Canon members

Adrian Walsh
A COMPANION TO PHILOSOPHY IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

edited by Graham Oppy et al.

Monash University Publishing $59.95 pb, 734 pp, 9780980651201

arly in Murray Bails novel The Pages (2008), we nd the following commentary on the very idea of philosophical research being undertaken in Australia:
How anyone can believe that Sydney could produce in its own backyard a philosopher of world signicance or even minor signicance shows how little understanding there is of the conditions required for philosophical thought.

Bail suggests that Sydney with its beautiful beaches and bright sunlight, its convict heritage and its breezy selfcondence is a place unt for the kind of introspection required of the philosopher. Even if the environment were more conducive to philosophical reection, by the time this country began standing on its own two feet, the important philosophical questions had more or less been settled. All that remained were mere paltry questions of exegesis. Bail would presumably be astonished by the publication of this 700-page volume dedicated to the achievements of Australasian philosophy, the great majority of which concerns developments since World War II, many of them occurring in Sydney and, for that matter, long after the epoch when such problems were meant to be solved. Nor is this the rst such attempt to tell the story of Australasian philosophy: two notable earlier eorts are Selwyn Graves A History of Philosophy in Australia (1984) and James Franklins Corrupting the Youth: A History of Philosophy in Australia (2003). The Companion, which contains entries from nearly 200 contributors, bears witness to the richness and signicance of the Australasian contribu-

tion to English-speaking philosophy, especially over the past sixty years. In many areas of philosophical enquiry, philosophers from the antipodes have been more than simple purveyors of the most recent developments in Europe or North America, have inuenced the debates themselves. This is especially true in metaphysics and philosophy of mind where people such as David Armstrong, Frank Jackson, J.J.C. Smart and David Chalmers have developed distinctive doctrines. But it would be a mistake to think this contribution is restricted to these two areas, since important work has also been undertaken in political philosophy, logic, ethics, and epistemology. One need only think of the important work of the bioethicist and animal rights activist Peter Singer to realise that Australasian philosophers have been concerned with more than just universals and the relationship between the mind and brain. Arranged in alphabetical order, the Companion provides, for the curious as well as the cognoscenti, an essential guide to the central debates and major currents of thought within Australasian philosophy. Inside, we nd reports on the histories of most departments and research centres in the region, discussions of local work on seemingly obscure doctrines such as functionalism, consequentialism, existentialism, and dualism, and accounts of how certain sub-disciplines, such as bioethics and the philosophy of mind, have developed, and nally biographical entries on signicant gures. It is a volume into which one can continually dip and discover new items of great interest. Can one observe a regional mode of thinking among all of these contributions? Is there a distinctive antipodean philosophical style? In the past, some commentators on the Australian scene have attempted to draw a connection between the hard-nosed realism of many of the most well-known local gures and the supposedly no-nonsense character of the Australian people. As partial evidence, defenders of this idea often point to Australian Materialism according to which the mind is nothing-but the brain which many philosophers in the 1960s and 1970s

ARS SACRA: CHRISTIAN ART AND ARCHITECTURE OF THE WESTERN WORLD FROM THE VERY BEGINNING UP UNTIL TODAY
h.f. Ullmann $350 hb, 800 pp, 9783833151408

edited by Rolf Toman and Thomas Paen

ho says printed books are dead and that the e-book is the future? Ars Sacra, weighing in at eleven kilos, with eight hundred pages and two thousand colour images, sets a new standard for the coee-table book. While an iPad version would be lighter and not require a reinforced table, justice can only be done to this large-format book in printed form. Spanning late antiquity to the present, Ars Sacra presents the Christian artistic tradition through its greatest monuments and works of art. While many of the illustrations are familiar Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque are well covered the photographs are superb. Some buildings have multiple images and those from Poland and Russia, for instance, show the important regional architectural styles that developed away from the sphere of Rome. This sumptuous tome from German publisher h.f. Ullmann is written by a team of authors. As the extensive subtitle suggests, the ample scale is justied. Such volumes are only viable with huge print runs, printed in China. Sales in Australia may have been given a boost by the publicity surrounding our homegrown addition to the sainthood. Many will use this book for armchair or future travel and to enjoy the ecclesiastical marvels presented therein. In addition to exteriors and interiors of churches, numerous images of their key treasures paintings, sculptures, and objects are included. For the pictures alone, this book is worth acquiring. As might be expected in such a big production, with translated texts by multiple authors, the English text is sometimes awkward. The church titles are given only in English, which can be confusing, since English church enthusiasts usually have to know their Italian, French, or German names in order to locate them. Whatever these minor concerns, Ars Sacra will be justly bought and enjoyed for its wealth of images. Christopher Menz
P H I LO S O P H Y 59

How Australia Decides

Election Reporting and the Media Sally Young

Political reporting is said to be too influenced by commercial concerns, too obsessed with gossip and scandal, and too focused on trivia and sound bites at the expense of serious issues. This book, based on a four-year study, puts these allegations to the test, showing how election reporting has changed over time, and how political news audiences, news production and shifts in political campaigning are influencing media content.
PB 978-0-521-14707-1 $49.95 352pp

The Architect of Victory

The Military Career of Lieutenant General Sir Frank Horton Berrymans Peter Dean

With access to rare private papers, Peter Dean charts Berrymans special relationships with senior US and Australian officers and explains why the man poised to become the next Chief of General Staff would never fulfil his ambition.
HB 97-8-0521-76685-2 $59.95 416pp

Mass Appeal
The Formative Age of the Movies, Radio, and TV Edward D. Berkowitz

Mass Appeal describes the changing world of American popular culture from the first sound movies through the age of television. In short vignettes, the book reveals the career patterns of people who became big movie, TV, or radio stars. Fred Astaire, Jack Benny, Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, Bob Hope, Walt Disney, Woody Allen, and Lucille Ball are all featured here.
PB 978-0-521-71777-9 $49.95 224pp

www.cambridge.edu.au

saw as a dening feature of our thinking. This was regarded as a common project. Our contribution to the world of ideas would be to rid the world of belief in non-material things. No such common purpose exists today. Indeed, reading the Companion, one is constantly struck by the diversity of ideas and philosophical styles. And the claim that one could connect substantive philosophical doctrines to national characteristics was always implausible. Undoubtedly, the most controversial aspect of the Companion is the inclusion of a set of biographical entries. Singling out some philosophers for special attention was always going to be an activity fraught with considerable danger for a publication of this kind, and the ve editors note in their introduction that it was an innovation foisted upon them by the publisher. Unsurprisingly, it has already met with some negative commentary: notably in the Australian edition of The Spectator where Peter Coleman fulminates on David Stoves absence. Coleman attempts to explain the omission in terms of the long-standing SydneyMelbourne rivalry and Stoves mocking of the ways of Melbourne philosophers. But this hardly squares with the evidence, since one striking omission is the Melbourne philosopher Raimond Gaita, the author of a number of important philosophical works. Nonetheless, there are genuine grounds for concern here, since the Companion will undoubtedly play a role in the ongoing formation of the canon of signicant Australasian thinkers. I see no problems whatsoever with the list of thinkers included indeed, they are all worthy members of the canon it is the omissions that are of concern. It would perhaps have been better not to include these entries at all. Another surprising feature of the book is the attention devoted to continental philosophy. For many years now, a distinction has been drawn between continental and analytic philosophy, and the arguments between thinkers on both sides of the divide have often been quite bitter. It is dicult to explain the dierence between these traditions without engaging in some kind of persuasive denition in which one praises one side

at the expense of the other. However, for the purposes of brevity, we might say that analytic philosophy focuses on the analysis of propositions and inference, whereas continental philosophy has been far more concerned with how ones historical situation places limits on what ideas it is possible for one to conceive. We need not debate the relative merits of each approach here, but in the Australasian context it is exceedingly odd to focus so extensively on the continental strand in our thought, since it has had far less impact on the international scene. (By the way, if Bail has continental philosophy exclusively in mind, then that might explain his negative take on our intellectual history.) Despite the signicant achievements of Australasian philosophers, the perception of Australasia as a region of unintellectual hedonists remains, a prejudice that literary works such as Bails only serve to perpetuate. One might hope that the Companion will go some way towards addressing the lack of recognition among the general public and that, in its own small way, it might have some such eect, though it is unlikely that the kind of philosophy for which Australasian philosophers are most well known is ever likely to strike a chord with the average person. Of more concern although it is not unconnected is the thought that the glory days of Australasian philosophy might be behind us. Funding cuts to the Humanities in most universities, as many readers will be aware, have undermined the ability of formerly great departments to sustain research at the level to which we have become accustomed. Many of our nest young philosophers have left in search of better opportunities. Perhaps this is an overly negative reading of the situation, and the golden age will continue. Either way, the Companion stands as a faithful record of what has been a remarkable intellectual achievement from a part of the world in which some sceptics believe geist could not dwell. Adrian Walsh is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at the University of New England.

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D E C EM B ER 2010 JA N UA RY 2011

AUSTRALIAN BOOK REVIEW