Notre Dame Books

I read the first edition of the book (Anchor paperback, 1965), and I concur with the other reviewer that it is a first-rate brief introduction to Wittgenstein's work.

The short biographical introduction has a big problem, however. About LW's service in WWI, Hartnack writes, "At the outbreak of the first World War he enlisted in the Austrian army, was trained to be an officer, but was taken prisoner by the Italians at the time of the Austrian debacle." That makes it sound like LW took the officer route, was quickly captured, then sat out the war. Well, as they say, that could hardly be further from the truth.

According to Martin Gilbert's, 'The First World War," LW won the Silver Medal for Valour Second Class as a lance corporal, "a rare honor for someone of such a low rank." This was in June of 1916, on the Eastern Front. In July 1917, he won the Silver Medal for Valour as an artillery observer, directing the guns under "heavy fire," again against the Russians. In June 1918 he was recommended for Austria's highest award, the Gold Medal for Valour, for "exceptionally courageous behavior," this time in a fierce artillery and machinegun duel with the British, in which his "heroism won the total admiration of the troops." Wittgenstein was not captured until November of 1918, at the virtual end of the war.

And, incredibly, it was during these years of combat that he wrote the 'Tractatus,' delivering the manuscript to Russell at the end of the war.

Sometimes fortune favors me. Recently I discovered a gem, an intriguing book by an author new to me. Wittgenstein and Modern Philosophy, a 153-page book by the Danish philosopher Justus Hartnack, was an exceptional find.

Hartnack writes with clarity. His style is informal, but not verbose. He systematically explores Wittgenstein's key arguments and discusses counter arguments. His helpful footnotes consist mainly of direct quotes from Wittgenstein's Tractatus and from his Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein and Modern Philosophy is a superb introduction not only to Wittgenstein, but also to twentieth century analytic philosophy.

Hartnack begins by systematically examining the seven propositions advanced by Wittgenstein in his remarkable work titled The Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. In the following chapter, Tractatus and Logical Positivism, he explores the growth of logical positivism, and it close relationship to (and points of departure from) Wittgenstein's thought.

Next, Hartnack discusses Wittgenstein's later work, Philosophical Investigations, an equally innovative work in which Wittgenstein challenges his own (earlier) thoughts in the Tractatus. The final chapter, Contemporary Philosophical Investigations, outlines more recent work by Gilbert Ryle, Peter Strawson, H. L. A. Hart, and J. O. Urmson.

I highly recommend Justus Hartnack's study of Wittgenstein's analysis of the connection between philosophical problems and language. Hartnack's lucid examination of Wittgenstein's philosophy should appeal to a wide range of readers.

I reviewed the second edition, 1986, published by University of Notre Dame Press.

Jean M. Wilkowski began her career with the U.S. Foreign Service in 1944 and carried out career assignments to nine countries on three continents before retiring in 1980. Along the way she was awarded six honorary degrees and is the only woman to receive the Foreign Service Cup from the 'Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired'. "Abroad For Her Country: Tales Of A Pioneer Woman Ambassador In The U.S. Foreign Service" is her personal memoir of thirty-five years spent in the diplomatic service which included being the first woman U.S. Ambassador to an African country and the first woman acting U.S. Ambassador in Latin America. In addition to promoting U.S. Trade and investment interests in postings that ranged from Paris and Milan, to Rome, Santiago and Geneva, she also saw service in Bogota during the Columbian revolution, attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Teguicgalpa, and the war between El Salvador and Honduras where she was responsible for U.S. humanitarian aid for 50,000 war-displaced persons. Other career highlights include being coordinator of the U.S. preparations for the 1979 United Nations Conference on Science and Technology in Vienna, and working with the U.S. delegation on a fact-finding visit to the Peoples' Republic of China. "Abroad For Her Country" is a fascinating, informative, deftly written autobiography and is especially recommended for academic and community library collections, as well as the personal reading list for anyone with an interest in International Relations in general, and the American diplomatic service in particular.

Emily Diskinson said, "I know it is poetry if I feel as if the top of my head has come off." Walt McDonald's collection, All Occasions, is that kind of poetry; his celebration of the ordinary moment turns mundane life experiences into significant events and transforms ordinary observations into profound ideas. In this collection, his skillful use of sound and diction go beyond his previous works as he continues to create fresh images to explore the experiences of childhood, war, marriage and family, ranching, life and death.

The collection contains 65 poems in five sections, each section more forceful and meditative than the one before. An elegiac tone characterizes the poems of remembrance, as in "Cousin Eddie and the Jungle Trails." These are flavored not with sappy sentimentalism, but with a pensive purity that stirs and satisfies. McDonald's aubades, such as "Backpacking with My Bride in the Rockies" and "Before the Glaciers Melt," are unique in that the lovers do not part in the morning, though a hint of time passing and a clear sense of place enhance the portrayal of the love relationship. McDonald includes a villanelle, "Gigging for Frogs before the War," and a slant-rhymed sonnet, "Hardscrabble, Tooth and Claw," among the free verse poems of various stanza forms. Internal rhyme and repeated key words set a pace that fits each poem.

As he is accustomed to doing, McDonald occasionally reuses titles from previous poems, dealing with the same theme on an increasingly more mature level, with magnified implosive power. Two such repeats are "For Friends Missing in Action" and "Leaving Sixty."

Whether recalling people, exploring relationships, or narrating events, McDonald makes casual moments sing with celebratory songs that echo emotion and evoke empathy. He uses language that snags the imagination like a fishhook, pulls, draws, and carries the reader along from line to line, stanza to stanza, like a rainbow stripped trout reeled in. "Boys and Their Fathers' Shotguns," in Section Three, is a poem about an accidental shooting. Word choice that maximizes assonance, consonance, and alliteration carries one through the poem and sends him back for a second read--not because it is obscure but because it is powerful and moving: because it takes the top of the head off.

If there is any weakness in the collection, it is only that a few poems are less than lucid, a little out of focus, like a boat in the fog--headed somewhere, though the direction is not clear. "After the Random Tornado" and "Fire and Ice" appear like wispy clouds whose main purpose is to accent the sky's blue hue. But even that is an occasion to celebrate.

McDonald's poetry just keeps getting better in form and content. This collection, All Occasions, is definitely worth buying.

Marcia L. Colish's AMBROSE'S PATRIARCHS is also an excellent survey which offers the only monograph-length study of the treatises of Ambrose of Milan, which developed an early ethics set for the laity in c. 340-397. College-level lay audiences will appreciate the study of Ambrose's patriarch treatises which were aimed at those outside the church.

I am not a big fan of Neuhaus, with his magazine (First Things)'s defense of the Branch Davidians and conservative-reactionary tilt. In this book, though, I found little to disagree with and much to my liking. Neuhaus shows why religion should be integral to American life and does a good take on several key issues like abortion. Father Neuhaus avoids his usual political slant in this book, showing the intelligence and skill he is capable of when detatched (sp?) from his usual ideologue status. I would certainly recommend this book, no matter how much I may disagree with him on other matters.

This is exceptional resource for all to learn the mindset of American Catholics. Too often we assume they are back in the Reformation times, and they don't consider themselves there at all.

Thus, to approach them this book is an invaluable source. Well written, historically accurate, this is insight into American Catholic ethos at its best!

Looking back we discover our way forward. Fortunately our most scholarly and popular (not mutually exclusive in this case) and influential American Catholic moral theologian, the Reverend Father Charles Curran, describes and explains the history of American Catholic Social Ethics in the 20th century, by which we may rediscover our way forward in this present desert silence.

The Reverend Father Curran examines in depth the lives and the works of John Ryan, WIliam Engelen, Paul Furfey and the Catholic Worker movement, John Courtney Murray, and the Catholic Peace movements, specifically through James Douglass. By studying the acts, the prayers and the teachings of these great heroic American Catholics may we now recover our past and stand upon the shoulders of these saintly giants in order to move forward and prohetically and courageously and strongly and prayerfully fulfill our CAtholic mission within the present crisis of war and injustice and immorality, in a monopolistic and unjust society in which ethics have grown unknown and discarded, in a Church which constricts and paralyzes its present concept of social ethics and dares ignore to its peril our great social encyclicals and these great Catholic and American men of the past century.

Read this book please and find our fire of our Faith and the strength for the mighty work ahead in forming the eschatalogical Kingdom of God which Catholic social ethics alone may bring.

Edeltraud Fulda is a dancer who, with her sister, tours 1930's Europe with a stage act. Their journeys are fun, and there is nothing Edeltraud loves better than dancing. However, Edletraud is increasingly plagued with ill health. When she has to have an emergency operation to treat a perforated ulcer, things go downhill from there: kidney stones,the eventual removal of a kidney, and finally, the dreaded diagnosis of Addison's Disease.

Edeltraud is a bedridden invalid until, in 1950, she makes the journey to Lourdes. The results are immediate --and miraculous. She immediately gains strength and able to eat again --even ice cream! Subsequently, as the title says, she makes a full recovery.

I loved this book. It is written in diary form, which gives the story a sense of immediacy. I also enjoyed the early stories of her dance tour, and the people she meets all through the book; Edeltraud makes each person she meets sound interesting. Recommended.

Bobick has done it again. After reading Bobick's insightful translation and exposition of Aquinas' "De Ente et Esentia", I was pleased to find that his knack for explaining Aquinas' complex ideas in metaphysics and natural philospohy is repeated in this book. For those who wish to understand Aquinas in depth, this book is a must.

I read this book for a graduate seminar on Aristotle. Politics is one of Aristotle's most prescient works that had a profound impact on our Founding fathers.

Nicomachean Ethics (EN) is part of political knowledge. Politics regulates when virtue does not. Laws are created for people who are not virtuous. Polis= "city or state." Humans live in society, so virtue ethics is not just for individual living, community is a shared project for the good. Aristotle starts with his method, a phenomenological attitude. He starts with pairs, male and female, builds up to ruler and subject, master and slave as a natural relationship, the 1st social community thus is the household. Household is an economic relationship and has monarchy of patriarch. Villages are a collection of households with a king. Then you have a Polis, a fulfilled complete community formed from several villages. Self-sufficiency is the mark of a Polis. An organized social relationship is Polis and a reason is being able to take care of needs of life and promote living well. Only in a Polis can you have art, philosophy, etc. All these are actualized in a Polis. Politics is natural to human life. We are meant to be social. According to Aristotle, "If you don't want to live in a state you are either a God or a beast."

Logos= "rationality or language" is what helps us to be political animals. Rational language expands capacity in human life. Since Aristotle thinks the Polis has a telos or an end then the Polis as potential comes even before the household. This is similar to the acorn having the telos to become a mighty oak tree. Politics completes the human condition for Aristotle. Need a Polis to develop other human capacities.

Aristotle's hierarchy. Slaves are a living tool for Aristotle. Aristotle argues that some people are meant to be slaves right from birth. "Born to be ruled." Slavish person does not have enough rationality to rule themselves. Aristotle says not every form of actual enslavement is justified according to him. He justifies the human use of animals as a natural act.

Aristotle now wants to find what kind of government is best. In a Polis citizens have things in common. Aristotle criticizes Plato's Republic, he finds it to be overly controlling. Socrates says the soul has 3 aspects and so does the Polis. The Soul has:

1. Reason
2. Passion
3. Appetite
The Polis has:
1. Philosopher King.
2. Guardians, (military).
3. Commoners.

Both are a hierarchal ordering. Socrates and Plato talk about the state holding all property in common. This includes the state raising children after birth instead of the parents, thus there will be no family clans trying to better themselves over their neighbors. Aristotle criticizes this idea. Aristotle says a Polis is a plurality of people thus people are not all the same and a Polis must accommodate differences in people, which actually makes a Polis better. Aristotle criticizes Socrates and Plato's idea of a Polis needing to have "unity" of people. This is a contrast to the Polis of Sparta. Aristotle says the best way to integrate citizens to the Polis is to allow them taking turns in ruling it. Aristotle believes that holding property or rearing of children in common as in the Republic is wrong no one really loves children like their own and communal property never gets really taken care of. Love is diminished the less nuclear family we are.
Aristotle says you need a mix of private and public property. Thus, the best kind of Polis is a combination of a governing element. Aristotle affirms a constitutional democracy or Polity. A citizen participates in government by definition for Aristotle.

Comparison of virtue and the good citizen. Excellence of virtuous man not the same as a good citizen. There will be few virtuous men, but good citizens just have to follow the law. Aristotle says good political virtue and good moral virtue don't have to go together. "Living finely then most of all is the goal of the city."

Aristotle classifies 3 types of government which occur naturally in nature and 3 types of deteriorations of those governments, they are:

1. "Monarchy," rule by one man a king, this is a top down rule. The deterioration is a "Tyranny," who is a ruler who rules for his own benefit.
2. "Aristocracy," rule by the best few men in the Polis, also this is a top down rule. The deterioration is an "oligarchy,' which he defines as rule of the rich who want to perpetuate themselves.
3. "Polity," All citizens participate in government with a constitution set above them to guide them instead of a king or aristocracy. The deterioration is a "democracy or what today we call mob rule or tyranny of the majority. He calls it rule of the poor.

Aristotle does a good job of looking at states and how they can be corrupted. Aristotle's concept of political justice and what is the best concept. What does justice mean? Not necessarily equality for all. Not all people are equal. He implies sometimes it is unjust to treat people equally. Justice is not necessarily equality for all; sometimes it would be unjust to treat all people equally. Politics is rated high by Aristotle as a human good. Education is a central feature of political life for Aristotle. "But we must find the relevant respect of equality or inequality; for this question raises a puzzle that concerns political philosophy." First, because someone is unequal on hierarchy that means better than others like more virtuous. This is like "distributive justice" who gets what goods. Do you give the best flute to the best flute player which is based on merit or to the richest or best looking person? Aristotle says inequality should tip towards those who earn it on merit. His concept of equality and inequality is based on merit. Another philosopher coined a famous formula for this based on Relevant Respect:

P= Person, Q= Quality, C= Context.
It would be just to treat P1 + P2 equally or unequally if P1 + P2 are equal or unequal in Q (quality) relevant to C (content). This is a formula on how to treat people relevant to goods. This is context dependent. Allot of empirical work to be done before we use the formula.

People who fight wars control politics in the Polis. The more people who have weapons in a civilian army is a guarantee that a small group of people will not take control of the government and democracy grows, like our 2nd amendment, this is a historical perspective of the idea that works.
Democracy spreads power to citizens a bottom up structure. Expertise in relation to politics. Many professions we tend to defer to the experts for judgment, physicians, lawyers, etc. Plato's Republic does this with his advocacy of Philosopher king running government. Aristotle says the judgment of the many combined as acting as one is better then a monarch or a few wise men to run the government. In principle, pooling of multiple people to run Polis is good. Politics by nature is a communal effort so you should use all the people's expertise. Aristotle is against letting experts running the Polis they are not always the best of judges. The best judge of the function of a house is the owner, not the builder. In addition, Aristotle says there may not really be any such thing as a political expert, like a philosopher king. Aristotle advocates for a constitutional democracy a written set of laws to protect Polis from a tyranny of the majority. "Law is reason unaffected by desire." A government of laws not men. A living being as the last word is not good.

Role of education in politics. Politics is coming together to foster human development and happiness for community, citizens, and improving human life like education. Aristotle says it should be public education.

I recommend Aristotle's works to anyone interested in obtaining a classical education, and those interested in philosophy. Aristotle is one of the most important philosophers and the standard that all others must be judged by.