the application of theory and doctrine to real-world contingency operations have a great deal to learn from Olsen's efforts. He brings an educated air officer's perspective to his analysis, and provides an objective discussion of the role of air power at the operational and strategic levels of war

"John Warden and the Renaissance of American Air Power" is very well researched, with excellent footnotes and a great selected bibliography. Serious students will enjoy reading these sections of the book to see where they can learn more about the subject. I highly recommend this book to military officers of all services, students studying national security topics, and anyone interested in defense issues.

This is an excellent book indeed. Not only does it have a lot to say about the way airpower is and should be used in modern war, but it also explains how the U.S military, and presumably not only the U.S military, REALLY work. All this is done on the basis of extremely thorough research that is a model of its kind.
A very good book--highly recommended for anybody interested in airpower. Go and get it!

Author M. Young pulls together the evidence concerning James I's alleged sodomy and leaves it to the reader to decide.

one letter, by King James himself to Robert Carr in 1615, complains about a number of issues, including: "I leave out of this reckoning your long creeping back and withdrawing yourself from lying in my chamber, notwithstanding my many hundred times earnestly soliciting you to the contrary." (Young, p. 43)

Villiers, on anticipating his return to England from his Spanish posting, told King James: "I cannot now think of giving thanks for friend, wife, or child; my thoughts are only bent on having my dear Dad and Master's legs soon in my arms." (Young, p. 47)

while King James did write about sodomy as a "horrible" crime in his Basilikon Doron, "Sex with subordinates was a prereogative of patriarchy, and James was the chief patriach of the whole realm." (Young, p. 48) "James could have been perfectly earnest in condemning sodomy while simultaneously engaging in what we today would call homosexual behaviour" (Young, p. 49)--because the "legal definition [of sodomy] was extremely narrow. It specified only one sex act between men, anal intercourse, and excluded all other genital sex acts." Furthermore, as James is said to be "a notorious hypocrite where swearing and drinking were concerned; he could simply have been the same where sodomy was concerned." (Young, p. 50)

Did James play the hypocrite, preaching one thing fr one side of his face while whispering something else to his favourites? Perhaps no one will ever know on this side of heaven. It won't hurt to read Young's arguments and decide for yourself.

This is a really great book, entertaining and readable, yet also informative and educational.
It discusses both the personal history of King James (of the King James Bible fame) and public perception of homosexuality during 16th and 17th Century England.

For readers not already well acquainted with King James, such as myself, the opening chapter establishes his history. And it does a good job -- not only did it enable me to follow the rest of the book, but subsequent histories I've read of King James didn't add anything surprising, meaning it was sufficiently thorough.

The next chapters examine the evidence that James had sex with his male favorites, what the court and subjects thought about it, along with the various terms, codes and historical analogies that James' contemporaries could discourse about sex between males.
Subsequent chapters discuss the relationship between homosexuality, effeminacy and pacifism vs. heterosexuality, masculinity and war, how James's homosexuality affected the reign of his son, Charles, and what contemporary and later writers said about James's sexuality, concluding with comments on the general history of homosexuality.

Fascinating book. It has an element of the tabloid (with juicy excerpts from James' love letters) while also very thought-provoking. I have purely a layman's interest in the subject, and I had no trouble following the author's language or arguments. For more serious historians and researchers, everything is very thoroughly footnoted and annotated.

I *HIGHLY* recommend it.

If you ever wondered what 16th century Italians thought of sex, anal sex, and homosexuality, you can get at least partial satisfaction with the publication of _La Cazzaria: The Book of the Prick_ (Routledge), written in 1525 by Antonio Vignali, edited and translated by Ian Frederick Moulton. It is the first time you will be able to find the book in English. Moulton has heard claims that the book was published under the titles _The Love Academy_ and _Dialogue on Diddling_ (the latter credited to "Sir Hotspur Dunderpate"), but he has found no copies, and says that the mere titles indicate the translations were faulty. Here is his explanation of the title, an interesting view of the translator's problems, and although the book is full of earthy language, this is as raw as it will get in this review: "The dialogue's title is deliberately rude and provocative: it comes from the Italian word _cazzo_, a slang term for 'penis.'" He goes on: "The closest English rendering is probably 'cockery' - but that is too close to 'cookery' to be useful in translation."

Moulton's introduction and notes are an enormous help, as _La Cazzaria_ is a peculiar production. As in the fashion of so many academic writings of the time, from Galileo to Aretino, it is in the form of a dialogue. The elder participant, the instructor, and probably the alter ego of the author, is Arsiccio, who takes the youth Sodo under instruction, as Arsiccio has been embarrassed by a public display of Sodo's lack of sexual knowledge. The problem is that Sodo is not going to gain a great deal of factual knowledge from the words here. Vignali presents a mock-scholarly book, whose humorous lessons will remind many of Erasmus's words in praise of folly. (The other writer who comes to mind is Rabelais, although this flamboyant book has him beat for consistent crudity and fascination for sexual themes.) The dialogue has marginal headings, like any good scholastic work, to introduce major questions, only here they are ribald; among the less profane are, "Why It Is Dishonorable to Attack from Behind," "Why Women Are Disproportioned and Fat Below the Waist," and "Why Women Take Little Steps." Arsiccio is, to put it mildly, a misogynist. He also doesn't think much of the church, or the practice of confession.

Vignali was obviously a highly educated man; his references to classical texts are frequent, even if sometimes they are jovial or deliberately fraudulent. The latter half of the dialogue is devoted to a classical (if facetious) form of argument in which the body is seen as the analogue to a political state. We speak of the "body politic" and the "head of state" because these analogies have been present for a couple of thousand years, but it is significant that in Vignali's parable, there is no head; the body parts involved are, as may be guessed, significantly lower. The meaning of the political allegory in reference to Siena in the 1520's is explained by Moulton in his introduction, but can be enjoyed for its pure silliness and ribald fun. _La Cazzaria_ is a unique text, full of oddities and erudition, and we are lucky to have it available after all these centuries.

This is certainly not for anyone shy about body issues. It sounds like one of those wine-soaked nights at an all-male dorm, when conversation is driven by raging but unrequited hormones. First, of course, these two scholars start by explaining to each how superior scholars are as lovers compared to all others - a fact so little-known because of the scholars' innate discretion. From there, the dialog between Sodo and Arsiccio quickly descends to improbable stories that explain pubic and perineal hair, speculations on womanly anatomy ranging from uncomfortable to laughable, and a lengthy, final mythical tale of male and female bodies forming themselves from their various visible organs and orifices.

Throughout, Sodo (as his name suggests) extols the virtues of sexual entry from behind. Although naughty, adventurous, or distasteful to today's readers, it was a capital crime in Venice of Vignali's day - as daring as anything could be. Despite that dark historical shadow behind it, this remains a light, entertaining, and utterly tasteless romp.

-- wiredweird

As an art lover and architect, who has been reading extensivelly about Italy and spent three weeks exploring the city, I define this book as comprehensive, delicious to read and excellent in contents. Turner explains how the city has achieved such a moment in human civilization, not only by its art, but by its economics, technology, geography, historic context, social behavior. This book is one to fall in love with, and I would put it as a must read together with Kenneth Clark's Civilization.

The book is very well done. The photographs are of high quality; the coverage complete. I purchased the volume as background information for an art history survey course I'm enrolled in (I already hold a post-grad degree), and found it to be an excellent supplement to the cursory review my textbook offered.

This translation is perhaps as good as they get -- it reads well, rythm and cadence are flawless. And yet, a comparison of two versions side by side serves as a useful reminder that even the best translation is merely an approximation of the original. It is also evident that sometimes very substantial compromises in content are needed to preserve the structural integrity of the poetic form.

The English text, as beautiful and touching as it is in its own right, unfortunately does not reflect the very noticeably rougher texture of the Polish original. Polish text, still mostly comprehensible to the educated Polish reader, sounds distinctly archaic, and "resists" contemporary reader's temptation to read fast, as if it deliberately tried to slow him/her down.

Alas, gone as well are many poetic devices of the original, such as clever metaphors and word plays. E.g., in the fragment of Lament 2, reproduced on the amazon website, lost is the original's play on the word "piórko" (feather) which can be both a child's toy, and a poet's quill in "Jeslim kiedy nad dziecmi piorko mial zabawic"; similarly, the contrast of the SOUND of the poet's lament and the empty SILENCE of death ("plakac nad gluchym grobem", literally "to WEEP on a SILENT grave") is awkwardly lost in an admittedly smooth sounding, and more emotional "to weep on a small daughter's grave".

The fairly unfortunate "maritime" metaphor ("Looms like cliff above some wild and rough / Shore") is perhaps more in line with the Irish or English poetic tradition, but is totally out of place in Kochanowski's poem, and it unwisely replaces a wonderfully archaic, yet entirely comprehensible, and often quoted "moja nienagrodna szkoda" (literally, and in awkwardly too many words, "my loss, which no prize shall repay").

Still, given the original's complexity, the task both translators decided to tackle must have been daunting indeed, and the result is stunningly beautiful. Despite some lost or awkward metaphors, the essential core of the work, which is its profound emotional charge, comes across as strong as in the original, and so the 5-star rating is entirely deserved.

Additionally, both poets-translators probably deserve a 6th, honorary star, for taking on an important task, several centuries overdue.

I discovered this collection in a Slavic Literature class where it was required. I was deeply touched by these words of a father in mourning for his daughter; feelings expressed in the 16th Century that translate as if they were written today. Last week I was discussing Polish literature with a Holocaust survivor. When I mentioned Kochanowski's "Treny" (Laments), she got tears in her eyes and gasped- how did I know Kochanowski? She quoted a phrase in Polish, then said she always thinks about "Treny" when she thinks of her mother- it was her favorite- who was killed in Auschwitz. Today, when I gave her my bilingual copy, she held it to her heart. I could hear her heart crying when she said "thank you." Words of a daughter in mourning - and a human connection spanning four centuries.