Abstract

Arnold Metzger is one of Germany’s leading philosophers. He served as an assistant to Husserl at Freiburg from 1919 to 1924 and published his first major book—Der Gegendstand der Erkenntnis —in Husserl’s Jarhbuch. [[sic]] The present title is a second unchanged edition of the work which appeared in 1955, and which received a warm reception in Germany. Metzger’s philosophy is concerned with working out the implications which lie in the concept of Being. There are two "mythologies" about Being which Metzger hopes to dispel. The one hypostasizes Being as something transcendent and permanent, while the other is a reductionism which hypostasizes the factual. The problem of freedom and death must be understood within the context of the question of Being so formulated. Metzger’s approach is in the broad sense "existential," but it is developed out of a constant dialogue with Socrates, Plato and Kant. His German is highly readable and unencumbered. His book which is a cross section of the major themes of twentieth century German philosophy, is a thoughtful meditative study of one of the major themes in contemporary thought.—J. D. C.