"Andrew 'Jameson'" and David B. Hart
Peter Pagan
On Sept. 4 I sent out a message to the AMA group regarding some questionable book reviews posted on the website of Amazon.com. A clarification written by David B. Hart was sent to me after I sent out the earlier message. Mr. Hart's letter is attached below.
Sincerely,
Peter Pagan
P.S. I might add that I find Mr. Hart's clarification disappointing. Indeed, I find certain intemperate aspects of his clarification worrisome, including his endorsement of "almost all" of the remarkably strident and irresponsible reviews. In my judgment, such reviews constitute nothing less than an unambiguous academic embarrassment! In fact, most of the reviews were so far over the edge that Amazon.com recently removed all but one of them from its website. In any case, I don't believe Mr. Hart's clarification reflects well on Providence College. That is most unfortunate. One may hope that his forthcoming response to Steven Long's Nova et Vetera article will contain not an extended chain of ad hominem invectives, but only carefully reasoned arguments one should expect within the context of respectful academic discourse between responsible scholars.
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From: David Hart <dha...@providence.edu>
Date: September 5, 2007 10:58:37 PM EDT
Dear All,
So, am I Andrew Jameson or not? Apparently, in some sense, I am,
though not in the fullest sense. If I were to choose a pseudonym
of that sort, I would go for Robertson, not Jameson, since my
father's name is Robert. And I think I would choose a nickname
somewhat more difficult to penetrate than davidbhart, which--I
think you'll all agree--is not really the most baffling of
riddles. Nevertheless, I am responsible for many--indeed almost
all--of the language in those reviews, and (with the exception of
the one attached to the Long volume) all the reviews accurately
reflect my opinions of the books to which they are attached. But,
of course, I wouldn't bother to hide my identity, and I wouldn't
bother to record my opinions on Amazon.
After the disorienting experience of discovering through Andrew
that I had an alter ego out there, it took only a little while to
figure out who it was who had taken it on himself to channel me to
the world of Amazon review-readers; and it took only a gently
rancorous phone call to the culprit to confirm my conclusions.
Actually, it is not very amusing. The profile for Andrew Jameson
was created by a fellow in his late 30s but living in his parents'
home because of his inability to put his life together; he was a
student of mine at Virginia (not Duke, as I first told Jim) when he
was in his mid-20s, one who was always a little emotionally
unstable, depressive, and slightly (I thought) delusional, and who
formed an uncomfortably worshipful opinion of me and, after my
departure from UVA, of John Milbank. He has been able to obtain
only one academic job--an adjunct position--from which he was fired
midway through his first semester due to his tendency to begin
aggressively proselytizing in the classroom. I have remained in
contact with him, and worry about him, and he often asks my opinion
of this or that book. I did not realize my remarks were being
transcribed in many cases almost verbatim into reviews on Amazon,
of course, but I cannot deny that they were the products of my
acidulous mind.
As for the review of Long's book, there he obviously erred. I have
not read that book and have no opinion about it whatsoever. Mr
"Jameson" did ask me about a book by Steven Long a few weeks ago,
but my only reply was to tell him that I knew nothing of it; I did
however volunteer my opinions on an article of Long's on Maritain
that had appeared in Nova et Vetera, which I described as
incontinently repetitious, shot through with logical errors and
confusions, and the product of a degenerate, "second scholastic"
reading of Thomas that did violence to the sophisticaion of
Thomas's metaphysics. I have no need to dissemble on this point,
since I was quite open about my low opinion of that article, as
everyone who had to endure my ranting here at Providence well
knows. In fact, Long--to judge from a conversation he had with
John Betz at Loyola--is also aware of my views of that article.
And I have at least one forthcoming article of my own in which I
savage the piece. I am sorry that Mr "Jameson" mistook my remarks
for observations upon The Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act,
and am naturally embarrassed by the review; but, for the most part,
the words are mine. It may well be that, as Paul Gondreau, Matthew
Cuddeback, and Russell Hittinger all assure me, Long is quite
talented and capable of penetrating arguments, and I intend to read
his book when I have the time to do so. If I find it to be
brilliant, I will say so; if I do not, I will say so. At the
moment, I have no reason to think ill of it at all, and have heard
plentiful attestation of its virtues.
Anyway, as for my rather unhappy friend, he has said he will remove
that cunning nickname from his profile, use his rather than my
birth date (how the hell he knew mine I find it hard to guess), and
stop doing me the "favor" of publishing my views abroad. As for
the review of Long's book, he will reconsider it; if it does in
fact reflect his view of the book, he will leave it as it is, but
no longer attributed to me; if he decides that it does not, he will
revise or remove it. That's the best I can do.
I am a bit bemused, however, by the indignation this review seems
to have inspired. As I understand it, someone was sufficiently
disturbed by it to go seeking the identity of its author. I cannot
imagine giving a damn about a review on Amazon, one way or the
other, so I cannot really pretend that I understand the need of
this fellow to seek its source. And I do not much care to whom I
give offense. But, in this case, I have been the victim of a
misrepresentation, and so want to clear the air.
Please pass this on to all the Thomists (and others) you think need
to know the story.
Best,
David
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FROM: Peter Pagan
DATE: Sept. 4, 2007
Greetings:
Some weeks ago I recommended Steven Long's new book, which will be discussed at one of the concurrent sessions scheduled for later this year at the American Maritian Association meeting to be held at the University of Notre Dame. Today I was visiting Amazon's website and saw some surprising reviews of his book and of Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange's work, Predestination. (The reviews are attached below.)
One thing I found curious is that the reviewer, Andrew "Jameson," is nicknamed "davidbhart." As you may already be aware, there is an actual David B. Hart [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bentley_Hart], a widely published author and speaker (e.g., [http://www.dhs.edu/academics/analogiaentis.aspx]). I don't know whether there is an actual connection, but if «Andrew "Jameson"» and D.B. Hart were in fact one and the same person, there would be genuine reason for concern, at least among those within academic circles. The enclosed reviews reflect poorly on the author, i.e., "Jameson."
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[http://www.amazon.com/Teleological-Grammar-Moral-Act/dp/1932589392/ref=sr_1_1/102-3440697-1413726?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188932439&sr=8-1]
The Teleological Grammar of the Moral Act
by Steven A. Long
Edition: Paperback
Price: $24.95
Availability: Usually ships in 4 to 6 weeks
Clumsy and Repetitious, August 30, 2007
By Andrew "Jameson" (USA) - See all my reviews [http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A14LM4S71WRCNQ/ref=cm_cr_auth/102-3440697-1413726?ie=UTF8&sort%5Fby=MostRecentReview]
It would be difficult to exaggerate the ineptitude of this book's arguments, or their repetitiveness. This is a short book in absolute word count, but ridiculously long in superfluous sentences. Any competent editor could have reduced it to 25 pages. The argument, though, would be just as full of logical gaps, unjustified presuppositions, and ponderously snide swipes at superior scholars. A disaster of a book.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A14LM4S71WRCNQ/ref=cm_cr_auth/102-3440697-1413726?ie=UTF8&sort%5Fby=MostRecentReview]
Predestination
by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange
Edition: Paperback
Price: $18.50
Availability: In Stock 7 used & new from $9.79
2 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
An idiotic book promoting a disastrously stupid theology, January 22, 2007
Garrigou-Lagrange was the last miserable champion of the Baroque Thomist tradition of Banez, which upheld a view of God that in some formal aspects--but in no real essentials--was as foul as that of Calvin. Garrigou himself, moreover, was a rank mediocrity and found it impossible to construct a coherent argument; he makes his case through sheer, relentless repetitiousness.
Actually, there is no doctrine of predilective predestination in the Bible. No serious student of Greek could approve the translation of proorizein as praedestinare. And only the most inept of readers actually thinks that Romans 9-11, read in its entirety, is a treatise on praedestinatio ante praevisa merita towards the salvation and reprobation of individual souls (it is a treatise on the election of Israel and the election of the Church and the eschatological reconciliation of the two persons when God will "have mercy on all").
Even if the full Baroque Thomist theology of grace and predestination could be wrested from the Bible, this cretinous volume would scarcely serve as a convincing precis. It is, moreover, an argument for a theology decisively rejected by the modern magisterium, quite incompatible with the explicit teachings of Vatican II on the nature of God's universal will to salvation, and (as even the late Garrigou himself came to realize) already implicitly condemned in Rome's five condemnations of Jansenism.
This book remains a favorite of those Catholics who have some sort of sadistic investment in the idea of God's sovereignty displayed in his willful abandonment of most of humanity to hell and his arbitrary preference of a very few, destined for salvation; and it is a book that suits the agenda of those ill-educated enough to believe that this was the teaching of Paul; but it is a book that merits contempt, and whose admirers merit something less than contempt.
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A14LM4S71WRCNQ/ref=cm_aya_pdp_profile/102-3440697-1413726]
Andrew's Profile
"Jameson"
Location: USA
Reviewer Rank: 342,971
See all 6 reviews (24 helpful votes)
Nickname: davidbhart
Birthday: 2/20