LIVING HIGH AND LETTING DIE: OUR ILLUSION OF INNOCENCE
Peter Unger
Oxford University Press, 1996, xii + 187 pgs.
Even when compared with other works of philosophy, this is an odd book. Readers who have been spared much acquaintance with contemporary moral philosophy will be inclined to toss the book away when they learn its central thesis.
PASSIONS AND CONSTRAINT
Stephen Holmes
University of Chicago Press, 1995, xiii + 337 pgs.
SELF-OWNERSHIP, FREEDOM, AND EQUALITY
G.A. Cohen
Cambridge University Press, 1995, x + 277 pgs.
G.A. Cohen is my favorite Marxist. He takes libertarian-political theory with extreme seriousness, and again and again he makes points devastating to socialism.
THE COLLECTED WORKS OF F.A. HAYEK, VOLUME 10
Edited by Bruce Caldwell
University of Chicago Press, 1997,x + 270 pgs.
DRAWN WITH THE SWORD
James M. McPherson
Oxford University Press, 1996, xiv+258 pgs.
As usual, let us begin with a paradox. James McPherson, a leading historian of the Civil War, ardently supports the Union cause and views Abraham Lincoln as an outstanding champion of “positive liberalism” (p. 183). Yet M.E. Bradford, in recent years the foremost advocate of Southern traditional conservatism, thought highly of McPherson and his work. Can such things be?
VINDICATING THE FOUNDERS
Thomas G. West
Rowman Littlefield, 1997, xv + 218 pgs.
“AUSTRIAN AND NEOCLASSICAL ECONOMICS: ANY GAINS FROM TRADE?”
Sherwin Rosen
and
“AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS, NEOCLASSICISM, AND THE MARKET TEST”
Leland B. Yeager
Journal of Economic Perspectives 11, no. 4 (Fall 1997): 139–65
“AUSTRIAN AND NEOCLASSICAL ECONOMICS: ANY GAINS FROM TRADE?”
Sherwin Rosen
“AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS, NEOCLASSICISM, AND THE MARKET TEST”
Leland B. Yeager
Journal of Economic Perspectives 11, no. 4 (Fall 1997): 139-65
THE FOUNDATIONS OF AUSTRIAN ECONOMICS FROM MENGER TO MISES: A CRITICO-HISTORICAL RETROSPECTIVE OF SUBJECTIVISM
Allen Oakley
Edward Elgar, 1997, x + 258 pgs.
RELATIVISM: FEET FIRMLY PLANTED IN MID-AIR
Francis J. Beckwith and Gregory Koukl
Baker Books, 1998, 189 pgs.
Part of the fun of studying philosophy is that it is a very difficult, technical subject. If you know the meaning of “rigid designator,” the “inscrutability of reference,” and the “private-language argument,” you can gloat in your presumed superiority to those who have no inkling of the complexities these phrases suggest.
