Gallery of Scholars: A Philosopher's Recollections (review)

^ nobody outside, it welcomes everyone. Thus the book follows closely the ►^ spirit of Dewey, encouraging the reader to learn from her own experience, M rather than over-riding that experience by some presumption of external -> knowledge, or by the application of the theory du jour. It also confronts the ^ reader with the basic dilemma with which Tess—and Hardy—struggled throughout het life: how to locate one's self as an individual, and also as a social being, without paying too high a price on either side. Efron's methodology therefore helps us to locate ourselves within a number of pivotal experiences that shape Tess's life and thought in very fundamental and emotionaUy meaningful ways. In moving back and forth between Tess's motivations as a real human being through the lens that Deweyan experiential philosophy affords us, Efron manages to draw a compelling picture of an individual caught by the complexities of being human and by a deep need to make sense of these complexities, such that she might act in alignment with integrity and, ultimately, with her sense, however flawed, of herself as a real human being. This is not merely a book for those interested in Hardy or in Dewey's pragmatism. This volume is a substantive reading for anyone interested in thinking and feeling pragmatically and aesthetically, and in furthering their dexterity and depth in this process. In offering readers a true tribute to Dewey, Efron has also offered us a succession of opportunities to "learn from experience": from our own experience of coming into contact with that of the other. Gustavo Guerra The Washington Psychoanalytic Institute The George Washington University, gguerra@gwu.edu Israel Scheffler Gallery of Scholars: A Philosopher's Recollections Dordrecht/ Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004 Ix + 161 pp. Recently Morton White told his story.1 Now we have Israel Scheffler's autobiographical Gallery of Scholars, which covers some of the same ground, overlapping with respect to persons, places, and events. Separately and together these reveal much of the academic life and times of their authors' generation. The title Gallery of Scholars is deliberately chosen to dispel the suggestion that it was intended as a memoir. Rather its author provides portraitures of some extraordinary people he encountered throughout a professional life that combined his training in technical analytic philosophy with his concerns for the practical problems of education. Thus the Gallery consists of philosog72 phers (John Dewey, Ernest Nagel, Sidney Hook, Nelson Goodman, Henry m Aiken, WiUard Van Quine, Harry Wolfson, Philipp Frank) educators (Fran- 7a eis Keppel, Ralph Taylor, Robert Ulich, John Whiting) and two who were > both (Richard Peters and Ivor Richards). Others make briefer appearances. On the educational side the person who stands out is Keppel, Dean of the Harvard Graduate School, who more than anyone else made it possible ^ for Scheffler to have the productive career he in fact had. It was he who offered Scheffler his first academic position and under the most favorable circumstances. With the help of a Rockefeller Foundation grant, Keppel was positioned to increase the number of joint appointments by two, thus closing the gap between his Graduate School of Education and the more prestigious Graduate School of Arts and Sciences while bringing liberal arts expertise to bear upon the curriculum of the Graduate School of Education . Scheffler fulfilled Keppel's high expectations admirably as did the historian Bernard Bailyn, the other appointee. In time Scheffler developed an impressive publication record, but success wasn't without obstacles. The autocratic Gilbert RyIe, then the editor of Mind was one. Having submitted a paper for consideration to Mind and receiving no acknowledgment whatsoever, Scheffler asked his senior colleague, Quine, who happened to be in Oxford at that time, to make inquiries for him. The paper was presumably lost. This prompted the following classic reply, "A case of out of sight/out of mind, and a fortiori out of Mind!' Trying once again, this time with a substantially longer paper, carrying the suggestion that it might be considered as a two part paper, Scheffler received the almost immediate response, which was as nearly as he can remember the foUowing, "There are only a few people in...