Basic Design: The Dynamics of Visual Form by Maurice de Sausmarez (review)

132 Book Reviews literary texts. In particular, their intelligibility depends on their exhibiting a recognizable and coherent point of view, and their style reveals the personal handwriting of the author, a normal characteristic of literature. Philosophical texts don't have the same expressive force as paintings or poems, but they do exhibit an expressive character of their own. They do so by means of their generic form. Lang distinguishes four genres of philosophical writing: dialogue, meditation or essay, commentary, and treatise. He asks, "What connection does philosophical style have with the substance or content of philosophical texts?" He finds that style and content are usually consistent with one another. He exemplifies this by showing how appropriate it was that Plato, given his relationship to Socrates, his suspicion of writing, and his concept of dialectic, should use the dialogue form; also that Dewey's writing should exemplify his account of experience as 'funded' or accumulated in the repetition of a term or concept from one use to subsequent uses. He further distinguishes between three modes of philosophical writing: the expository, the perforrnative, and the reflexive. In the expository mode, the writer appears as a detached and impartial observer, writing about facts and issues in an impersonal way. Given the subject matter, the writer could be anyone with adequate comprehension and expository power. In the performative mode, the writer presents himself as personally engaged in reflection and discovery. He quotes Descartes and Moore as exemplars. The reflexive mode is a median between these two: the author transcends objective exposition and personal discovery and invites the reader to involve himself with the writer in the philosophical process and its realization. Plato and Kierkegaard are cited as examples. All this is unexceptionable enough if it means that a philosopher's style is not normally neutral and wholly objective as scientific prose purports to be, but that it necessarily reveals something of the writer's identity and point of view and that its form normally accords with its content and meaning. One wonders why that issue should be thought worthy of an entire book, as the title suggests. It raises misleading expectations. It lures one into expecting an innovative thesis on the relationship between philosophy and prose style, perhaps a penetrating analysis into what influence, ifany, philosophy has on the art of writing, or what difference writing as such makes to philosophical discourse. But Lang disclaims the latter purpose and has nothing to say on the former question. His primary interest lies in the status of philosophical texts as literary forms. The letdown is that this concern takes up little more than the first two chapters. The remainder of Part I is made up of sundry observations on stylistic features in Plato's Dialogues and further reflections on parallels between philosophy and art. The rest of the book is concerned with literature rather than philosophy and, along with most of Part I, is made up from earlier versions of contributions to journals. It is more of a compilation than a sustained argument. It lacks the thematic coherence necessary to the development of either a philosophical or a literary treatise, and the scenario switches disconcertingly from the one topic to the other. The 'and' in the title turns out to operate as an additive rather than a connective. The episodic structure might be condoned if the writing were more cogent and clear. The most frustrating task for the reader is to tease out the tangle of ideas and observations, reflections and assertions, in order to unravel the meaning. Undoubtedly there is an impressively learned and perceptive intellect operating here, with many subtle and penetrating insights throughout. But what significant conclusions there may be are largely camouflaged by the convolutions of a style that abounds in abstractions, opacities, parentheses and digressions and leaves the reader groping for light. The first principle in philosophical writing is that it should be clear. Anyone who ventures to discourse on philosophy and the art of writing should take pains to observe that essential precept. Reviewed by Ray Racy, Faculty of Art & Design, Bristol Polytechnic, Clanage Road, Bower Ashton, Bristol BS3 2JU, U.K. Transparent Watercolor: Painting Methods and Materials. Inessa Derkatsch...