by Ted Honderich ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 1993
As Honderich would have it, whether you read his book is not a matter of choice. Nonetheless, recommended for those with...
Honderich (Philosophy/University College, London) ponders an age-old question—are we free agents or pawns of unknown forces?—and winds up embracing determinism.
The author arrives at this conclusion through a series of closely argued deductions and thought experiments (readers unfamiliar with the terms of standard philosophical debate will welcome the excellent glossary at the end). His basic point is that all our actions are effects resulting from earlier causes; there is, then, no room for free will. Evidence for this lies, he believes, in a careful study of human neurology. He rejects epiphenomenalism, the theory that the mind is a byproduct of brain activity; rather, he sees actions as caused by "psychoneural'' events that involve the combined effort of mind and brain. Nonetheless, Honderich argues that there is in fact no "self'' within us that originates actions. His weakest moment comes when confronting the most popular recent challenge to determinism, quantum theory, which insists on the uncertainty of events within the subatomic world; here, his response is that maybe subatomic events don't have much to do with our level of reality, and, in any case, a new physics may come along that is based on determinism. Extrapolating his position into social spheres, he points out that in a determinist world there is no room for moral blame, and therefore punishment for the sake of punishment should be abolished; also, he suggests, those who deny free will may choose to move to the political left, which emphasizes social remedies over individual responsibility.
As Honderich would have it, whether you read his book is not a matter of choice. Nonetheless, recommended for those with well- muscled brains.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-19-212328-9
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1993
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by Charlayne Hunter-Gault ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1992
From the national correspondent for PBS's MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour: a moving memoir of her youth in the Deep South and her role in desegregating the Univ. of Georgia. The eldest daughter of an army chaplain, Hunter-Gault was born in what she calls the ``first of many places that I would call `my place' ''—the small village of Due West, tucked away in a remote little corner of South Carolina. While her father served in Korea, Hunter-Gault and her mother moved first to Covington, Georgia, and then to Atlanta. In ``L.A.'' (lovely Atlanta), surrounded by her loving family and a close-knit black community, the author enjoyed a happy childhood participating in activities at church and at school, where her intellectual and leadership abilities soon were noticed by both faculty and peers. In high school, Hunter-Gault found herself studying the ``comic-strip character Brenda Starr as I might have studied a journalism textbook, had there been one.'' Determined to be a journalist, she applied to several colleges—all outside of Georgia, for ``to discourage the possibility that a black student would even think of applying to one of those white schools, the state provided money for black students'' to study out of state. Accepted at Michigan's Wayne State, the author was encouraged by local civil-rights leaders to apply, along with another classmate, to the Univ. of Georgia as well. Her application became a test of changing racial attitudes, as well as of the growing strength of the civil-rights movement in the South, and Gault became a national figure as she braved an onslaught of hostilities and harassment to become the first black woman to attend the university. A remarkably generous, fair-minded account of overcoming some of the biggest, and most intractable, obstacles ever deployed by southern racists. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-374-17563-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1992
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by William Strunk & E.B. White ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 1972
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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