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CONCEPTS AND CATEGORIES

Name: CONCEPTS AND CATEGORIES
Author: Henry Hardy
ISBN: 0691002347

PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAYS

edited by Henry Hardy & by Isaiah Berlin ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1979

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For those whose acquaintance with Oxford's Isaiah Berlin rests primarily on Russian Thinkers (1978), this, the second of four volumes of his essays, may be a surprise. Best known as a historian of ideas, Berlin began his career as a philosopher, and, as he himself notes in a preface, these philosophical essays bear the stamp of the debates within British philosophy current 30 years ago. In essays entitled "Verification" (1939), "Empirical Propositions and Hypothetical Statements" (1950), and "Logical Translation" (1950), Berlin took his stand against empiricism, and particularly against the effort to render philosophical statements "scientific." These are heavy going, written in the curiously simple language of British philosophy—"what exists but is not here exists and is not here in exactly the same sense of 'exists' as what is—does exist—here"—with its talk of tables, chairs, and Napoleon's three-cornered hat. But even if these essays are relics, they are also documents in Berlin's intellectual development, and on a closer look they do connect with his more famous work. Other essays here provide a bridge, In "The Purpose of Philosophy" (1962), "The Concept of Scientific History" (1960), "Does Political Theory Still Exist?" (1961), and "'From Hope and Fear Set Free'" (1964) he stresses the importance of the historical element—manifested in language and invisible to empiricism—in the way people see themselves and the world. The task of the humanist intellect is not to make scientific statements, but to reveal the pluralism of world views while stripping away the accumulated veneers of myth and dogma. We therefore see Berlin, an essayist born, traveling from empiricism to Tolstoy.

Pub Date: March 1, 1979

ISBN: 0691002347

Page Count: 202

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: May 15, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1979

Categories:

PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE CROOKED TIMBER OF HUMANITY
edited by Henry Hardy & by Isaiah Berlin

- BOOK REVIEW
PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS
edited by Henry Hardy & by Isaiah Berlin

- BOOK REVIEW
AGAINST THE CURRENT
edited by Henry Hardy & by Roger Hausheer & Isaiah Berlin

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THE 48 LAWS OF POWER

by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998

If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.

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The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.

Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.

If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1998

ISBN: 0-670-88146-5

Page Count: 430

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1998

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | PSYCHOLOGY | HISTORICAL & MILITARY

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LAWS OF HUMAN NATURE
by Robert Greene

- BOOK REVIEW
MASTERY
by Robert Greene

- BOOK TO SCREEN
Drake Producing 48 Laws of Power Show

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THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS

AND OTHER ESSAYS

by Albert Camus ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 26, 1955

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This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.