Philosophical Investigations 29:1 January 2006

ISSN 0190-0536

REVIEWS

Tim Thornton, John McDowell, Acumen: 2004, pp vi + 261,

40.00/14.95

Stephen Mulhall, New College, Oxford

Although the recent publication of two volumes of collected papers
has brought the main body of John McDowells work within easy
reach, it has not simplified the task it invites that of critically evaluating the work as a whole, particularly in the light of the possibility (signalled by his John Locke Lectures, Mind and World) that the
variety of its topics concealed an underlying unity of purpose, even
a single project. The first philosopher to take up this invitation was
Max de Gaynesford, with his Polity volume on McDowell published
last year; now Tim Thornton has entered the lists for Acumen.
Thorntons volume presents McDowells work as attaining a kind
of culmination in Mind and World, and hence as being what he calls
a philosophy of nature a project that aims to reconcile reason and
nature, the normative and the nomological, and thereby to overcome
a Cartesian opposition between mind and world in favour of a postKantian conception of that world as constitutively apt for conceptualization.The final chapter of the book gives a detailed description
and analysis of those lectures; and the preceding five chapters look
successively at McDowells treatments of normativity, moral value,
meaning, mind and knowledge, with a view to seeing how his specific claims about these matters at once support and are supported
by the more general vision of human openness to reality that is laid
out in Mind and World.
On another level, however, Thornton is keen to emphasize that
everything in McDowells philosophy of nature must be seen in the
light of his essentially Wittgensteinian conception of the nature of
philosophy. For McDowells unremitting hostility to reductive or bare
2006 The Authors. Journal compilation 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Stephen Mulhall

83

naturalism in whatever domain he finds it is rooted in a therapeutic conception of the philosophers business one which does not
aim to replace reductive naturalism with some other, better theory,
but rather to identify and extirpate the mistaken or confused assumptions which lead us to think that we face difficulties of the kind
which might be resolved by the construction of a theory. Thornton
shows very clearly how often criticisms of McDowell fail to take this
aspect of his self-conception with due seriousness, although he sometimes exhibits that same lack of seriousness himself as when he
persistently talks (for convenience! [p 65]) of McDowells moral
philosophy as moral realism, despite noting McDowells repeated
refusal of this label.
Thornton is also well aware that, if one does take this therapeutic self-conception seriously, one will be uncomfortable with the idea
that McDowell might possess anything worth calling a philosophy
of nature. For that sounds very much like the name for a theory,
in competition with bare naturalism and rampant Platonism, and
hence embodying philosophical theses about mind, meaning and
reality with which others might disagree. But Thornton brings out
quite forcefully the aspects of McDowells writings that suggest that
his methodological manifesto is not always congruent with his practice. For his thinking is not only guided by his unusually wide and
deep knowledge of the history of philosophy (working its way
through and out of writings by Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel and
Gadamer); it is also deeply engaged with the arguments that dominate contemporary analytical philosophy of language, mind and
morality. This is most clearly evident in McDowells long-standing
efforts to make use of a Fregean conception of sense as revised in
the light of (what McDowell finds in) Davidson and Evans.
Thorntons third chapter focusses on this particular aspect of his
work, and he does a creditable job of showing how McDowell might
at least think that his work here is genuinely therapeutic. For it presents his reading of Davidsons project as modest in ways perhaps
undreamed-of by its founder. McDowells Davidsonian theory of
meaning not only eschews any perspective on language from the
outside, and any claim to identify that in which our everyday understanding of words really consists; it also purports to illuminate the
concept of meaning by taking for granted the concept of truth, but
without thereby taking for granted anything philosophically controversial with respect to truth. The idea is rather that this kind of
2006 The Authors

84

Philosophical Investigations

Tarskian theory simply displays in formal and technical mode a range

of internal relations between a number of resolutely intentional and
normative concepts; it offers conceptual clarification by placing the
concepts to be clarified in the broader field of their mutuallysupporting use, by which McDowell simply means human linguistic
and non-linguistic activity in the world the human form of life.
It is as if Thornton sees McDowell as risking the taint of tools
forged for theoretical purposes very different from his own in order
to show how the deepest insights and sources of attraction in the
best of contemporary philosophical theory in fact ultimately lead to
the supercession or subversion of the theoretical impulse itself. To
find this perception immensely helpful does not, of course, entail
concluding that McDowell always comes away untainted by his tools;
Thornton points out the dubiousness of his conception of the ineliminable subjectivity of secondary qualities, as that functions in his
critique of Mackies view of ethics, although he does not underline
the same difficulty in McDowells central invocation of an Aristotelian idea of second nature in Mind and World. It surely needs to
be shown that this idea really can be displayed as a truism about the
human capacity to acquire capacities, particularly when it is associated with a strong claim about nonhuman animals lack of openness
to the world. One might say that by giving his position the patently
contradictory label of Platonic naturalism, McDowell all-butdeclares that that position is not in fact to be found on any familiar maps of the terrain, and so that it is not a position at all. The
problem is that such formulations in fact all-but-ensure that he will
be accused of trying (incoherently) to occupy a position that blends
the virtues and expel the vices of necessarily opposed theoretical
stances.
Unfortunately, Thorntons awareness of, and desire to do justice
to, McDowells embeddedness in contemporary philosophical theorizing creates a serious obstacle for his readers. For it tempts him to
sketch in complex theoretical contexts for every aspect of McDowells own work; and the space constraints under which he is operating make it impossible for anyone unfamiliar with (not only the
general shape but in many cases also the specific details of) these
contemporary debates fully to understand what is going on in them,
and hence what is going on in McDowells response to them. This
forces Thornton to leave certain fundamental issues tantalizingly
under-described for example, McDowells position in relation to
2006 The Authors

Stephen Mulhall

85

the question of whether, how and why rule-following is an inherently communal phenomenon; and it decisively restricts the audience for whom this book will be genuinely useful. Fellow-academics
and graduate students will certainly be in a position to learn something; but even advanced undergraduates may find that just too much
prior acquaintance with the field is being assumed.
In this particular respect, I believe that de Gaynesfords competing introduction to McDowell is superior. Without lacking any of
Thorntons detailed knowledge of these contemporary debates, he
succeeds in finding a more intuitively natural point of access for his
readers into the questions that preoccupy McDowell; he sketches in
the relevant terrain in terms of more general theoretical tendencies
rather than the detailed views of particular theorists; and, at least in
my judgement, he writes with more elegance and wit. On the other
hand, Thorntons account covers the broad range of McDowells
writings with a more even distribution of attention between its
various aspects than does de Gaynesfords; for example, Thornton
devotes a full and elaborate chapter to McDowells work on ethics,
and places it early on in his discussion so as to bring out its indebtedness to certain broader Wittgensteinian themes, whereas de Gaynesford rather rushes his treatment of that material, squeezing it into
a brief chapter at the end of his account. Overall, however, both are
valuable works, and will contribute to advanced debates about
McDowells work, as well as helping students who are as yet unfamiliar with his challenging, and sometimes opaquely-formulated, but
deeply stimulating and humane essays.
New College
Oxford OX1 3BN

2006 The Authors

86

Philosophical Investigations

John Cook, The Undiscovered Wittgenstein:The Twentieth Centurys Most

Misunderstood Philosopher, Humanity Books, 2005, 437, price $55 hb.

Ronald E. Hustwit Sr., The College of Wooster,

Lt. Ronald E. Hustwit Jr., USAF
The Undiscovered Wittgenstein is John Cooks third book aimed at
explaining Wittgensteins philosophy. The first, Wittgensteins Metaphysics, presented and defended Cooks claim that, in spite of denials,
Wittgenstein has a metaphysical theory neutral monism that he
maintained early and late. The second, Wittgenstein: Language and
Empiricism, elaborated and further explained Cooks claim by asserting that Wittgensteins neutral monism amounts to a phenomenalism like Berkeleys. And further, what has been read as Wittgensteins
ordinary language philosophy should more accurately be called
metaphysical ordinary language philosophy, because Wittgenstein
reduces ordinary language to sense-data language, i.e. phenomenalism. Ordinary language philosophers such as Malcolm and Bouwsma
misunderstood Wittgenstein to be the successor to G.E. Moores
common sense philosophy. In doing so, they blindly followed Moore
to uncritically believe that ordinary language held no metaphysical
assumptions, when actually they presupposed that it reflects reality.
Only Cooks view, which he calls investigative ordinary language
philosophy, uncovers philosophical confusions by returning words
to their everyday use.
This, the third book in the ongoing attempt to elucidate the misunderstood Wittgenstein, begins with the same theses about Wittgenstein: that he was a neutral monist, phenomenalist, empiricist, and
behaviourist. In the first of three sections of this book, Cook presents some additional support for these theses, but does not provide
much new beyond this support. He does add that Wittgenstein is a
verificationalist. While that idea is consistent with his supposed
empiricism, it is one more startling claim to make and defend. Cooks
claims are elaborated, defended, and supported by numerous passages
from the Wittgenstein texts and by Cooks reading of other readers
of Wittgenstein. But the results are always the same that Wittgenstein holds all these forms of empiricism. We must add that Cook
seems to have worked tirelessly to make all these isms fit together
2006 The Authors

Ronald E. Hustwit Sr. and Ronald E. Hustwit Jr.

87

and has supported them with passages from an impressive knowledge of Wittgensteins texts.The support passages, however, are often
taken out of context and given the oddest interpretations to make
them fit Cooks reading. The Cook theory of reading Wittgenstein
looks to us like an unfalsifiable hypothesis. When a fact of what
Wittgenstein said or meant does not fit with Cooks thesis, he reads
it in a way that shows how it does fit. (For a thorough examination
of Cooks ideas in Wittgenstein: Language and Empiricism, see Ronald
Hustwit Jr.s doctoral dissertation, Meaning As Use: Why Wittgenstein
Is Not An Empiricist.)
Having reiterated the claim that Wittgenstein is an empiricist in
the first section, Cook sets out in the second section of his book to
investigate certain aspects of Wittgensteins practice aspects that
Wittgensteins philosophy has raised among various readers. In each
of these cases, Cook considers what other thinkers have said about
Wittgenstein. Cook either cites them approvingly, if they agree with
his empiricist reading or disapprovingly, if they do not. About neither
group, however, does he believe that they have grasped Wittgensteins
phenomenalism. These issues of practice are: unconscious thought,
conceptual relativism, language-games, and objectivity in science. If
one reads Wittgenstein as an empiricist, phenomenalist, etc., Cook
argues, each of these difficult and misunderstood issues in Wittgenstein will become clear.
The following is a brief sketch of Cooks discussions of these
issues, corresponding to the chapters in which he presents them, with
occasional editorial comments:
Unconscious thought. Cook takes up Wittgensteins interest in
William James and Freud on unconscious thought. He pays particular attention to Wittgensteins analysis of the word was on the tip
of my tongue, in which James too had an interest. Wittgensteins
analysis of this expression, according to Cook, can be reduced to
feelings (phenomena) and behaviour. The same is true of Wittgensteins analysis of Freuds unconscious thought. Cook, however,
ignores the context in which Wittgensteins analysis of unconscious
thought takes place. Wittgenstein, in fact, takes both up as objections
to his work against meaning as hidden and unspoken thoughts. In
this context, his noticing, for example, that we feel as if we know
the word we cant think of is done to show that an analysis can be
made that does not require some hidden stream of words that
parallel our spoken sentences.
2006 The Authors

88

Philosophical Investigations

Conceptual Relativism. Cook claims that Wittgenstein is a conceptual relativist that members of one conceptual community cannot
grasp what it is like to be a member of another conceptual community. Further, he says that this relativism is implied by Wittgensteins phenomenalism. Such an account of Wittgenstein is patently
false and Cooks argument for this view is impossible to follow. On
the one hand, he credits Wittgenstein with saying that trees and tables
are not encountered prior to the formation of our concepts.While
not expressed clearly, this is an acceptable account of Wittgenstein.
But then Cook attributes the following confused idea to Wittgenstein: our senses are flooded with sense-data, and we, by means of
the concepts we invent, organize certain collections of sense-data to
suit our needs and interests. Wittgenstein would not say such a
thing. But if he had, is this evidence for his empiricism? How does
it follow from his starting with sense-data that he is a conceptual
relativist? The claims of the chapter are confused and unsupported.
Language games. Cook interprets Wittgensteins language-games
as presupposing his empiricism and behaviourism. His evidence for
this is that Wittgenstein often compares human linguistic behaviour
to the behaviour of animals and, further, the remark in PI 5 where
Wittgenstein says, the teaching of language is not explanation, but
training. So, allegedly, Wittgenstein thinks that humans learn to play
language-games by being trained like animals. Further, Wittgenstein
often invents language-games that are not played, but might be, in
order to shed light on some problem. Cook refers to them as
bizarre. [Showing different ways of reasoning in Remarks on the
Foundations of Mathematics, Wittgenstein invents a language-game in
which people treat the same amount of wood differently because
one is stacked and the other is not.] These language-games, too, are
reducible to behaviourism. About this language-game Wittgenstein
comments: they go through the motions of buying and selling firewood, albeit according to a logic different from our own. From this
Cook concludes that Wittgensteins view of language is that speaking involves two things: bodies making noises and the behaviour
accompanying those noises. Hence, language-games are based on
behaviourism. It remains a mystery to us how someone who has read
as much Wittgenstein as Cook could make such a claim.
Objectivity in science. In the most interesting chapter in the book,
Cook examines and objects to Wittgensteins relativistic picture of
science. He focuses on remarks of Wittgenstein on causality.Wittgen 2006 The Authors

Ronald E. Hustwit Sr. and Ronald E. Hustwit Jr.

89

stein notices that science presupposes causal explanations. Scientists

do this without considering what they are doing and have no
grounds for doing it. Cook calls Wittgensteins observation about the
scientists attitude curious and optional. He contrasts this scientific attitude with a religious attitude, which he defends over against
the scientific. Wittgenstein thought that primitive religious people
could be quite rational within their framework not simply bad scientists as Frazer suggests. Cook disagrees. Primitive people can be
convinced that their views are wrong (falsified by evidence) and
thereby persuaded by objective standards to adopt a scientific worldview. Cook asserts that in a day when pseudo-scientific nonsense is
abundant, Wittgensteins relativistic views are dangerous as they offer
aid to the enemy. In reality, his conclusions about Wittgensteins relativism are themselves off the mark and dangerous. While his organization of Wittgensteins thoughts on causality are basically accurate,
Cooks misguided conclusions follow from the attribution of the
word optional to Wittgensteins description of scientific thinking.
Optional suggests that Wittgenstein meant that one makes a choice
from several options in accepting the causal-scientific worldview,
while in fact he was merely taking notice of a presupposition of the
scientists thought.
The issues of objectivism and relativism are carried over to the
third main section of The Undiscovered Wittgenstein, subtitled, Belief,
Superstition, and Religion. As the subtitle suggests to Cook explores
Wittgensteins various remarks on religious belief. In aid of this study,
he examines the work of three prominent philosophers who have
made use of Wittgenstein in their work on religious belief: Peter
Winch, D. Z. Phillips, and O. K. Bouwsma. Each, according to Cook,
suffers from a blindness to Wittgensteins phenomenalism, which
determined the course of Wittgensteins thinking on religious belief
and religious language.
Wittgensteins phenomenalism, Cook says, meant that he believed
in nothing beyond phenomena, hence there is no transcendent God.
Religious language the language of those who do believe in a
transcendent God is therefore the expression of an attitude
towards life. Accordingly, religious language is specific to those communities, and idiosyncratic to them (i.e. fideism results from Wittgensteins views). And, though Wittgenstein claims that he discovered this
by examining the use of the language of religious believers, he failed
in this regard. Had he actually examined their language, he would
2006 The Authors

90

Philosophical Investigations

have seen that they talk of a transcendent God and His appearance
in time miracles.
In his remarks on the primitive practices of people, Wittgenstein
held an emotivist view rather than an instrumentalist view. Cook
means that Wittgenstein did not understand those primitive practices
as primitive science, but rather as making those who performed those
practices feel good. He ascribes these views to Peter Winch as well.
Cook counters this emotivist view by citing ethnologists who
describe primitive peoples as instrumentalists that primitives
thought they were actually affecting changes in the natural world.
Though he accuses Wittgenstein and Winch of deciding this issue a
priori, we fail to see how his favouring the ethnologists instrumentalist account is anything other than an a priori decision itself.
On the long misunderstood subject of the applicability of
Wittgensteins languagegames to religious language, Cook adds to
the confusion rather than subtracting from it. He claims that
Wittgenstein was wrong in his view that religious people do not
have beliefs about the world. They do, and their language reflects
these transcendental beliefs. Wittgenstein, Cook says, interprets religious language as merely about the believer, but if he had actually
looked at their language, he would have seen that it was about a
transcendent God and His presence in the world. The language of
religious belief, therefore, is no different from any other language. It
is intended to put forward a belief about some object and should be
verified like any other language of belief. We take it that Cooks
unstated conclusion is that religious language is false or nonsense.
Both Wittgenstein and D. Z. Phillips have recommended that we
not take a realist view of religious language. If we do not take a
realist view, i.e. that it refers to some real object, then we reduce it
to something about the way we feel phenomenalism. But what
then becomes of the future and past tenses in religious language?
God will do . . . and God did. . . . The phenomenalist view then
must deny that there is any meaningful use of future and past tenses
in religious language. This is, according to Cook, exactly what
Wittgenstein and Phillips do. And again, if they had followed
Wittgensteins own advice and actually examined the language of
religious believers, they would have given up this view. Consider the
believers language of the last judgment that Christ will come again
to judge the living and the dead. Wittgenstein says, according to
Cook, that this is not a statement about what will happen in the
2006 The Authors

Ronald E. Hustwit Sr. and Ronald E. Hustwit Jr.

91

future. It looks like: I believe that I will be fined, if I do not pay

my taxes on April 15th, but though it looks like this on the face
of it, it is not. Cook, in contrast to Wittgenstein, believes that it is
like it.
Finally, Cook takes up the essays of O. K. Bouwsma on religious
language. As Bouwsma involves Kierkegaard in his essays, Cook takes
up Kierkegaard and Bouwsma together. Bouwsma reads Kierkegaard
as returning us to the language of scripture to understand the
philosophically absurd language of Christianity. The language of
scripture becomes Wittgensteins ordinary language to which we
must return for philosophical clarity. But Cook says of Kierkegaard
too that he did not actually do this. Like Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard
supposes that the ordinary language of the Bible, which seems to be
temporal language, has a non-temporal meaning, hence Kierkegaards
Absolute Paradox. Kierkegaard, as a result, denies that miracles are
grounds for belief in God. Cook says that Bouwsma makes the same
mistake: miracles cant logically cant be evidence for belief. Both
Kierkegaard and Bouwsma are wrong. An actual study of biblical language shows that miracles are not merely attention getters, but the
basis of belief for those who witness them.Wittgenstein, Kierkegaard,
and Bouwsma are wrong on this matter. Each has denied that biblical language and generally the language of believers is about the
transcendent and is tensed in ordinary ways. Each has been deceived
by his own respective metaphysical views to asserting that miracles
are not grounds for belief in the transcendent and to denying what
is plainly in front of them in the actual language of believers. (Cook:
Bouwsmas metaphysical belief is that ordinary language presents the
real world.)
The Undiscovered Wittgenstein, like Cooks first two books, is a
fantasy an elaborate philosophical fantasy, created, no doubt, on the
basis of an extensive reading of Wittgenstein. Armed with his fantastical theory that Wittgenstein was a neutral monist-phenomenalist, Cook, with painstaking determination, interprets every passage of
Wittgenstein and of his followers as evidence for his theory. His
theory, like all metaphysical theories, is irrefutable. This is the great
fault of the book. One could catch Cook in contradictions for
example, how can the conceptual relativist be a neutral monist? But
pointing out contradictions overlooks and excuses the great fault of
the book. Cooks book is ordinary philosophy treating Wittgensteins
radical break with ordinary philosophy as more ordinary philosophy.
2006 The Authors

92

Philosophical Investigations

The ordinary philosophy Wittgenstein urges that we give up, Cook

takes up. What Wittgenstein writes with practiced indirection, Cook
reads as direct claims.What Wittgenstein offers as method for uncovering the hidden analogies that produce our philosophical discomfiture, Cook treats as more theory making. When Wittgenstein offers
a grammatical distinction as a way of treating a philosophical malady,
we are told that Wittgenstein somehow reduced grammar to phenomena, the explanation of which is never given. He leaves us with
a cold, dead Wittgenstein who treated consistency flippantly.
Nevertheless, we recommend this book to those serious readers
who would understand Wittgenstein. There are two reasons for this
commendation. The first is that if one returns to read the passages
from Wittgenstein that Cook uses to support his theory, one could
make progress in understanding Wittgenstein. If, that is, one can say
how Cook has misunderstood Wittgenstein, one can come to understand something of Wittgenstein for oneself. Further, Cooks misreadings of Wittgenstein are common ones. Each has been made
before. But Cook is better at presenting and defending those misreadings than others. The second commendation for reading Cooks
book is that it may call attention to the radical nature of Wittgensteins project by providing a striking contrast to it. Cook sees
Wittgenstein as presenting theories rather than as presenting a philosophical method. Cooks reading of Wittgenstein can serve as a
warning label to be attached to each of Wittgensteins books: Do
not read this book, as I have, as a book of theories: it may cause illusions of understanding and aspect blindness.
Ronald E. Hustwit Sr.
Philosophy Department
The College of Wooster
Scovel Hall
944 College Mall
Wooster, OH 44691

2006 The Authors

Lt. Ronald E. Hustwit Jr.

Air Combat Command
Beale Air Force Base

Randy Ramal

93

Sara Ellenbogen, Wittgensteins Account of Truth, Suny Press, 2003,

viixv + 148.

Randy Ramal, Claremont Graduate University

Due to the complexity of its subject matter, this book is not easy to
read and the repetitious nature of its main arguments, which is
perhaps necessary for this kind of work, makes it even difficult to
enjoy.Yet it is an important book in that it challenges certain dominant views of Wittgensteins account of truth in a sober and solicitous way. I agree with most of Ellenbogens logical points, especially
her rebuttal of the semantic anti-realism associated with Michael
Dummet and Crispin Wright. But I question her need to interpret
Wittgensteins notions of meaning is use, language-game and form
of life as epistemological concepts, even for the purposes of her
project.
Ellenbogens main argument is that we should reject the antirealist interpretation of Wittgensteins account of truth as the only
viable alternative to the supposedly bankrupt realist accounts of
truth. The anti-realists seek to replace the correspondence theory of
truth, and any methodology that relies on truth-conditions, with a
theory of meaning that defines truth on the basis of justifiable assertibility conditions.They claim that our statements do not acquire their
truth-values from the way things are in the world because many of
these statements, for example, those about the past and the future,
or those about the mental states of other people, are beyond absolute
recognition. This inability to recognize the states of affairs that guarantee the correctness of our statements, the anti-realists claim, justifies us in simply asserting them as true on the basis of common or
public criteria of use that are defeasible in nature.
Ellenbogen makes the powerful argument that the move itself to
abandon the language of truth conditions in favor of assertibility
conditions demonstrates the anti-realists commitment to a realist
methodology that presupposes the correspondence theory of truth.
After all, it is mainly the negative claim that we are unable to
guarantee the truth of our statements in the world, that leads the
anti-realists to be satisfied with assertibility conditions. For Ellenbogen, this shows both the incoherence of the anti-realist perspective
2006 The Authors

94

Philosophical Investigations

and its proponents misinterpretation of Wittgensteins dictum:

meaning is use. Furthermore, the negative claim reveals some confusion about the use of the predicate is true, since the criteria we
use to determine truth vary from one language-game to another,
whereas the anti-realists seem to want to apply is true systematically across our language-games (See pp. 7071). The criteria we use
to say of a certain Jones, for example, that he is in pain, are different from those that we use to assert that the weather is about to
change, but the anti-realists sublime the meaning of is true when
they insist on one account of truth.
Ellenbogen rejects the anti-realist claim that Wittgenstein himself
replaces realism with an anti-realist account of truth that dispenses
entirely with the discourse of truth-conditions. She believes that
Wittgenstein has a third, revisionist alternative to the realistanti-realist viewpoints, and she defends a version of his account of
truth according to which truth conditions are revisable, not defeasible.
She argues, for example, that although Wittgenstein shares the antirealist view that if a statement p is true it must be possible for us to
know that p, he explicitly affirms that statements about the past have
truth-conditions. Her explication is based on a vital distinction that
she makes between truth-values and truth-conditions. The latter, she
rightly claims, change whenever new and relevant factual discoveries
emerge whereas the former do not change at all. For instance, the
statement that the earth is flat was always false because, as we now
know, the earth is round, but people were justified in believing the
earth was flat because the truth-conditions that were available to them
at the time allowed them to have that belief.The truth conditions that
determine what truth-value people use to describe the earth, change,
but the truth-value of the earth, its roundness, does not change.
The distinction Ellenbogen makes between truth-values and truthconditions is quite commanding because it shows that although the
way things are is independent of what we say about them, the truth
itself is not semantically independent of the conditions under which
we say of a statement that it is true.We do not abandon our methods
of testing the truth of our statements when the truth-conditions
change; we simply revise our criteria of judging the truth. For
Ellenbogen, the truth-conditions are themselves determined by criteria under which we assert the truth of our sentences, and these criteria, she argues, are the variety of our language-games. She describes
the notion of a language-game doubly as a criterion of knowledge
2006 The Authors

Randy Ramal

95

and as a collection of conventional rules of language (See, for

example, p.106). Unfortunately, this description makes it seem as if
our language-games are arbitrary and epistemic in nature, and Ellenbogen testifies at least to the latter point, albeit in a footnote (p. 117,
f.n.1).
Ellenbogens emphasis on the epistemological basis of Wittgensteins account of truth is very puzzling considering that she makes
special use of paragraph 94 in On Certainty where Wittgenstein clearly
states that our world pictures are the inherited background against
which we distinguish between true and false premises.Wittgenstein is
interested in the relations that logic has to both language and reality,
but his interest and the relations he discusses are logical for him, not
epistemological. I obviously cannot develop this theme in a book
review and will refer the reader to a recent publication by Rush
Rhees, edited by D. Z. Phillips.1 Rhees forcefully argues that
Wittgensteins interest was always logical, not epistemological.
It seems, however, that Ellenbogen seeks an epistemological
emphasis in order to show that truth and knowledge for Wittgenstein are internally related (p. 59). She knows all too well that the
temptation to think of truth as something beyond knowledge is
strong, and she puts great weight on OC 378 knowledge is based
on acknowledgment in order to show that what makes it correct
to predicate truth of a statement does not outrun our current ways
of establishing knowledge. She locates this temptation, very perceptively in my view, in the confused identification of is true with is
real (p. 111). The Wittgensteinian anti-realists, she claims, including
some pragmatists in this tradition, are subject to this confusion
because of their implicit reliance on a realist methodology. This is
particularly relevant to statements about the past and future, but also
concerning other peoples experiences.
For example, the anti-realists fear that if we rely on behavioural
criteria to determine whether someone is really in pain rather
than simply simulating pain, we would be lost. How would we really
know that a person who behaves as if she is in pain is truly in pain?
Yet the question itself clearly shows the tendency to conflate the
logical status of is true with that of is real, and I think Ellenbogen is right to downplay the fear that the anti-realists have about
1. Rush Rhees, Wittgensteins on Certainty: There Like Our Life, ed. D. Z. Phillips
(Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003).
2006 The Authors

96

Philosophical Investigations

being deceived. As she argues, behavioural criteria are the symptoms

of events such as having pain, not the real criteria for judging that
people are in pain. We normally rely on many factors when determining whether someone is in pain, not merely the behaviour of
the person involved, for example, what we know about the veracity
of that person or the likelihood of deceit if there are circumstances
that would make us suspicious. In other words, the criteria we use
to establish truth have to be met, not simply manifested, in order for
us to say of something that it is true. Furthermore, Ellenbogen rightly
says, pretending to be in pain could not be the norm because we
would not have had criteria for identifying pain at all if people always
simulated pain (p. 87).
I mentioned at the outset of this review that I agree with most
of Ellenbogens arguments and I truly recommend this book for the
reader who wants a complex and deep account of the main controversial perspectives on Wittgensteins account of truth. Ellenbogen
also relies substantially on On Certainty and makes valuable use of
Wittgensteins important discussion of the relation between logical
and empirical propositions. I have suggested, however, that her
emphasis on the need for an epistemic understanding of Wittgensteins notion of language-game, albeit understandable, is something
that is unnecessary. I also have reservations about her understanding
of the notion of form of life.When she addresses the possible charge
that she might be endorsing linguistic idealism and relativism, for
example, she states that her revisionist account of the truth does not
entail that language creates truth or that the world picture that sets
up the truth-conditions are immune from being wrong. Of course,
Wittgenstein never says that language creates truth and, given Ellenbogens distinction between truth-values and truth-conditions, the
point is well taken. However, I think that she walks on thin ice when
she discusses relativism.
Ellenbogen makes it clear that an entire form of life cannot be
called into question at one time, but then she says that this restriction is limited to criticism from within the form of life itself. She
believes that an entire form of life could be shown to be wrong
when another world picture does a better job of explaining the
world. I cannot see how this could make sense since, for Wittgenstein, a form of life is not a practice in a sociological, but a logical,
sense. There could be no form of life for him if the possibility of
error exists at the level of the entire form of life. This is not to deny
2006 The Authors

Dale Jacquette

97

that certain actual practices, in the sociological sense of lived experience, may be confused but these, it seems to me, are not forms of
life in the way Wittgenstein used the term. This may be a minor
issue, but I think Ellenbogen could have avoided a weakness in an
otherwise excellent book.
602 South College Avenue
Claremont, CA 91711
USA

Hans-Johann Glock, Quine and Davidson on Language, Thought and

Reality. Cambridge University Press, 2003; xi + 311 pp. 45.00,
$60.00 (hardcover).

Dale Jacquette, The Pennsylvania State University

W.V.O. Quine and Donald Davidson have occupied a place of unparalleled influence in contemporary analytic philosophy. The impact of
Quines Word and Object, in particular, and the essays collected in
From a Logical Point of View, are still required reading for anyone interested in understanding current developments in theory of meaning
and ontology. Davidson, a student of Quines, through an interconnected series of essays, emerged thereafter as another wing of Quines
school, having enjoyed an almost legendary underground reputation
for many previous years. Davidsons work in action theory and philosophy of mind, and more especially his attempt to extend Alfred
Tarskis truth semantics from formal to natural languages, complemented Quines program, despite important differences, and
cemented the Quine-Davidson vanguard as foundation stones of
post-WWII American logico-linguistic philosophy.
Hans-Johann Glocks book, Quine and Davidson on Language,
Thought and Reality, critically examines major themes in the philosophy of these two thinkers. He focuses, as appropriate, primarily on
Quine, devoting roughly two-thirds of the study to his work, and
the remainder to interspersed discussions of Davidson. The book
2006 The Authors

98

Philosophical Investigations

begins with a short Introduction, in which Glock explains his motivations and critical orientation, and outlines the contents and conclusions of the nine chapters to follow. There are detailed treatments
of the topics anyone with even a passing familiarity with Quines
and Davidsons ideas would naturally expect, sprinkled with a few
interesting surprises. One such unusual topic is taken up in the final
chapter, where Glock delves into the question of the mental states
of nonhuman animals, given their apparent inability to express concepts linguistically. The problem arises naturally as a way of challenging the limited third-person perspective of Quines behavioristic
account of stimulus-meanings and the problem of radical translation,
morphed by Davidson into the problem of radical interpretation.
Glock writes lucidly and entertainingly. His arguments are penetrating and deserving of serious reflection, and he has an enviable
talent for bringing together the disparate elements of these philosophers standpoints on various issues to make them understandable as
a target of criticism. Glock begins with a comparative discussion of
Quine and Davidsons philosophies as a convergent product of logical
positivism, especially through the writings of Rudolf Carnap, and
American pragmatism from the standpoint of William James and C.
S. Peirce. Glock attacks Quines syntactical criterion of ontological
commitment as irreducibly intensional, and hence at odds with
Quines preference for a purely extensional semantics. He offers a
close reading of Quines efforts to dissolve the analytic-synthetic distinction in the latters landmark essay, Two Dogmas of Empiricism,
arguing that Quines early attack on analyticity is the source of his
longstanding naturalism in epistemology and ontology. He criticizes
Davidsons efforts to make Tarskis concept of truth in closed formal
languages the basis for a theory of meaning in open natural languages, leading to Davidsons more recent declaration that the
concept of truth is so basic as to be indefinable. The problem of
radical translation in Quines philosophy and of radical interpretation in Davidson is examined by Glock in three extensive chapters.
Quine introduces radical translation as a way of undermining intensional entities in the theory of meaning, but Glock argues that the
behavioristic model of radical translation is unsuited for this task, as
the actual practice of field linguistics effectively demonstrates. He
concludes that the need to make anthropological assumptions in any
radical translation or interpretation scenario invalidates the purely
behavioristic assumptions of Quines thought experiment and the
2006 The Authors

Dale Jacquette

99

restriction to purely physical data in Davidsons version. The related

but distinct theories of meaning in Quine and Davidson are criticized by Glock in a final chapter that focuses on Davidsons implausible thesis that non-linguistic animals are incapable of having beliefs
and desires. Glock refutes Davidsons arguments for the inference on
a variety of grounds, leaving the field free for a return to commonsense attributions of simple thoughts to non-linguistic animals.
Although I am substantially in agreement with many of Glocks
objections to Quine and Davidson, I find the organization of topics
and narrative thread in Glocks book confusing and hard to follow.
There is a back and forth interplay of discussion of Quine and
Davidson on a variety of related topics without any overarching thematic plan, and I did not always have a clear view of the segues by
which one chapter followed another.The book, indeed, presents itself
as largely a treatment of the problems of radical translation and
radical interpretation fully a third of its content to which ancillary topics are attached. We learn that Quine and Davidson, especially, shifted ground considerably over the years, but we are not
given any clear roadmap at the outset to help understand when and
why such changes of position occurred.The Introduction could have
served this purpose, but the space was devoted instead to a cursory
summation of conclusions and attitudes about Quine and Davidson
that I found lacking in context at that early juncture and more useful
to reread only after I had worked through the rest of the book.
Glock picks up traction once he enters Chapter 1, but thereafter it
is hard again to keep Quines position in focus as talk of Davidson
distracts from the account of how Quines ideas evolved. The same
is true in trying to follow the account of Davidson, interrupted
thereafter by intrusions of Quine. Overall, I had the sense of trying
to watch two different movies on television, switching back and forth
between them with the zapper every half-hour or so, not being able
to follow either as a result with any satisfying continuity.
My further criticisms of Glocks exposition for the most part are
not objections as such, but regrets that he did not elaborate further
on some of the implications of his reasoning. What I find interesting about the transition from Quine to Davidson is that Davidson
shows the first signs of a greening of American analytic philosophy.
Quine, like Russell after 1905, aspires to make the theory of meaning
purely extensional and purely a matter of reference. Davidson seems
sympathetic in principle to some version of Quines program, and
2006 The Authors

100

Philosophical Investigations

wants to see it advanced as far as possible, but he is considerably less

sanguine than Quine about the prospects of its success. Accordingly,
he introduces what he hopes will be the minimum of intensionality that will yet enable a Tarskian theory of truth to underwrite a
semantics of natural language. As Glock rightly argues, Davidsons
attenuated intensionality is not enough to provide the foundation for
an adequate theory of meaning.
It was not madness for theorists in the pioneering days of analytic philosophy in the United States to have experimented with a
strict extensionalism, and their efforts enable us to see how far it
might be pressed. It would, however, be an inexcusable failure of
judgment for continuing generations not to appreciate the inherent
limitations of such an approach, and not to correct the explanatory
deficiencies in a purely extensional theory of mind and meaning by
recognizing the need to supplement old school extensionalism with
a robust ontic intentionality and linguistic-semantic intensionality.
Davidson was beginning to move in the right direction. He should
be applauded for perceiving the limitations of Quines too austerely
extensional and hopelessly third-person behavioristic semantics. The
problem of radical translation, as John R. Searle has acutely observed,
is the reductio ad absurdum of Quines theory of meaning. Glock does
not quite agree with this assessment, but it is possible that this is
because he does not understand radical translation as radically as
Quine. Davidsons several formulations of a sort of property dualism
or anomalous monism in the metaphysics of mind, another anathema to Quines philosophical behaviorism, is a further indication that
Davidson has sensed the limitations of Quines pure extensionalism
applied to psychology, and casts about for the most conservative way
possible to repair the defect by opening the door to intensionality
and a limited place for the intentionality of thought.
The alliance of Quines semantics and behavioristic psychology
appears particularly atavistic in this light. At the time in the early
1960s it may have seemed like a way to dovetail cutting edge scientific psychology with philosophical semantics.The decision to link
the fate of his theory of meaning with what soon turned out to be
a theoretically pass way of doing psychology was undoubtedly an
unfortunate judgment call on Quines part. If in the 1950s we had
expected dogma-less philosophy from the author of Two Dogmas
of Empiricism, we were fated to be disappointed in a rather spectacular way. The fact is that while positivism had run its course in
2006 The Authors

Dale Jacquette

101

physics and other hard sciences, the newly emerging discipline of

experimental psychology sought to establish its scientific credentials
by being more positivistic than physics had ever actually been.While
psychology eventually has liberated itself from the strictures of positivistic methodologies, several generations of Quines followers who
have wanted as Quine did to make semantic philosophy scientific
have adhered to a narrow conception of science that has been abandoned by virtually all of the rest of its practitioners, and whose
inconsistencies and inadequacies to the data appear in many places
throughout Quines philosophy. Glock calls attention to some of the
most glaring of these; but there are many other examples that plague
Quines extensionalist account of meaning, some of which, including the problem of radical translation, he touts, not as embarrassments, but as interesting implications of the theory.
Among the topics on which I would have liked to see Glock
enlarge is the extent to which his critique of Quine and Davidson
reflects back on the more fundamental assumptions that have provided the underpinning for analytic philosophy from its inception.
How much remains intact if Glocks criticisms are correct? In the
Introduction, Glock writes: If [Quine and Davidson] suffer from the
shortcomings I diagnose, this has far-reaching methodological and
substantive implications (11). True that. But how far-reaching are
they, and who bites the dust, if Glock is right, along with Quine and
Davidson? Tarski? Carnap? Peirce? Russell? Frege? How far does the
damage extend? And what if anything are we left with that is still
recognizably a part of analytic philosophy? Just how ambitious is
Glocks critique, and what does he propose to offer in place of the
ruins after his demolition work is complete?
Glock (5) hints at a return to Wittgenstein, but Wittgenstein
arguably inherits many of the same difficulties as Quine. Radical
translation is not much different from the problem of ostensive
underdetermination of reference to which Wittgenstein calls attention in Philosophical Investigations 2830; 3335; 38. Here he considers the inability of pure behavioral ostension to explain the
reference of a name in the absence of a shared form of life. Is the
teacher pointing at an object, its color, the space surrounding it?
Where, exactly, is the finger pointing? What is the significance of
extending a finger? Compare: Does verbal behavior in uttering
Gavagai name a rabbit or sequence of undetached rabbit parts? A
possible defect of Glocks discussion of Quine and Davidson on
2006 The Authors

102

Philosophical Investigations

radical translation and radical interpretation arises in this connection,

in that Glock considers only conspecific translation challenges. He
refers exclusively to fieldwork involving other human speakers whose
language we do not yet know, but whose behavior, including facial
expressions and body language, we believe ourselves to understand
as in some sense universally human. Here, obviously, the theoretical
problems of radical translation are overcome in practice.The nagging
theoretical question that remains concerns the standards of meaning
equivalence that we can and should be satisfied with philosophically
as opposed to practically. Even with a completed linguists field
manual in hand, one that enables us to communicate with remote
language users to all practical intents and purposes, we can and probably always should still wonder whether and to what extent our conceptual and grammatical categories positively reflect those of the
speakers whose languages we are trying to translate.
Arguably, the problem of radical translation in Quine and radical
interpretation in Davidson is not supposed to be limited to language
use by other human beings, for which Quine at least acknowledges
that there are practically expedient solutions that are good enough
for jazz and government work.We can always ratchet up the problem
by considering how we could possibly understand the linguistic and
other behavior of intelligent non-human language users, such as
extraterrestrials. Here we do well to remember and reflect on
Wittgensteins cautionary remark: If a lion could talk, we could
not understand him (PI II, p. 223). Quine, of course, cannot avail
himself of Wittgensteins Lebensformen or of his concept of rulefollowing in language game playing, since Quine will be hard-pressed
to make room in his behavioristic framework for Wittgensteins
essential concept of the point and purpose of a game by reference
to which its rules have application.The later Wittgenstein, moreover,
however equivocally, unlike Quine, staunchly disavows (PI 307)
being a behaviorist. So there is hope, but no obvious solution to
Quines and Davidsons constraints in Wittgenstein. Exactly how
Wittgenstein might be able to rescue analytic philosophy from the
Quine-Davidson straightjacket is something for which other readers
of Glocks book I am sure would also appreciate a few more substantial hints.
In another hundred years, perhaps, the early extensionalist phase
of analytic semantic philosophy and metaphysics will be looked back
upon with something like the bemusement now reserved for thinkers
2006 The Authors

Dale Jacquette

103

like Berkeley. It will be considered important to study their work,

not because what they offer points toward complete and correct
solutions to the problems with which they were preoccupied, but
because they so instructively and decisively but at the same time disastrously demonstrate the consequences of making too restrictive a
philosophical starting-place.They will be worth reading because they
show through the failure of their projects just how wrong things can
go when those limited resources are pushed to the extreme in trying
to accomplish more than they can possibly hope to achieve. At least
we know in retrospect today not to adopt an empiricism as epistemically austere as Berkeleys if we also want to avoid his radical
idealism and philosophical reliance on the existence of God. With
Glocks and other critics help we may also be prepared sooner rather
than later to see that we should not try to make do in logic, semantics, philosophy of language, philosophical psychology and ontology
with an extensionalism as rarified as Quines.
Davidson seems to recognize these limitations, and moves away
from what for many years had come to be established as authoritative mainstream analytic philosophy in much of the Anglo-American philosophical community; not a flight, by any means, but at least
a few baby steps, toward intension. Glock, in his desire to convince
us that Davidson has not distanced himself from Quines project far
enough or in the right sort of ways to establish a satisfactory theory
of meaning, does not praise Davidson sufficiently for this accomplishment; yet Glock also has not pointed us in a more promising
direction. Perhaps that will be the subject of Glocks next book;
perhaps in due course we will learn that the greater part of the
history of analytic philosophy needs to be worked through and then
cast aside like Wittgensteins ladder, in order to see language, thought
and reality aright, and to proceed beyond the instructive limitations
of Quine and Davidson to a more fruitful future of philosophical
analysis.
Department of Philosophy
The Pennsylvania State University
246 Sparks Building
University Park, PA 16802 / USA
dlj4@psu.edu
http://www.personal.psu.edu/dlj4/
2006 The Authors

104

Philosophical Investigations

Geoffrey Scarre, After Evil, Responding to Wrongdoing Ashgate.

Aldershot. 2004 pp. vii + 202 Price 42.50

R. A. Sharpe, University of Wales, Lampeter

Geoffrey Scarres new book focuses on ideas so central to the Christian tradition and to the post-Christian world in which most of us
live that it is a pity that this lucid survey is not immediately available in paperback. For, before I list some of the inevitable reservations and disagreements that another philosopher will have, let me
commend it as a clear, readable and thorough account of the very
considerable quantity of work recently published on these topics, in
particular on forgiveness. Scarre seems to be au fait with pretty well
all the relevant material and his survey is, as far as I can judge, accurate and his objections well-argued. Scarre is a Utilitarian, which surprised me a little since I regard Utilitarians with something of the
astonishment I reserve for creationists from the American south, but
he is a very enlightened Utilitarian and on most issues, such as the
treatment of punishment, his Utilitarianism seemed very mild
indeed.
The centre of this study is the concept of evil and of our responses
to it, viewed in secular terms; he follows a discussion of evil with a
substantial analysis of forgiveness and continues with discussions of
mercy, revenge and resentment, and, at some length, punishment. My
own interest is currently in the concept of forgiveness and, inevitably,
I have more to say on this topic. By parity of reasoning I suspect
other readers will find more to disagree with in the section on punishment than I could find. He begins with a very broad definition
of evil too broad, I thought. There is something to be said for
reserving the term for really gross wrong-doing. As against this,
however, as he says, there is no doubt that cancer, earthquakes and
floods have been traditionally treated in theodicies as natural evils.
A more circumscribed definition would follow Eve Garrard in treating evil as moral action where the considerations against the act have
been silenced not simply outweighed. They have been put out of
court altogether and such an analysis might have the very considerable advantage of connecting evil with the unforgivable, though this
would have to be argued, and it would remain to be settled whether
2006 The Authors

R. A. Sharpe

105

actions which are unforgivable overlap with actions which are evil
or whether one is a sub-class of the other. There is going to be an
element of stipulation here. Against Garrard, Scarre points out that
many agents perform evil actions by allowing other considerations
to outweigh those which militate against them. Macbeth or Raskolnikov offer examples.
Scarre thinks that both the notions of evil and of forgiveness are
multi-faceted or multi-form, by which I think he means systematically ambiguous. Rather different forms are gathered together under
one heading. I was not convinced that evil is multi-form. It is, it
seems, what used to be rather simplistically termed an evaluative
concept; Scarre acknowledges this when he says that it has little
explanatory value and is no substitute for a close moral analysis.
Perhaps we might agree that somebody who refused to call the holocaust evil might have a less than adequate grasp of the concept,
though this is by no means clear an anti-Semite with a racist ideology might use the word evil much as we do in other contexts but we would presume, until we know the worst about him, that he
is ignorant of certain facts about the matter. For in general people
who use the word evil to describe very different events reveal differences in moral judgement but not differences in the content of
the word.
Forgiveness, however, does seem to be multifaceted. To take only
the most striking feature, often noted and discussed here, forgiveness
is regularly treated as if it were a speech-act but there are many cases
where it seems not to be an act at all. The question arises directly
when we consider whether forgiveness requires overcoming resentment. The process involved is likely to be lengthy, to involve focusing attention away from the offence and it is hard to see that this
could be an action in any direct way. Even if we treat I forgive you
as a performative which commits the speaker not to seek revenge, a
theory which has been suggested by those who think it can be a
speech act, still it does not seem on all fours with a speech act such
as promising. If you forgave and then sought revenge, the offender
would be entitled to say not But you forgave me, thus paralleling
You promised me but You said you forgave me (but you did not.)
Consequently, there seems no logical difficulty with forgiving being
subsequently withdrawn or with the offended thinking she has been
forgiven when she has not. Indeed, in so much as forgiveness can
be an act it seems to collapse into the notion of pardoning and par 2006 The Authors

106

Philosophical Investigations

doning might certainly co-exist with continued resentment. And yet

one can imagine fairly trivial contexts where it could be a speech
act.
The alternative to an act of forgiveness will be something like the
following. (It is a view which Scarre comes close to at points in his
discussion of letting go and is hinted at by other writers on the
topic such as Norvin Richards). A friend says something cutting and
unfair to you. You feel injured and resentful. But the weeks go by;
neither mentions the matter to the other and relations return to their
former equable ways.The sense of injury fades. An apology from the
offender might have helped along the process but none was forthcoming.You have not forgotten but the injury no longer matters. At
no point have you decided to forgive; there was no act of forgiveness. Indeed if you were now to make explicit the forgiveness
you would be making a song and dance about it which might well
damage any rapprochement.You have decided that it would be petty
to persist. Life is too short, or Let bygones be bygones, you may
say. It would not be accurate to describe this as forgetting. The
offended party has not forgotten. Neither is this simply pardon for
pardon has the same implication as forgive. It suggests that an act
has been performed. Nor is this necessarily reconciliation. The
offender may be hostile towards the offended and so there is no
coming together. There may be forgiveness by one party without
reconciliation. The opposite to forgiveness is nursing a grudge.
Nursing a grudge suggests a deliberate nurturing of the resentment.
It means keeping it alive by a deliberate reflecting on it, feeding it
by constantly returning to it. I incline to the view that letting go
is both more common than an act of forgiveness and that it is honourable. Better to allow injuries to fade and resentments to die. This
has some of the features we intuitively think of as involved in forgiveness but some, too, are missing. At its best it is an unconsidered
process free from striving. However context has a bearing on all of
this. If somebody injures your child and you merely feel sad at their
wrong-doing, something is wrong. It suggests a detachment which
does not reflect well upon you. A proper care and affection for those
you love means that you are protective of them and that means that
you feel both angry and resentful at their ill-treatment. If you are
angry and resentful, as you should be, then it will take time to deal
with this and this process of a progressive, developing neglect is what
2006 The Authors

R. A. Sharpe

107

replaces forgiveness conceived as an act. Then I have forgiven seems

more idiomatic than I forgive.
I have said that Scarre comes near embracing letting go. It seems
to me one of the best ideas in his book. But I dont think he fully
endorses it. For him it is one form of forgiveness whereas I suspect
that it is at its heart, (without wanting to deny that forgiveness has
other usages). A reason perhaps why he does not place it at the centre
of the concept is that it is difficult to handle in Utilitarian terms.
For Utilitarianism is primarily an ethical theory about action and
forgiveness as described here is a process and not an act. A second
consideration is that if forgiveness is beneficial in utility and recommended in those terms it could not be, as it seems often to be,
an act of supererogation, a concept which is notoriously difficult for
Utilitarians to handle. For if it is beneficial it will always be a duty.
There are many insights and acute reflections here and any
philosopher interested in these topics could not fail to benefit, as I
have done, from reading it. There is much else of interest to which
a review cannot do justice.

2006 The Authors