Moby-Dick as Philosophy is at base a chapter-by-chapter commentary on Herman Melville's masterwork, Moby-Dick. The commentary form of the book subserves a higher end, the presentation of an ideal of the type philosopher. Superimposing portraits of Plato, Melville, and Nietzsche--the thinkers themselves, their ideas and their lives--it generates a composite image from the overlaying and interblending of figures. At a higher level still, the book is a meditation on the nature of philosophy and its relation to wisdom, and the relation of creative artistry to both....