Abstract

Festschriften may have gone out of style, but not out of print. The desire to pay tribute to an important thinker remains strong and no one has found a more suitable vehicle. Hence the present volume in honor of Max Fisch, who retired recently from the University of Illinois after a long and distinguished career in the academic world, which began in 1926. The volume consists of fourteen essays by former graduate students of Fisch, as well as two short pieces by Fisch himself, a biographical sketch by Max Harold Fisch, a preface by D. W. Gotshalk, a chronological bibliography of Fisch's writings, and a list of theses directed by Fisch from 1947 to 1968 at the University of Illinois. The essays cover such diverse philosophers as Aristotle, Hartshorne, Merleau-Ponty, Agassiz, Harvey, Hegel, and Peirce and range from subjects like Freedom and the Justification of Morality to Logic, Frequency Theory of Probability, Language and the Self--and even beyond, to subjects such as The Origin of the Species and a Taoist Treatise on the Nourishment of Life. Curiously, despite Fisch's pioneer work in bringing Vico to the attention of American readers, none of the essays center on Vichian thought; nor do any of the theses listed in the back of the book take Vico as the subject of the dissertation.--H. B.