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M A K I NG A I I N T E L L IG I BL E
herman cappelen
and josh dever
MAKING AI
INTELLIGIBLE
Philosophical Foundations
1
1
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp,
United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
© Herman Cappelen and Josh Dever 2021
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
First Edition published in 2021
Impression: 1
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a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, for commercial purposes,
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Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of this licence
should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020951691
ISBN 978–0–19–289472–4
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192894724.001.0001
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A.
Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and
for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials
contained in any third party website referenced in this work.
CON TEN T S
PART I: INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
1. Introduction 3
The Goals of This Book: The Role of Philosophy in AI Research 3
An Illustration: Lucie’s Mortgage Application is Rejected 4
Abstraction: The Relevant Features of the Systems
We Will be Concerned with in This Book 10
The Ubiquity of AI Decision-Making 13
The Central Questions of this Book 17
‘Content? That’s So 1980’ 21
What This Book is Not About: Consciousness and
Whether ‘Strong AI’ is Possible 24
Connection to the Explainable AI Movement 25
Broad and Narrow Questions about Representation 27
Our Interlocutor: Alfred, The Dismissive Sceptic 28
Who is This Book for? 28
2. Alfred (the Dismissive Sceptic): Philosophers,
Go Away! 31
A Dialogue with Alfred (the Dismissive Sceptic) 35
PART II: A PROPOSAL FOR HOW TO
ATTRIBUTE CONTENT TO AI
3. Terminology: Aboutness, Representation, and
Metasemantics 51
Loose Talk, Hyperbole, or ‘Derived Intentionality’? 53
con t e n ts
Aboutness and Representation 54
AI, Metasemantics, and the Philosophy of Mind 56
4. Our Theory: De-Anthropocentrized Externalism 59
First Claim: Content for AI Systems Should Be Explained
Externalistically60
Second Claim: Existing Externalist Accounts of Content
Are Anthropocentric 67
Third Claim: We Need Meta-Metasemantic Guidance 72
A Meta-Metasemantic Suggestion: Interpreter-centric
Knowledge-Maximization 75
5. Application: The Predicate ‘High Risk’ 81
The Background Theory: Kripke-Style Externalism 82
Starting Thought: SmartCredit Expresses High Risk
Contents Because of its Causal History 86
Anthropocentric Abstraction of ‘Anchoring’ 87
Schematic AI-Suitable Kripke-Style Metasemantics 88
Complications and Choice Points 90
Taking Stock 97
Appendix to Chapter 5: More on Reference Preservation
in ML Systems 98
6. Application: Names and the Mental Files Framework 103
Does SmartCredit Use Names? 103
The Mental Files Framework to the Rescue? 105
Epistemically Rewarding Relations for Neural Networks? 108
Case Studies, Complications, and Reference Shifts 111
Taking Stock 116
vi
con t e n ts
7. Application: Predication and Commitment 117
Predication: Brief Introduction to the Act Theoretic View 118
Turning to AI and Disentangling Three Different Questions 121
The Metasemantics of Predication: A Teleofunctionalist
Hypothesis123
Some Background: Teleosemantics and Teleofunctional Role 125
Predication in AI 128
AI Predication and Kinds of Teleology 129
Why Teleofunctionalism and Not Kripke or Evans? 131
Teleofunctional Role and Commitment (or Assertion) 132
Theories of Assertion and Commitment for Humans
and AI 133
PART III: CONCLUSION
8. Four Concluding Thoughts 139
Dynamic Goals 140
A Story of Neural Networks Taking Over in Ways
We Cannot Understand 140
Why This Story is Disturbing and Relevant 144
Taking Stock and General Lessons 147
The Extended Mind and AI Concept Possession 148
Background: The Extended Mind and Active Externalism 148
The Extended Mind and Conceptual Competency 150
From Experts Determining Meaning to Artificial
Intelligences Determining Meaning 150
Some New Distinctions: Extended Mind Internalist versus
Extended Mind Externalists 151
Kripke, Putnam, and Burge as Extended Mind Internalists 152
vii
con t e n ts
Concept Possession, Functionalism, and Ways of Life 155
Implications for the View Defended in This Book 156
An Objection Revisited 157
Reply to the Objection 158
What Makes it a Stop Sign Detector? 158
Adversarial Perturbations 160
Explainable AI and Metasemantics 162
Bibliography 167
Index 173
viii
part i
INTRODUCTION AND
OVERVIEW
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1
INTRODUCTION
The Goals of This Book: The Role of
Philosophy in AI Research
T his is a book about some aspects of the philosophical founda-
tions of Artificial Intelligence. Philosophy is relevant to
many aspects of AI and we don’t mean to cover all of them.1 Our
focus is on one relatively underexplored question: Can
philosophical theories of meaning, language, and content help
us understand, explain, and maybe also improve AI systems?
Our answer is ‘Yes’. To show this, we first articulate some pressing
issues about how to interpret and explain the outputs we get
1
Thus we are not going to talk about the consequences that the new wave in AI
might have for the empiricism/rationalism debate (see Buckner 2018), nor are we
going to consider—much—the question of whether it is reasonable to say that
what these programs do is ‘learning’ in anything like the sense with which we are
familiar (Buckner 2019, 4.2), and we’ll pass over interesting questions about what
we can learn about philosophy of mind from deep learning (López-Rubio 2018).
We are not going to talk about the clearly very important ethical issues involved,
either the recondite ones, science-fictional ones (such as the paperclip maximizer
and Roko’s Basilisk (see e.g. Bostrom 2014 for some of these issues)), or the
more down-to-earth issues about, for example, self-driving cars (Nyholm and
Smids 2016, Lin et al. 2017), or racist and sexist bias in AI resulting from racist
and sexist data sets (Zou and Schiebinger 2018). We also won’t consider political
consequences and implications for policy making (Floridi et al. 2018).
Making AI Intelligible: Philosophical Foundations. Herman Cappelen and Joshua Dever, Oxford University Press (2021).
© Herman Cappelen and Joshua Dever. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192894724.003.0001
m a k ing a i in t e l l igibl e
from advanced AI systems. We then use philosophical theories to
answer questions like the above.
An Illustration: Lucie’s Mortgage Application is Rejected
Here is a brief story to illustrate how we use certain forms of arti-
ficial intelligence and how those uses raise pressing philosophical
questions:
Lucie needs a mortgage to buy a new house. She logs onto her
bank’s webpage, fills in a great deal of information about herself
and her financial history, and also provides account names and
passwords for all of her social media accounts. She submits this to
the bank. In so doing, she gives the bank permission to access her
credit score. Within a few minutes, she gets a message from her
bank saying that her application has been declined. It has been
declined because Lucie’s credit score is too low; it’s 550, which is
considered very poor. No human beings were directly involved in
this decision. The calculation of Lucie’s credit score was done by a
very sophisticated form of artificial intelligence, called SmartCredit.
A natural way to put it is that this AI system says that Lucie has a low
credit score and on that basis, another part of the AI system decides
that Lucie should not get a mortgage.
It’s natural for Lucie to wonder where this number 550 came from.
This is Lucie’s first question:
Lucie’s First Question. What does the output ‘550’ that has
been assigned to me mean?
The bank has a ready answer to that question: the number 550 is a
credit score, which represents how credit-worthy Lucie is. (Not
very, unfortunately.) But being told this doesn’t satisfy Lucie’s
4
in t roduc t ion
unease. On reflection, what she really wants to know is why the
output means that. This is Lucie’s second question:
Lucie’s Second Question: Why is the ‘550’ that the c omputer
displays on the screen an assessment of my credit-worthiness?
What makes it mean that?
It’s then natural for Lucie to suspect that answering this question
requires understanding how SmartCredit works. What’s going on
under the hood that led to the number 550 being assigned to
Lucie? The full story gets rather technical, but the central details
can be set out briefly:
Simple Sketch of How a Neural Network Works2
SmartCredit didn’t begin life as a credit scoring program. Rather, it
started life as a general neural network. Its building blocks are small
‘neuron’ programs. Each neuron is designed to take a list of input
data points and apply some mathematical function to that list to
produce a new output list. Different neurons can apply different
functions, and even a single neuron can change, over time, which
function it applies.
The neurons are then arranged into a network. That means that
various neurons are interconnected, so that the output of one
neuron provides part of the input to another neuron. In particular,
the neurons are arranged into layers. There is a top layer of
neurons—none of these neurons are connected to each other, and
all of them are designed to receive input from some outside data
source. Then there is a second layer. Neurons on the top layer are
connected to neurons on the second layer, so that top layer neurons
2
For a gentle and quick introduction to the computer science behind basic
neural networks, see Rashid 2016. A relatively demanding article-length intro-
duction is LeCun et al. 2015, and a canonical textbook that doesn’t shirk detail
and is freely available online is Goodfellow et al. 2016.
5
m a k ing a i in t e l l igibl e
provide inputs to second layer neurons. Each top layer neuron is
connected to every second layer neuron, but the connections also
have variable weight. Suppose the top layer neurons T1 and T2 are
connected to second layer neurons S1 and S2, but that the T1-to-S1
connection and the T2-to-S2 connections are weighted heavily
while the T1-to-S2 connection and the T2-to-S1 connections are
weighted lightly. Then the input to S1 will be a mixture of the T1 and
T2 outputs with the T1 output dominating, while the input to S2
will be a mixture of the T1 and T2 outputs with the T2 output dom-
inating. And just as the mathematical function applied by a given
neuron can change, so can the weighting of connections between
neurons.
After the second layer there is a third layer, and then a fourth, and
so on. Eventually there is a bottom layer, the output of which is the
final output of SmartCredit. The bottom layer of neurons is
designed so that that final output is always some number between
1 and 1000.
The bank offers to show Lucie a diagram of the SmartCredit neural
network. It’s a complicated diagram—there are 10 levels, each con-
taining 128 neurons. That means there are about 150,000 connec-
tions between neurons, each one labelled with some weight.
And each neuron is marked with its particular mathematical
transformation function, represented by a list of thousands of
coefficients determining a particular linear transformation on a
thousands-of-dimensions vector.
Lucie finds all of this rather unilluminating. She wonders what
any of these complicated mathematical calculations has to do
with why she can’t get a loan for a new house. The bank
continues explaining. So far, Lucie is told, none of this
information about the neural network structure of SmartCredit
explains why it’s evaluating Lucie’s creditworthiness. To learn
about that, we need to consider the neural network’s training
history.
6
in t roduc t ion
A bit more about how SmartCredit was created
Once the initial neural network was programmed, designers
started training it. They trained it by giving it inputs of the sort that
Lucie has also helpfully provided. Inputs were thus very long lists of
data including demographic information (age, sex, race, residential
location, and so on), financial information (bank account balances,
annual income, stock holdings, income tax report contents, and so
on), and an enormous body of social media data (posts liked, groups
belonged to, Twitter accounts followed, and so on). In the end, all of
this data is just represented as a long list of numbers. These inputs
are given to the initial neural network, and some final output is pro-
duced. The programmers then evaluate that output, and give the
program a score based on how acceptable its output was that meas-
ures the program’s error score. If the output was a good output, the
score is a low score; if the output was bad, the score is a high score.
The program then responds to the score by trying to redesign its
neural network to produce a lower score for the same input. There
are a number of complicated mathematical methods that can be
used to do the redesigning, but they all come down to making small
changes in weighting and checking to see whether those small
changes would have made the score lower or higher. Typically, this
then means that a bunch of differential equations need to be solved.
With the necessary computations done, the program adjusts its
weights, and then it’s ready for the next round of training.
Lucie, of course, is curious about where this scoring method came
from—how do the programmers decide whether SmartCredit has
done a good job in assigning a final output to input data?
The Scoring Method
The bank explains that the programmers started with a database of
millions of old credit cases. Each case was a full demographic,
financial, and social media history of a particular person, as well as
a credit score that an old-fashioned human credit assessor had
assigned to that person. SmartCredit was then trained on that data
7
m a k ing a i in t e l l igibl e
set—over and over it was given inputs (case histories) from the
data set, and its neural network output was scored against the ori
ginal credit assessment. And over and over SmartCredit reweighted
its own neural network trying to get its outputs more and more in
line with the original credit assessments.
That’s why, the bank explains, SmartCredit has the particular col-
lections of weights and functions that it does in its neural network.
With a different training set, the same underlying program could
have developed different weights and ended up as a program for
evaluating political affiliation, or for determining people’s favourite
movies, or just about anything that might reasonably be extracted
from the mess of input social media data.
Lucie, though, finds all of this a bit too abstract to be very helpful.
What she wants to know is why she, in particular, was assigned a
score of 550, in particular. None of this information about the
neural architecture or the training history of SmartCredit seems
to answer that question.
How all this applies to Lucie
Wanting to be helpful, the bank offers to let Lucie watch the com-
putational details of SmartCredit’s assessment of Lucie’s case. First
they show Lucie what the input data for her case looks like. It’s a list
of about 100,000 integers. The bank can tell Lucie a bit about the
meaning of that list—they explain that one number represents the
number of Twitter followers she has, and another number repre-
sents the number of times she has ‘liked’ commercial postings on
Facebook, and so on.
Then they show Lucie how that initial data is processed by
SmartCredit. Here things become more obscure. Lucie can watch
the computations filter their way down the neural network. Each
neuron receives an input list and produces an output list, and those
output lists are combined using network weightings to produce
inputs for subsequent neurons. Eventually, sure enough, the num-
ber ‘550’ drops out of the bottom layer.
8
in t roduc t ion
But Lucie feels rather unilluminated by that cascading sequence of
numbers. She points to one neuron in the middle of the network
and to the first number (13,483) in the output sequence of that
neuron. What, she asks, does that particular number mean? What
is it saying about Lucie’s credit worthiness? This is Lucie’s third
question:
Lucie’s Third Question: How is the final meaningful state of
SmartCredit (the output ‘550’, meaning that Lucie’s credit score
is 550) the result of other meaningful considerations that
SmartCredit is taking into account?
The bank initially insists that that question doesn’t really have an
answer. That particular neuron’s output doesn’t by itself mean
anything—it’s just part of a big computational procedure that
holistically yields an assessment of Lucie’s credit worthiness. No
particular point in the network can be said to mean anything in
particular—it’s the network as a whole that’s telling the bank
something.
Lucie is understandably somewhat sceptical at this point. How,
she wonders, can a bunch of mathematical transformations, none
of which in particular can be tied to any meaningful assessment of
her credit-worthiness, somehow all add up to saying something
about whether she should get a loan? So she tries a different
approach. Maybe looking at the low-level computational details
of SmartCredit isn’t going to be illuminating, but perhaps she can
at least be told what it was in her history that SmartCredit found
objectionable. Was it her low annual income that was respon
sible? Was it those late credit card payments in her early twenties?
Or was it the fact that she follows a number of fans of French film
9
m a k ing a i in t e l l igibl e
on Twitter? Lucie here is trying her third question again—she is
still looking for other meaningful states of SmartCredit that
explain its final meaningful output, but no longer insisting that
those meaningful states be tied to specific low- level neuron
conditions of the program.
Unfortunately, the bank doesn’t have much helpful to say about
this, either. It’s easy enough to spot particular variables in the ini-
tial data set—the bank can show her where in the input her annual
income is, and where her credit card payment history is, and
where her Twitter follows are. But they don’t have much to say
about how SmartCredit then assesses these different factors. All
they can do is point again to the cascading sequence of calcula-
tions—there are the initial numbers, and then there are millions
upon millions of mathematical operations on those initial num-
bers, eventually dropping out a final output number. The bank
explains that that huge sequence of mathematical operations is
just too long and complicated to be humanly understood—there’s
just no point in trying to follow the details of what’s going on. No
one could hold all of those numbers in their head, and even if they
could, it’s not clear that doing so would lead to any real insight
into what features of the case led to the final credit score.
Abstraction: The Relevant Features of the Systems
We Will be Concerned with in This Book
Our concern is not with any particular algorithm or AI systems. It
is also not with any particular way of creating a neural network.
These will change over time and the cutting edge of programming
today will seem dated in just a year or two. To identify what we
10
in t roduc t ion
will be concerned with, we must first distinguish two levels at
which an AI system can be characterized:
• On the one hand, it is an abstract mathematical structure.
As such it exists outside space and time (it is not located
anywhere, has no weight, and doesn’t start existing at any
particular point in time).
• However, when humans use and engage with AI, they have
to engage with something that exists as a physical object,
something they can see or hear or feel. This will be the
physical implementation (or realization) of the
abstract structure. When Lucie’s application was rejected,
the rejection was presented to her as a token of numbers
and letters on a computer screen. These were physical
phenomena, generated by silicon chips, various kinds of
wires, and other physical things (many of them in different
locations around the world).
This book is not about a particular set of silicon chips and wires. It
is also not about any particular program construed as an abstract
object. So we owe you an account of what the book is about. Here
is a partial characterization of what we have in mind when we talk
about ‘the outputs of AI systems’ in what follows:3
• The output (e.g. the token of ‘550’ that occurs on a particular
screen) is produced by things that are not human. The non-human
status of the producer can matter in at least three ways:
First, these programs don’t have the same kind of physical imple-
mentation as our brains do. They may use ‘neurons’, but their
3
This is not an effort to specify necessary and sufficient conditions for being
an AI system—that’s not a project we think is productive or achievable.
11
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ages. To be the ideal housewife here described will make
necessary cooperation on the part of husbands, for it involves a
separate bank-account and a real business partnership.”
+ Lit D 55:53 D 1 ‘17 180w
“Mrs Franks writes with eloquence and with that knowledge of her
theme that comes from much study, much thought, and much
experience.”
+ N Y Times 22:246 Jl 1 ‘17 350w
“Of great use to all housekeepers and to every one who believes in
thrift and in conserving the food supply of the nation.”
R of Rs 56:331 S ‘17 130w
“Similar in purpose to Frederick’s ‘The new housekeeping,’ but less
definite in its information and covering a little different field.”
+ Wis Lib Bul 14:29 Ja ‘18 80w
FREEMAN, JOHN. Moderns; essays in literary criticism. *$1.75
Crowell 820.4 (Eng ed 17-26878)
Contents: George Bernard Shaw; H. G. Wells; Thomas Hardy;
Maurice Maeterlinck; Henry James; Joseph Conrad; Coventry
Patmore and Francis Thompson; Robert Bridges.
“Discerning and readable, the usefulness of the compact
discussions of the authors’ works is somewhat lessened because
there is no index.”
+ A L A Bkl 14:86 D ‘17
“The author’s survey is acute and well-balanced, showing a sound
general knowledge of his material and a well-defined individual
standard of taste. His own style inclines to the parenthetical,
enlivened with many well-turned phrases.”
Ath p43 Ja ‘17 80w
+ Ath p85 F ‘17 350w
—
Boston Transcript p7 Jl 25 ‘17 1150w
+ Dial 63:164 Ag 30 ‘17 300w
“In matters of form and style he is less acute than elsewhere—he
speaks, for example, with undue contempt of Mr Shaw’s prose as
prose and with extravagant admiration of Mr Hardy’s verse as
verse; and he finds poetical felicities in Patmore and Robert
Bridges which few will share with him. He is strong in his
applications of common-sense and the emotions attendant upon it
to the paradox, the bombast, and the sentimental flummery of our
fashionable contemporaries. ... Mr Freeman is at his best and
happiest in his recognitions of spiritual values.”
+ Nation 105:296 S 13 ‘17 410w
—
R of Rs 56:553 N ‘17 30w
FREEMAN, MRS MARY ELEANOR (WILKINS), and KINGSLEY,
MRS FLORENCE (MORSE). Alabaster box. il *$1.50 Appleton
17-9348
“The people of Brookville, a characteristic little New England
village, did not recognize how beautiful was the alabaster box
when one came bearing it among them and wished to pour all its
contents at their feet. ... Miss Lydia Orr is an appealing heroine
whose unusual character is realized in a strong and vital but
delicate portraiture. All the years of her girlhood she has fed her
inner self upon the dream of going back to Brookville with plenty
of money wherewith to repay to the villagers in one way or
another the money they had once lost through her father. And at
last it becomes possible. But she finds his memory so hated and all
the villagers still dwelling so angrily upon the wrong he had done
them that she has difficulty in carrying out her scheme.”—N Y
Times
+ A L A Bkl 13:403 Je ‘17
“It is a pity that Mrs Freeman should lend her name and her left
hand to work so shallow and perfunctory as this.” H. W. Boynton
+ Bookm 46:93 S ‘17 380w
“Miss Wilkins needs to reëstablish her reputation after this. ‘An
alabaster box’ will satisfy only those who do not know her past
work. Except for those bits in it that signify a familiar skill that
lingers in the memory, it is unworthy of the name it bears on its
title-page. Certainly Miss Wilkins should henceforth get along
without a collaborator.” E. F. E.
– H Boston Transcript p12 Ap 7 ‘17 1200w
+
+ Dial 62:527 Je 14 ‘17 120w
“Two love stories add to the real interest we feel in very real
fictional personalities. A healthy American story.”
+ Ind 90:471 Je 9 ‘17 110w
“Mrs Freeman’s delicate touch in the limning of character is often
in evidence, especially in the portrayal of the heroine, but the
general effect of the story is more suggestive of Mrs Kingsley’s
work than of Mrs Freeman’s.”
+ N Y Times 22:114 Ap 1 ‘17 420w
Reviewed by Frank O’Neil
+ Pub W 91:970 Mr 17 ‘17 520w
“The story is highly interesting, and the several characters are
delightfully portrayed.”
+ Springf’d Republican p17 Ap 22 ‘17 330w
“The moral is made palatable by the cleverly drawn village life and
characters, and two stories of young love.”
Wis Lib Bul 13:158 My ‘17 50w
FREESE, JOHN HENRY, comp. New pocket dictionary of the
English and Russian languages; English-Russian. *$2 Dutton
491.7
“The dictionary is preceded by an introduction explaining the use
of the prepositional prefixes and giving valuable lists of the
nominal and adjectival suffixes; also by notes on the phonetic
laws, the aspects and pronunciation, with a large-type picture of
the alphabet.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
“When a book represents a distinct advance over any previous
work of similar character, it is not altogether pleasant to point out
its weaker sides. This is emphatically true of ‘A new pocket
dictionary of the English and Russian languages.’”
+ Nation 105:265 S 6 ‘17 370w
–
—
“Cheap, well-printed, and compendious.”
+ Spec 117:269 S 2 ‘16 120w
“Admirable in every respect. The dictionary is very full, and no
important words seem to have been omitted; moreover, all parts of
verbs which are at all different from the infinitive and all parts of
nouns which are different from the nominative singular are given,
an innovation for which novices will be extremely grateful.”
+ The Times [London] Lit Sup p329 Jl 13 ‘16
280w
FRENCH, ALLEN. At Plattsburg. *$1.35 (2c) Scribner 17-13200
The daily life of a Plattsburg recruit is described in a series of
letters. The preface states that the letters are based on personal
experience and that the author’s purpose in writing them was to
give a “general picture of the fun and work at a training camp.”
But while based on fact the narrative is thrown into fiction form,
with a bit of love interest added for good measure.
“Written with patriotic fervor and with a slight story and a vein of
romance.”
+ A L A Bkl 13:376 Je ‘17
“The writer’s style is lively and entertaining.”
+ Boston Transcript p8 My 19 ‘17 130w
“It is a play-time Plattsburg which Mr French has described so
agreeably,—a Plattsburg already past,—a stepping-stone toward
the universal American army, which in turn will do away with all
such effervescences. That old Plattsburg was unique, and a unique
success.”
+ Dial 62:528 Je 14 ‘17 450w
+ Ind 90:473 Je 9 ‘17 100w
“It is what the ‘rookie’ does at Plattsburg, and perhaps even more,
it is what Plattsburg does in the life and thought of the rookie, that
gives the book not only its value but its charm. ... But perhaps its
chief value lies in the specific following of the Plattsburg program
from the camp’s assembly to its break up at the end of the famous
hike. ... A book which many Americans will want to read just now.”
+ N Y Times 22:178 My 6 ‘17 730w
“Mr French puts into Private Godwin’s letters enough of the
philosophy of preparedness as it unfolds to Plattsburg students to
make the book as valuable from such an angle as it is interesting
as a story.”
+ Springf’d Republican p6 Ag 10 ‘17 500w
FRENCH, ALLEN. Golden Eagle. il *$1.25 (3c) Century 17-24399
A book that will be popular with boys and girls who understand sail
boats. The “Golden Eagle” is a trophy that goes to the winner of a
boat race. Three young people, Howard Winslow, his sister Ruth,
and Fred Barnes are tied for first place and a third race, which is to
decide the matter, is pending when the trophy disappears. The
search for it and its recovery, a rescue from a wrecked boat, and
the great race itself are the main incidents of the story.
+ A L A Bkl 14:100 D ‘17
“It has a good ethical tone. The illustrations are appropriate.”
+ Ind 92:447 D 1 ‘17 30w
“Allen French has proved himself ere this a popular writer of
breezy stories for young folks, and ‘The Golden Eagle’ will increase
his popularity.”
+ Springf’d Republican p17 N 11 ‘17 140w
FRENCH, ALLEN. Hiding-places. *$1.35 (1½c) Scribner 17-8201
Great wealth of treasure lay hidden somewhere on the two farms.
An old buccaneer ancestor, seventy years earlier, had taken this
method of leaving his wealth to his descendants. In the form of
precious gems, he had concealed it in various hiding places. His
will gave faint clues and stated clearly that finders were to be
keepers. In order that the finders should always be members of
the family, it became imperative that trespassing should be
forbidden, that hired labor should be dispensed with and that
guests should be chosen with care. At the time of this story the
farms are in the possession of two cousins. Not for forty years has
there been any discovery of treasure. Then Binney Hartwell, son of
one of the cousins, finds one of the hidden boxes. Unhappiness, ill-
luck and family dissension follow, but the disclosure of the final
hiding place restores harmony.
A L A Bkl 13:358 My ‘17
“A kind of romance which would be contemptible if it were done
cheaply; but it is done very well indeed, with, for good measure,
some touches of genuine characterisation—a thing which cannot
fairly be demanded of the pure romancer.” H. W. Boynton
+ Bookm 45:313 My ‘17 350w
+ Boston Transcript p6 My 29 ‘17 300w
“To say that the tale is exciting is to pay slight tribute to a novel
containing so clever a plot and such excellent characterizations as
those of the hero, his mother, and his cousin. Mr French has set
out to write a story, but in accomplishing his end he has shown
respect for his public and himself.”
+ Dial 62:314 Ap 5 ‘17 200w
“A good story, well contrived and well told, and it shows that its
author, whose first novel it is, has the story-teller’s instinct.”
+ N Y Times 22:94 Mr 18 ‘17 450w
“A tale worth reading.”
+ Outlook 115:622 Ap 4 ‘17 40w
+ Springf’d Republican p19 My 13 ‘17 450w
+ Wis Lib Bul 13:158 My ‘17 60w
FRENCH, GEORGE. How to advertise; a guide to designing, laying
out, and composing advertisements; pub. for the Associated
advertising clubs of the world. il *$2 (4c) Doubleday 659 17-
6656
“The object of this book is to suggest how advertising may be
made more effective by making it more attractive—giving it more
‘attention value.’” (Preface) Contents: What the advertisement
must do; The personal equation; The human interest appeal;
Advertising display; The appeal of the display; “What has art got
to do with advertising?” What is art? The all-type advertisement;
Type; The illustrated advertisement; Illustrations; The decorative
advertisement; Decorations; Optics and the advertisement; The
form of the advertisement; Getting the copy ready; Assembling the
units; In conclusion. The book is well illustrated, with twenty-six
halftone plates and numerous line drawings.
A L A Bkl 14:45 N ‘17
“Its general spirit is to develop the critical factor of the advertiser
himself. The book will have a worthy place in every business man’s
library.” H. W. H.
+ Ann Am Acad 73:231 S ‘17 160w
“What he says of advertising as a business force is both
authoritative and helpful. The citation of concrete examples, good
and bad, increases the book’s value.”
+ Ind 90:556 Je 23 ‘17 70w
N Y Br Lib News 4:59 Ap ‘17
Pittsburgh 22:523 Je ‘17
“The author is editor of the Advertising News.”
St Louis 15:144 My ‘17 30w
“The book is meant for a particular class of readers rather than the
public, but in its own field it is bound to rank high.”
+ Springf’d Republican p15 S 2 ‘17 250w
FREUND, ERNST. Standards of American legislation; an estimate
of restrictive and constructive factors. *$1.50 Univ. of Chicago
press 342.7 17-10698
“On its concrete side, the present work may be said to be a
continuation of the standard treatise, ‘Police power,’ by the same
author. It is an expansion of a series of lectures delivered at Johns
Hopkins university. ... The object sought ‘is to suggest the
possibility of supplementing the established doctrine of
constitutional law which enforces legislative norms through ex post
facto review and negation, by a system of positive principles that
should guide and control the making of statutes, and give a more
definite meaning and content to the concept of due process of
law.’” (Int J Ethics) The table of contents is followed by a summary
of the contents. The introduction cites a number of cases that
illustrate the changed attitude of the courts toward social
legislation, and touches on the movement for judicial recall. The
chapters then take up: Historic changes of policy and the modern
concept of social legislation; The common law and public policy;
The tasks and hazards of legislation; Constitutional provisions;
Judicial doctrines; The meaning of principle in legislation;
Constructive factors. The author is professor of jurisprudence and
public law in the University of Chicago.
Reviewed by A. B. Hall
+ Am J Soc 23:540 Ja ‘18 1150w
“Professor Freund’s purpose is to estimate the factors by the aid of
which a system of constructive principles of legislation may be
built up. This purpose distinguishes his book at once from such an
excellent treatise as Jethro Brown’s ‘The underlying principles of
modern legislation,’ which deals, not with principles of legislation
as Professor Freund defines the term, but with policy, and from
Chester Lloyd Jones’s valuable ‘Statute law making in the United
States,’ which deals exclusively with legislative practice.” A. N.
Holcombe
+ Am Pol Sci R 11:580 Ag ‘17 620w
“A book which, in a lucid and uninvolved manner traces the
development of the policies of modern legislation in the exercise of
what must be recognized as ‘a political and not strictly judicial
function.’”
+ Boston Transcript p6 My 23 ‘17 210w
“The field occupied by Professor Freund is a new one in nearly all
its avenues of approach; and it is extremely fortunate that a writer
of his wide professorial experience, and interest, in the subject,
has undertaken to publish the results of his research and
reflection. ... From the adverse side, we believe the title does not
accurately represent the matters treated, and yet we would have
great difficulty in suggesting another. The index is not altogether
satisfactory. ... This defect is in part relieved by a chapter
summary.” Albert Kocourek
* + Int J Ethics 28:123 O ‘17 1600w
—
Reviewed by H. W. Ballantine
+ J Pol Econ 25:1050 D ‘17 1000w
Pittsburgh 22:765 N ‘17 60w
+ Springf’d Republican p8 Je 28 ‘17 550w
“It stimulates thought and suggests further studies. It is a work
which jurists and constitutional lawyers will read with profit;
however, it will also interest the layman who appreciates the
increasing importance of statute law.” E. E. Witte
+ Survey 39:45 O 13 ‘17 330w
FREYTAG, GUSTAV. Doctor Luther; tr. by G. C. L. Riemer. il *$1
(3c) Lutheran pub. soc. 16-16678
Freytag’s work on Martin Luther is one of his “Pictures of the
German past,” five historical volumes written and published
between 1859 and 1867. The work consists of four chapters: At
the beginning of the 16th century; Struggles in the soul of a young
man and his entrance into the monastery; Out of monastic
confinement into battle; Doctor Luther. These are followed by
biographic and geographic notes and a table of dates. A brief
sketch of the author is included by way of preface.
+ Ind 89:274 F 12 ‘17 40w
From Dartmouth to the Dardanelles. (Soldiers’ tales of the great
war) *60c (2c) Dutton 940.91 (Eng ed 17-3142)
The Dartmouth of the title is the British naval training college of
that name. The young cadet whose story is told here was a boy of
barely sixteen. His narrative was written while at home on sick
leave in December, 1915, and has been edited for publication by
his mother, who has made the necessary alterations in names of
officers, ships, etc., leaving the boy’s story as nearly as possible as
he wrote it. His experiences included rescue from death after his
ship had been sunk.
+ Cath World 105:697 Ag ‘17 230w
+ Ind 90:297 My 12 ‘17 50w
“Full of interest, simply but vividly told.”
+ Nation 104:412 Ap 5 ‘17 260w
“The reader cannot fail to note in the book the strange gradual
maturity that came in that year to this child of fifteen. ‘From
Dartmouth to the Dardanelles’ is one of the unique personal
records from this war.”
+ N Y Times 22:78 Mr 4 ‘17 550w
Pratt p42 Ap ‘17 10w
R of Rs 55:445 Ap ‘17 40w
“Make-up and binding very poor.”
Wis Lib Bul 13:123 Ap ‘17 50w
FROTHINGHAM, EUGENIA BROOKS. Way of the wind. *$1.40
(3c) Houghton 17-6326
An unusual love story, the theme of which is the attachment
between an older woman and a man who is little more than a boy.
Janet Eversly is past thirty when she first meets Edgar Chilworth, a
boy in the early twenties. She is the guest of his sister in the New
Hampshire hills, and it is Fanny Chilworth’s harshness in her
treatment of the wayward, reckless youth that first draws Janet
toward him. He is touched by Janet’s pity, and before they are
aware, tenderness on the one side and gratitude on the other have
merged into love. The situation is worked out slowly, with many
failures on Edgar’s part and sorely-tried faith on Janet’s.
“Not necessary, seems to be founded on false psychology.”
— A L A Bkl 13:403 Je ‘17
“The author has accomplished something very much worth while
when she has drawn this portrait of Edgar Chilworth. ... On
account of this character study the story is exceptionally
praiseworthy as well as being psychologically interesting.” D. L. M.
+ Boston Transcript p8 Mr 10 ‘17 950w
— New Repub 10:sup22 Ap 21 ‘17 300w
+ N Y Times 22:138 Ap 15 ‘17 340w
FROTHINGHAM, PAUL REVERE. Confusion of tongues. *$1.25
Houghton 170 17-10441
“A volume of essay-sermons that deal not directly with the great
war, but that touch various aspects of life affected by it. None of
the discourses would be the same except for the colossal tragedy
across the sea. They represent an attempt to ease a little the
present mental strain, to restore the confidence of people, and to
lead the mind back to the everlasting verities of life and duty. The
title of the book is intended to symbolize the far-reaching effect of
the European camps along the battlefront.” (Boston Transcript)
“Contents: A confusion of tongues; The conduct of life; A motto;
The little book; Making the best of things; How to choose; The ‘if’
and ‘though’ of faith; Extra pennies; The departure into Egypt;
Unshaken things.” (N Y Br Lib News) The author has been the
minister of the Arlington Street church (Unitarian), Boston, since
1900.
+ Boston Transcript p6 My 23 ‘17 170w
+ Dial 63:535 N 22 ‘17 150w
“There is something a little out of the ordinary in the quiet sanity
of Paul Revere Frothingham’s volume of essay-sermons.”
+ Nation 105:72 Jl 19 ‘17 280w
N Y Br Lib News 4:94 Je ‘17
+ R of Rs 56:330 S ‘17 80w
“Wholesome and helpful as these brief essays are in encouraging
the cultivation of personal rectitude and hopefulness, they fall far
short of measuring the shock which faith has suffered under the
heel of war in Christendom.” G. T.
– Survey 38:574 S 29 ‘17 140w
+
É
FRYER, EUGÉNIE MARY. Hill-towns of France. il *$2.50 Dutton
914.4 17-30063
“This book is a story of wanderings among the picturesque hill-
towns of France in times of peace. These hill-towns, the traveller-
author tells us, are of four distinct types: first, the large town,
commanded and protected by the turrets and massive towers of
its walls and citadel; second, the feudal castle, the residence of
some great lord about whose walls a straggling town has grown
up; third, the fortified town, communal in character, which,
governed by no over-lord and possessed of no castle, yet protects
itself from invasion by fortifying its houses and its churches also;
and fourth, the monastic hill-town, its defences built primarily to
defend a shrine. ... In tracing the history of these four types of hill
towns in France, the writer has traced the welding of these
divergent strands into a united whole, which comprises the French
nation of today.”—Boston Transcript
“A pleasant book, with fine illustrations of some of the most
picturesque spots of France, such illustrations as would almost
provide an excuse for dispensing with reading the text.” Albert
Schinz
+ Bookm 46:292 N ‘17 230w
“The descriptive style of the narrative is picturesque and vigorous.”
+ Boston Transcript p7 D 1 ‘17 320w
“Most of the articles are reprints of papers from former
publications, but the collection makes a handy reference volume.”
+ Lit D 56:39 Ja 12 ‘18 150w
“Her book furnishes a new viewpoint from which to approach
France and French life and history.”
+ N Y Times 22:579 D 30 ‘17 200w
+ Outlook 117:654 D 19 ‘17 70w
+ R of Rs 57:219 F ‘18 40w
+ Springf’d Republican p17 D 8 ‘17 100w
FRYER, MRS JANE (EAYRE). Mary Frances first aid book. (Mary
Frances story instruction handbook ser.) il *$1 Winston 614 16-
24933
“‘The Mary Frances first aid book,’ is a combination of story with
information. ... It is printed in colors with fifty colored illustrations
and has a ready reference list of ordinary accidents and illnesses,
with approved home remedies, alphabetically arranged. ... The
children who are the chief characters are entrusted with a group of
doll patients on whom they practice what they learn about
bandages and liniments, and the cure for burns and other
injuries.”—Springf’d Republican
“Of use to smaller Camp fire girls.”
+ A L A Bkl 13:407 Je ‘17
“It is to be regretted that the author, a member of the New Jersey
Women’s division, National preparedness association, has by much
of her context infused the pages with the spirit of militarism and
‘flag waving.’ Otherwise the book has many valuable points and
may be commended, especially for its illustrations and generally
fine make-up.” M. G. S.
+ N Y Call p14 Ap 15 ‘17 120w
—
“At the present moment a practical first-aid book like this should
be very popular.”
+ Springf’d Republican p17 Ap 15 ‘17 120w
FUESS, CLAUDE MOORE. Old New England school. il *$4 (3c)
Houghton 373 17-13971
A history of Phillips academy, Andover, founded in 1778. Among
the chapters are: A Puritan family; The founders; The founding of
a school; An eighteenth-century pedagogue; The founding of
Andover theological seminary; The School and the Hill in the mid-
century; Student societies and enterprises; Some baseball stories;
Football and its heroes; Phillips academy in the twentieth century.
The volume is well illustrated.
“More feasible for libraries if it had been condensed and sold at
half the price.”
+ A L A Bkl 14:75 D ‘17
—
“The mere fact that Oliver Wendell Holmes was there fitted for
college, as we know from his own pen, is enough to make the
academy and its history objects of unfailing interest.”
+ Dial 63:408 O 25 ‘17 200w
+ Ind 91:296 Ag 25 ‘17 70w
“For those not directly interested in the academy it affords a
glimpse into those pioneer days of American institutions of
learning that were over full of history ‘in the making.’”
+ Lit D 55:33 S 1 ‘17 600w
“The institution stands today as about the best known and perhaps
without exception the most effectively equipped secondary school
of America. ... We cannot avoid the feeling that Mr Fuess falls
somewhat short of the proper degree of sympathy and
understanding in dealing with the earlier history of the school, and
especially with such a character as that of Principal Samuel H.
Taylor. ... Aside from reservations which some may feel inclined to
make on the point just mentioned, the author has done his work
well and has written a chapter in the history of American education
which should have a wide reading.”
+ Nation 105:68 Jl 19 ‘17 1250w
+ N Y Times 22:582 D 30 ‘17 340w
Pittsburgh 22:692 O ‘17
“Much of what he has brought to light is of significance not merely
as the record of a school but as New England social history.”
+ Springf’d Republican p8 Je 14 ‘17 1100w
FULLER, SIR BAMPFYLDE. Man as he is; essays in a new
psychology. *$2.50 Stokes 150 (Eng ed 17-13409)
“Retired from a distinguished career in India, Sir Bampfylde Fuller
has devoted himself to psychological studies and has already
published (in addition to two books on India) a work of value
called ‘Life and human nature.’ He now gives us what may be
called a contribution to the study of human impulses; for in these
developing into rational choice and based on memory—the
excellences of memory being the chief mark of man’s
predominance over other animals—he finds the key to the human
mind and conduct.”—The Times [London] Lit Sup
+ Ath p473 O ‘16 80w
“The first chapter, however, is too brief a statement of principles to
form a really adequate introduction to the ambitiously planned
inquiry.”
+ NY Times 22:402 O 14 ‘17 500w
—
“His treatment of man in these essays is wholly as ‘the paragon of
animals.’ Nothing turns on any specific difference, any spiritual
element which distinguishes man from animal. But there is no tone
of brutality in the book, no cynicism, no Nietzsche nonsense, and
we mark frequently with a certain amusement the conventional
and even commonplace morality which pervades its rigid realistic
and positive analysis of man purely as a terrestrial creature.”
Sat R 123:322 Ap 7 ‘17 500w
“The book contains much acute analysis based not only on
reflection, but on a singularly wide acquaintance with men and
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