Alec Fisher

This is a collection of 15 of the bestest most recent academic articles on Pride and Prejudice. They cover a broad range of topics and my favourites included "Narrative," "Character," "The Economic Context," "Austen's Minimalism," and "The Cult of Pride and Prejudice and its author" (all written by various scholars). But my favourite essay was by the editor herself. I prepared myself to have a little Darcy fan girl moment when I started "The Romantic Hero," but although she doesn't come out and say it, I don't think Janet Todd likes Mr Darcy one bit. And all her points about how awful he really is are all completely valid. Which, of course, just makes Mr Darcy an even more interesting character.

Recommended for: Austen students, readers who want to understand P&P on a deeper level, people who can't get enough of Pride and Prejudice.… (meer)

The author asserts a "novel method" for handling "complex, important, and hard to handle" arguments. This assertion is an academic's conceit. While his device of employing what he calls the "Assertibility Question" shows promise, his technique of suppositional reasoning which is largely ignored by other scholars in this field, is ignored for a reason: it is not useful.
Although the study of argument is a fascinating and rewarding endeavor, which the author warmly conveys particularly well in an appendixed explanation of scientific method and modal logic, he fails to leave us with an improved methodology for evaluating logic in real arguments. Provides excellent examples of 'scientific' arguments--e.g. Pascal's Wager, Karl Marx's challenge to lowering wages, Hume's induction from experience, Karl Popper's falsifiability test, Kuhn's idea of a paradigm.… (meer)