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Joseph Friggieri: In-Nisġa tal-Ħsieb Vol. 3: Mill-Idealiżmu sal Postmoderniżmu. Malta University Publishing, 2014. 292 pp.

The publication of the third volume of In-Nisġa tal-Ħsieb by Joe Friggieri richly deserves to be commemorated. This third volume completes a 14-year-long project that constitutes a landmark in the annals of Maltese publications and in the history of Maltese philosophy.

The project itself is a work of philosophical maturity, in that it presents the rich tapestry of philosophical thought by indicating the warp of its texture in depicting its dialogical and dialectical moments.

Like Anthony Kenny’s recent majestic work on the history of Western philosophy, Friggieri’s text is introductory without being elementary. It makes for relatively-easy reading – which is a real feat when one considers the difficulty of the themes which are tackled. There are also some very useful schemas – on the work of the Vienna Circle, on postmodernism and on Derrida – that present complex ideas in a succinct manner.

The background conviction underpinning the entire opus is the position that the history of philosophy is, itself, a philoso-phical discipline.

This third volume presents the sweep of philosophical thought from Fichte to Bauman, but succeeds in presenting a remarkably long pageant of characters like Dilthey and Freud, Schelling and Peirce, Saussure and Cixous, while granting due attention to the landmark Wittgenstein and Heidegger.

It seeks to do justice to a redoubtable number of different currents of thought that characterise contemporary philosophical thought: from idealism to poststructuralism; from pragmatism to life philosophy; from analytic philosophy to structuralism; from continental philosophy to ordinary language philosophy.

This rich tapestry depicts a series of philosophical pen-portraits which can be read with profit in isolation but which indeed prove rather addictive in that one is sorely tempted to browse from one personage to another.

Each character is depicted with a deep philosophical acumen, but also in a personal manner. We learn, for example, that Wittgenstein could whistle entire musical compositions from memory, or that Quine referred to Carnap as “my old and valued friend”. Above all, the different characters are presented as reacting and responding to one another.

The history of philosophy is depicted as a great conversation – with its dialogical and dialectical moments – which illumines many themes of present-day philosophical enquiry. Indeed, perhaps one of the greater merits of this third volume is that the traditional divide between analytic and continental philosophy is overcome and the real dialogue going on between the two traditions is indicated.

Of course, there will be some lacunae in such a complex text. Newman and Gareth Evans go missing, as do Marion and Meillassoux. Anscombe, Geach and Putnam get only a fleeting mention. Jonathan Langshaw Austin himself – whom the author knows very well – is accorded a remarkably brief space.

But these are understandable gripes in a volume on the contemporary era we form part of. The debate on who is to be cited and the manner in which one is mentioned in the history of philosophy is itself a matter for philosophical debate.

Friggieri deserves our admiration for this rich and interesting volume. His iconography is fast-paced and invites the reader to dip into the text. As a parting shot, may I suggest that a future edition of this text be published in which colour illustrations would complement Friggieri’s very beautiful Maltese prose.