[Aapt-list] call for reviewers

[David Sackris]

Greetings,

My name is David Sackris and I am the book reviews editor for the
journal *Teaching
Philosophy* <https://www.pdcnet.org/teachphil/Editorial-Team>. I am looking
for individuals interested in reviewing the following works (see below).
The aim would be to complete the review by 5/26, 2024. If you believe you
would be well-suited to review one of the books on this list, please
contact me and let me know. If you have any questions about performing a
book review for *Teaching Philosophy*, please feel free to contact me on
that front as well. I am also open to suggestions of new books that might
deserve to be reviewed in the journal, given its aims.

Thank you,

Dave



David Sackris

Book Review Editor, *Teaching Philosophy*

Philosophy Program Chair

Arapahoe Community College

david.sackris at gmail.com




1)      *Aesthetic Life and Why It Matters*
<https://global.oup.com/academic/product/aesthetic-life-and-why-it-matters-9780197748510?lang=en&cc=ca>
by
Dominic McIver Lopes, Bence Nanay, and Nick Riggle—Oxford University Press

As the sunset swings into view, you think, "That's beautiful." You take a
bite of cake and you think, "Wow, that's sweet"-maybe too sweet. You hear
that new song and it blows you away. You play it for your friends. The
novel is wonderful, the movie disappoints, the dress looked better in the
store. *Aesthetic Life and Why It Matters* offers three new answers to
Socrates's great question about how we should live that focus on the place
of aesthetic engagement in well-being. Three philosophers offer their
perspectives on how aesthetic commitments move us through the world and
shape our well-being, our sense of self, and our connections to others.
Aesthetic engagement is a site for achievement, it cultivates individuality
within a context of community, and it satisfies a hunger for exploring our
differences. A closing dialogue between the authors probes some flash
points in thinking about value: disagreement, subjectivism, ethnocentrism,
fads and fashions, and ideology critique. Written in appealing prose, with
vivid examples, a comprehensive introduction, and suggestions for further
reading, the book is designed as a self-contained module in aesthetics for
introductory courses in philosophy.

2)      *Beyond the Binary*
<https://broadviewpress.com/product/beyond-the-binary-thinking-about-sex-and-gender-second-edition/#tab-description>by
Shannon Dea—Broadview

How are sex and gender related? Are they the same thing? What exactly is
gender? How many genders are there? What is the science on all of this? Is
gender a product of nature, nurture, or both? This book introduces readers
to fundamental questions about sex and gender categories as they’ve been
considered across the centuries and through a wide array of disciplines and
perspectives. From the Bible to Darwin, from Enlightenment thinkers to
contemporary trans philosophers, *Beyond the Binary* offers an accessible
survey of the wide range of views about sex and gender. This revised and
expanded edition uses updated terminology and diagnostic criteria and
offers new material with a greater focus on trans, Indigenous, racialized,
and subaltern thinkers. It includes useful discussion questions and further
reading recommendations at the end of each chapter, as well as an extensive
glossary of terms.

3)      *Logic for Justice: An Introduction to Formal Logic with an
Emphasis on Political Reform*
<https://www.routledge.com/Logic-for-Justice-An-Introduction-to-Formal-Logic-with-an-Emphasis-on-Political/Wilhelm/p/book/9781003200970>
by Isaac Wilhelm—Routledge

An introductory textbook, Logic for Justice covers, in full detail, the
language and semantics of both propositional logic and first-order logic.
It motivates the study of those logical systems by drawing on social and
political issues. Basically, Logic for Justice frames propositional logic
and first-order logic as two theories of the distinction between good
arguments and bad arguments. And the book explains why, for the purposes of
social justice and political reform, we need theories of that distinction.

In addition, Logic for Justice is extremely lucid, thorough, and clear. It
explains, and motivates, many different features of the formalism of
propositional logic and first-order logic, always connecting those features
back to real-world issues.

4)      *Ways of Being in the World: An Introduction to Indigenous
Philosophies of Turtle Island*
<https://broadviewpress.com/product/ways-of-being-in-the-world/#tab-description>
edited by Andrea Sullivan-Clarke—Broadview

*Ways of Being in the World* is an anthology of the Indigenous
philosophical thought of communities across Turtle Island, offering
readings on a variety of topics spanning many times and geographic
locations. It was created especially to meet the needs of instructors who
want to add Indigenous philosophy to their courses but are unsure where to
begin—as well as for students, Indigenous or otherwise, who wish to broaden
their horizons with materials not found in the typical philosophy course.
This collection is an invitation to embark on a relationship with
Indigenous peoples through the introduction of their unique philosophies.

*
<https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691247823/changing-the-game>*

*5)      Changing the Game: William G. Bowen and the Challenges of American
Higher Education
<https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691247823/changing-the-game>*
by Nancy Weiss Malkiel—Princeton University Press



As provost and then president of Princeton University, William G. Bowen
(1933–2016) took on the biggest and most complex challenges confronting
higher education: cost disease, inclusion, affirmative action, college
access, and college completion. Later, as president of the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation, he took his vision for higher education—and the strategies for
accomplishing that vision—to a larger arena. Along the way, he wrote a
series of influential books, including the widely read The Shape of the
River (coauthored with Derek Bok), which documented the success of policies
designed to increase racial diversity at elite institutions. In Changing
the Game, drawing on deep archival research and hundreds of interviews,
Nancy Weiss Malkiel argues that Bowen was the most consequential higher
education leader of his generation.

6)      *Begetting: What Does It Mean to Create a Child?*
<https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691240503/begetting> By
Mara van der Lugt—Princeton University Press

“Do you want to have children?” is a question we routinely ask each other.
But what does it mean to create a child? Is this decision always justified?
Does anyone really have the moral right to create another person? In
Begetting, Mara van der Lugt attempts to fill in the moral background of
procreation. Drawing on both philosophy and popular culture, van der Lugt
does not provide a definitive answer on the morality of having a child;
instead, she helps us find the right questions to ask.

Most of the time, when we talk about whether to have children, what we are
really talking about is whether we want to have children. Van der Lugt
shows why this is not enough. To consider having children, she argues, is
to interrogate our own responsibility and commitments, morally and
philosophically and also personally. What does it mean to bring a new
creature into the world, to decide to perform an act of creation? What does
it mean to make the decision that life is worth living on behalf of a
person who cannot be consulted? These questions are part of a conversation
we should have started long ago. Van der Lugt does not ignore the
problematic aspects of procreation—ethical, environmental and otherwise.
But she also acknowledges the depth and complexity of the intensely human
desire to have a child of our own blood and our own making.

*7)      **Henry David Thoreau: Thinking Disobediently*
<https://global.oup.com/academic/product/henry-david-thoreau-9780197684269?lang=en&cc=us>
by Lawrence Buell—Oxford University Press

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was a leading figure in the American
Transcendentalist movement and the era of U. S. literary emergence, an
intellectual with worldwide influence as essayist, social thinker,
naturalist-environmentalist, and sage. Thoreau's Walden, an
autobiographical narrative of his two-year sojourn in a self-built lakeside
cabin, is one of the most widely studied works of American literature. It
has generated scores of literary imitations and thousands of neo-Walden
experiments in back-to-basics living, both rural and urban. Thoreau's great
essay, "Civil Disobedience," is a classic of American political activism
and a model for nonviolent reform movements around the world. Thoreau also
stands as an icon of modern American environmentalism, the father of
American nature writing, a forerunner of modern ecology, and a harbinger of
freelance spirituality combining the wisdom of west and east.

Thoreau is also a controversial figure. From his day to ours, he has
provoked sharply opposite reactions ranging from reverence to dismissal.
Scholars have regularly offered conflicting assessments of the significance
of his work, the evolution of his thought, even the facts of his life. Some
disagreements are in the eye of the beholder, but many follow from
challenges posed by his own cross-grained idiosyncrasies. He was an
advocate for individual self-sufficiency who never broke away from home, a
self-professed mystic now also acclaimed as a pioneer natural and applied
scientist, and a seminal theorist of nonviolent protest who defended the
most notorious guerrilla fighter of his day. All told, he remains a rather
enigmatic figure both despite and because we know so much about him,
beginning with the two-million-word journal he kept throughout his adult
life. The esteemed Thoreau scholar Lawrence Buell gives due consideration
to all these aspects of Thoreau's art and thought, framing key issues and
complexities in historical and literary context.



*8)      **Re-Reasoning Ethics: The Rationality of Deliberation and
Judgment in Ethics*
<https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262549752/re-reasoning-ethics/>

By Barry Hoffmaster and Cliff Hooker—MIT Press

In Re-Reasoning Ethics, Barry Hoffmaster and Cliff Hooker enhance and
empower ethics by adopting a non-formal paradigm of rational deliberation
as intelligent problem-solving and a complementary non-formal paradigm of
ethical deliberation as problem-solving design to promote human
flourishing. The non-formal conception of reason produces broader and
richer ethical understandings of human situations, not the simple,
constrained depictions provided by moral theories and their logical
applications in medical ethics and bioethics. Instead, it delivers and
vindicates the moral judgment that complex, contextual, and dynamic
situations require.

Hoffmaster and Hooker demonstrate how this more expansive rationality
operates with examples, first in science and then in ethics. Non-formal
reason brings rationality not just to the empirical world of science but
also to the empirical realities of human lives. Among the many real cases
they present is that of how women at risk of having children with genetic
conditions decide whether to try to become pregnant. These women do not
apply the formal principle of maximizing expected utility (as advised by
genetic counselors) and instead imagine scenarios of what their lives could
be like with an affected child and assess whether they could accept the
worst of these scenarios.

Hoffmaster and Hooker explain how moral compromise and a liberated,
extended, and enriched reflective equilibrium expand and augment rational
ethical deliberation and how that deliberation can rationally design
ethical practices, institutions, and policies



*9)      **Truly Human Enhancement: A Philosophical Defense of Limits*
<https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262549202/truly-human-enhancement/> By
Nicholas Agar—MIT Press

The transformative potential of genetic and cybernetic technologies to
enhance human capabilities is most often either rejected on moral and
prudential grounds or hailed as the future salvation of humanity. In this
book, Nicholas Agar offers a more nuanced view, making a case for moderate
human enhancement—improvements to attributes and abilities that do not
significantly exceed what is currently possible for human beings. He argues
against radical human enhancement, or improvements that greatly exceed
current human capabilities.

Agar explores notions of transformative change and motives for human
enhancement; distinguishes between the instrumental and intrinsic value of
enhancements; argues that too much enhancement undermines human identity;
considers the possibility of cognitively enhanced scientists; and argues
against radical life extension. Making the case for moderate enhancement,
Agar argues that many objections to enhancement are better understood as
directed at the degree of enhancement rather than enhancement itself.
Moderate human enhancement meets the requirement of truly human
enhancement. By radically enhancing human cognitive capabilities, by
contrast, we may inadvertently create beings (“post-persons”) with moral
status higher than that of persons. If we create beings more entitled to
benefits and protections against harms than persons, Agar writes, this will
be bad news for the unenhanced. Moderate human enhancement offers a more
appealing vision of the future and of our relationship to technology.

10)  *Foundations of Logic: Completeness, Incompleteness, Computability*
<https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/F/bo198592752.html>
by Dag Westerståhl—University of Chicago Press

This book provides a concise but detailed account of modern logic’s three
cornerstones: the completeness of first-order logic, Gödel’s Incompleteness
Theorems, and Turing’s analysis of computability. In addition to the
central text, an appendix explains the required technical terminology and
facts. The main ideas behind the three cornerstones are explained in a
simple, easy-to-grasp manner, and it is possible to select among the
chapters and sections so that the reader becomes familiar with these ideas,
even if some technicalities are skipped or postponed. A wealth of exercises
accompany a wide selection of materials, including the histories and
philosophical implications of the three main premises, making it useful as
a textbook for undergraduate or graduate courses focusing on any of the
three main themes. The material is rigorous and detailed but keeps the main
ideas in sight, and there are numerous excursions into more advanced
material for curious readers to explore.
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