Introduction non technique à la Théorie de l'Information Intégrée de la conscience de Giulio Tononi. Traduction française de l'article de Hedda Hassel Mørch.

Çin, son dönemlerde Körfez Bölgesine yönelik izlediği aktif politika, Çin Devlet Başkanı Xi Jipping’in (Şi Cinping), 7-9 Aralık 2022 tarihinde Körfez’e gerçekleştirdiği kapsamlı ziyaretle birlikte daha fazla dinamizm kazanmıştır. Bu ziyareti takiben yapılan analizler Çin’in, Körfez açılımını ABD’nin bölgesel hegemonyasını zayıflatmaya yönelik bir girişim olarak değerlendirmektedirler. Aynı ziyaret sırasında Pekin ve Riyad yönetimleri arasında imzalanan kapsamlı anlaşmalar ise ABD’nin Körfezdeki uzun erimli güvenlik partneri Suudi Arabistan’a ilişkin “eksen kayması” tartışmalarını başlattı. Bu çalışma güncelliğini koruyan iki tartışmanın kapsamlı bir muhakemesini yapmayı (...) hedeflemektedir. Bu amaçla uluslararası ilişkiler disiplinin son dönem fenomen teorisi olan hiyerarşinin ilgili argümanları kullanılmaktadır. Bu teorik çerçeveden hareketle, çalışmada ilk olarak Çin’in Körfez siyasetini şekillendiren stratejilerin fiyat arttırma (oubidding) ve negatif dengeleme (negative balancing) olduğu ve bu stratejilerin Körfez Bölgesi ülkeleri açısından yeni imkânlar yarattığı tespitinde bulunulmaktadır. Bunun yanı sıra Suudi Arabistan’ın, Çin ile gelişen ikili ilişkilerini hâlihazırda ABD ile sürdürmekte olduğu ilişkisine bir alternatif olarak görmediği, aksine Çin’in bahsi geçen stratejilerinden maksimum kazanım elde ederek otonomisini arttırmaya çalıştığı ayrıca belirtiliyor. (shrink)

In retrospect, I think I was right to compose Natural Supernaturalism by relying on taste, tact, and intuition rather than on a controlling method. A book of this kind, which deals with the history of human intellection, feeling, and imagination, employs special vocabularies, procedures, and modes of demonstration which, over many centuries of development, have shown their profitability when applied to matters of this sort. I agree with Booth that these procedures, when valid, are in a broad sense rational, and (...) subject to analysis and some degree of definition. But the rules underlying such a discourse are complex, elusive, unsystematic, and subject to innovative modification; they manifest themselves in the intuitive expertise of the historian; and the specification of these rules should not precede, but follow practice. . . . After the fact, nevertheless, a book like Natural Supernaturalism is subject to close critical inquiry about its methods and rationale. I am grateful to Booth for opening up such an inquiry, and for doing so in a way that is not only disarming, but seems to me to be the most promising of useful results. That is, instead of adopting a prosecutorial stance, demanding: "Justify the rationality and probative force of what you have done; it looks dammed suspicious to me," he has adopted the friendly tactic of saying: "Your book, in my experience of it, has yielded discoveries that I want to call knowledge, by methods, however deviant from standard rubrics of valid reasoning, that it seems irrational to call non-rational. Let's set out to clarify what these methods are, and to see what grounds we can find for the claim that they provide warranted knowledge." M.H. Abrams' contributions to Critical Inquiry are "The Deconstructive Angel" and "Behaviorism and Deconstruction: A Comment on Morse Peckham's 'The Infinitude of Pluralism'". (shrink)

The new historical inscription from Epidaurus has provided us with a unique piece of documentary evidence on Greek federal constitutions. In this article I propose to study the principal points of constitutional interest contained in it. I have based my text on that of Professor Wilcken and M. Kougeas; and I follow Professor Wilcken and Mr. Tarn in identifying the new document with the constitution which Demetrius Poliorcetes imposed upon his pan-Hellenic League in 303–2 B.C.

In this note we sketch a decision procedure for S3.51 based on reduction to conjunctive normal form. Using the following theorem of S3.5: and its dual for M over a conjunction, any formula can be reduced by standard methods (as in S52) to a conjunction of disjunctions of the form where Í is (p ⊃ p), 0 is ∼(p ⊃ p) and α — λ are all PC-wffs (i.e. they contain no modal operators).

This paper described a formal theory of type judgments for propositional logic notations of PM; I felt the need of my own automated type checker to check their examples. The type checker I wrote did indeed serve to help me referee the paper, but also took a rather different approach to notation and typing for propositional functions of PM, which proved worth writing up independently in our own paper: Holmes, M. Randall, “Polymorphic type– checking for the ramified theory of types (...) of Principia Mathematica”, in Fairouz Kamareddine, ed., Thirty–five Years of Automating Mathematics, Kluwer, 2003, pp. 173-215. (shrink)

Listening to someone from some distance in a crowded room you may experience the following phenomenon: when looking at them speak, you may both hear and see where the source of the sounds is; but when your eyes are turned elsewhere, you may no longer be able to detect exactly where the voice must be coming from. With your eyes again fixed on the speaker, and the movement of her lips a clear sense of the source of the sound will (...) return. This ‘ventriloquist’ effect reflects the ways in which visual cognition can dominate auditory perception. And this phenomenological observation is one what you can verify or disconfirm in your own case just by the slightest reflection on what it is like for you to listen to someone with or without visual contact with them. (shrink)

This volume offers the first-ever complete English translation of Leibniz’s Dissertatio De Arte Combinatoria together with a critical edition of the original Latin text on fa...

Our research is based on a rather large "library" of various works by M. Drahomanov, which contains his views on religion. Among them: Paradise and Progress, From the History of Relations Between Church and State in Western Europe, Faith and Public Affairs, Fight for Spiritual Power and Freedom of Conscience in the 16th - 17th Centuries,, "Church and State in the Roman Empire", "The Status and Tasks of the Science of Ancient History," "Evangelical Faith in Old England," "Populism and Popular (...) Progress in Austrian Rus, Austrian-Russian Remembrance," "Pious The Legend of the Bulgarians "," The Issues of Religious Freedom in Russia, "" On the Brotherhood of the Baptist or the Baptist in Ukraine, "" The Foreword, " Shevchenko, Ukrainianophiles and Socialism "," Wonderful thoughts about the Ukrainian national affair "," Zazdri gods "," Slavic variants of one Gospel legend "," Resurrection of Christ ", etc. (shrink)

Dünyada müxtəlif dillər mövcuddur. Hal-hazırda əlavə xarici dil öyrənməyə maraq artmaqdadır. Təbii ki bu hər bir şəxsin öz istəyinə və seçiminə bağlıdır. Yəni hər kəs, hər hansı bir dili öyrəndiyi zaman, qarşısında iki məqsəd dayanır; ya o dili sevir, ya da o dili öyrənmək onun üçün lazımdır. Hər bir vətəndaşın borcudur ki, əvvəlcə öz ana dilini mükəmməl şəkildə öyrənsin. Lakin elm və texnologiyanın yüksək inkişaf etdiyi bir zamanda yalnız ana dilini bilmək kifayət etmir. İnsanın hər bir sahədə inkişafı üçün bacardığı (...) qədər başqa dillərə də yiyələnməsi artıq zəruridir. Yeni dil öyrənmənin faydaları çoxdur, yaddaşın güclənməsinə, söz ehtiyatının artmasına, nitqin gözəlləşməsinə səbəb olur. Həmçinin yeni dil öyrənməklə, insanın özünə güvəni artır, ünsiyyət dairəsi genişlənir. Bununla insan yalnız yeni sözlər deyil, yeni mədəniyyətlərlə də tanış olur və nəticədə dünyagörüşü artır. (shrink)

The author's previous works on Descartes, Malebranche, and other rationalists, as well as her critical editions of the Méditations and De la Recherche de la Vérité have insured the rich documentation and the interpretative density of this little treatise. However, its main feature is not historical erudition because for this author, as for most contemporary first rank French commentators, Descartes is living still in contemporary work through the freshness and renewed relevance of many of his themes. The part of this (...) study devoted to Descartes is centered upon the Méditations though it offers frequent excursions into the methodical works. In many ways it is a scale model of the Méditations, showing the philosophical scope of this inexhaustible metaphysical masterpiece. The second part has chapters on Reason and Method, God, Man and World, and Human Freedom, with an enlightening parallel treatment of these topics in Spinoza, Malebranche, and Leibniz. A useful bibliography and a chronology of the principal works studied complete this compact volume.--A. M. (shrink)

This study is intended as a part of a larger work containing two more monographs, one on interpersonal relations and transcendence in Romano Guardini, the other on Rudolf Bultmann and his critique of metaphysical transcendence. The thought of Buber is traced here to its historical sources in the Jewish tradition but also in Jacobi and Kierkegaard. These two authors are in fact the only ones who attempt to preserve the finitude of the human subject vis-à-vis transcendence at the very beginning (...) and at the end of subjective idealism. Husserl's establishment of a dialectic between ownness and otherness at the heart of the universal flux of consciousness is the next step in Buber's demarcation of his own ontological posture. In Husserl, the encounter with the other within the sphere of otherness is perhaps contingent, i.e., tied to the mysterious passage from the formal dispositions of transcendental consciousness to the material regions and objects that concretely actualize those formal dispositions. In Buber, as in Landgrege's [[sic]] Phänomenologie und Metaphysik, an "intersubjective reduction" must precede the reflective separation of the spheres of ownness and otherness. Indeed without judgment, there is no full reflection in Husserl, but judgment must be understood as dialogical expression before it can be seen as meaningful world orientation. Buber understood well that the source of dialogical expression is silence, yet instead of using silence as the ground of the existential communication that elucidates the boundary situations of man, he gave a beckoning interpretation of silence that must be seen as a precedent of the openness of the horizon of consciousness in Heidegger's Gelassenheit. Though Babolin does not give any indication here of the direction of the forthcoming monographs, the fact that they are about Guardini and Bultmann may indicate that he is moving away from mysticism in the remainder of this work.--A. M. (shrink)

Time has not worn out the urgency and the novelty of these essays on existentialism published first in 1950 and again in 1959. The nothingness on which Paci writes so poignantly here is being as dealt with in the various historico-philosophical positions of transcendence. This suggestion of Paci is Heideggerian in character: being and nothingness are after all identified. But since Paci has in mind the inevitable destruction of human finitude by philosophical conceptions of transcendence, his words of caution apply (...) to Heidegger's intentions as well. Heidegger in fact destroyed metaphysics, i.e., the possibility of enclosing transcendence within any philosophical system. Yet by making this destruction systematic he opened up a new transcendence which encompasses existence as speech oriented in the philosophical mode. For Paci all of these philosophical positions end up identifying being and nothingness precisely because none of their images of transcendence can be properly superimposed upon the freedom and the finitude of man; thus, they become irrelevant, they lead nowhere. Three philosophical directions in Paci's background lead him away from this irrelevancy: the Augustinian emphasis on the existentiell that leads through Kierkegaard to Jaspers; the immanentistic [[sic]] sense of human development that flows parallel in Marx and Croce; the constitutive role of experience and expression in the late Husserl. Concerning the latter, Paci sees some important connections between constitution and myth in the two central chapters of his work, one of which is about existentialism and neo-Kantianism and the other about myth and existence.--A. M. (shrink)

This is one of the best and most complete treatments of Wittgenstein's philosophy written thus far in any language. The seven chapters of this substantial work mark the various stages of Wittgenstein's evolution giving appropriate attention to each of them. Gargani's analysis leaves unexamined few, if any, concrete issues where the ambiguity of Wittgenstein has provoked current discussion. Objects, properties, relations, complete definition and the determinateness of symbols, general propositions, language in the Tractatus, the object-designation scheme, imagination and thought, the (...) role of sense data, the concept of rule: these and other issues are all scrutinized in dialogue with the great wealth of existing opinion. But the author is never lost in questions of detail nor in polemical support of his interpretations as is so often the case with commentaries of this sort. Using Wittgenstein's methodological variations as a guiding thread, Gargani puts the above issues in perspective but, most importantly, he makes a thorough rational reconstruction, including continuities and discontinuities, of Wittgenstein's thought. One of the best features of this work is that it shows the intimate relations of Wittgenstein's work with Frege, Russell, Moore, Ramsey, Hertz, Schlick, Carnap, Neurath, and others.--A. M. (shrink)

This is a complex work by the author of The Moral Nature of Man. First, it is an inventory of the perceptual world using as a tool an original distinction between noticing and observing. This leads to the establishment of a continuity between the conscious and the subconscious, and to the discernment of various meaning-giving levels of attention. Secondly, it is a review of opinion on sensation and perception in recent Anglo-American thought. Particular attention is given to the ideas of (...) Price, Ayer, and Austin. Thirdly, and most importantly, it contains a full theory of reality based on: 1) the resistance or centered action of dynamic systems; 2) the purposive action that meets this resistance; and 3) the emergence of qualia from the encounter of 1 and 2. The method is that of description of ordinary language conceptions of sensation and sensa, "things," interaction and causation, and symbol. From this analysis Garnett obtains some original conclusions about sense qualia and brain processes, body and mind, and, in general, about the physical and mental elements of the universe.—A. M. (shrink)

The ontological argument continues to draw the attention of philosophers of different persuasions. This is one of the latest works on the subject. In it the Anselmian proof as developed in the Proslogion is submitted to careful analysis and placed in relation to Anselm’s approach to God in the Monologion. Thus the title of the book seems to be justified, inasmuch as it is Anselm’s notion of God that is investigated from a rational viewpoint rather than the ontological argument alone. (...) Vuillemin divides his work into four parts, which are followed by a conclusion and seven appendices. In the first two parts he contends that the ontological argument as stated in the Proslogion is a rational proof based on rational data, even though faith may support those data, and that the proof therefore involves an illegitimate transition from the concept of God in our mind to his actual existence, a criticism that the author shares with Kant. The third and fourth parts of the book are Vuillemin’s personal contribution to the understanding of the argument and purport to show the epistemological and mathematical antinomies that result from the "negative" concept of a being than which nothing greater can be thought which is at the basis of the Anselmian proof. It is the author’s contention that reason can prove both the impossibility of conceiving the being in question and the inability of the human mind to argue to the existence of a transcendent being from concepts derived by abstraction from the beings of our experience. Thus Vuillemin would rule out not only the so-called argument a priori of the Proslogion but also the arguments a posteriori presented in the Monologion. To understand Anselm’s ontological argument correctly, it is necessary to view it in the light of Anselm’s belief and in the context of the ideological realism which he shared with the entire Augustinian school. By neglecting such considerations, Vuillemin, like many other interpreters before him, does not seem to have done justice to what has been called "one of the boldest creations of man’s reason and a credit not only to his inventor, but to human reason itself.".—B. M. B. (shrink)

Rosensohn’s interpretation rejects the thesis that Peirce had several systems, perhaps as many as four, each of which is responsive to his new discoveries in logic. Against this view Rosensohn traces the development of Peirce’s system as a coherent phenomenological search, shaped by his "lifelong interest in logic, the sciences, ethics, aesthetics and metaphysics", and culminating in his phaneroscopy, the description of the phaneron. Rosensohn’s text consists of two parts. Part I, "The Elements of Phenomenology," consists of three chapters, two (...) of which are devoted to a close investigation of Peirce’s 1967 "A New List of Categories." Part II consists of two long chapters, "Phenomenology and Nature " and "Phaneroscopy: The Description of the Phaneron." The book concludes with a critique of Peirce’s fundamental categories—Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness—as these bear on his own phenomenological project. From the standpoint of Peirce’s phenomenology, "whatever is present to the mind has Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness", but on the ontological level the cosmos’ evolution is viewed by him as linear. In addition to the usual bibliography and index, Rosensohn provides a helpful appendix of six key quotations in which Peirce explains phenomenology and phaneroscopy. This volume is vastly more substantial than its limited number of pages might suggest. The publisher crowds the pages with smallish print, generally exceeding 500 words per page. Rosensohn’s text itself is lucid, beautifully written, and skillfully argued. It represents at once an important contribution to Peirce scholarship and to the phenomenological literature.—B.M. (shrink)

The author, a physicist as well as a philosopher, uses the thought of Werner Heisenberg as a focus for examining the epistemological foundations of quantum theory. Though Heisenberg's earliest original insights were stimulated by Plato's Timaeus he soon swung over to Bohr's empiricism in developing and supporting the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. His later philosophical reflections are markedly Kantian with irreducible physical invariants playing the role of Kant's necessary and universal laws. As Heelan sees it, an examination of the (...) intentionality-structure of the scientist supplies the critical basis for judging the reality of the objects known through science. Though Heisenberg rejected the naive "empirical objectivity" of pre-quantum interpretations of science, his reflective evaluation of his own achievements is inadequate in explaining the formal objectivity of the objects known. By distinguishing the criterion of reality, rational affirmation, from the meaning of "reality," whatever is defined by the object in its formal sense, Heelan is able to develop a critical realism that assigns an ontological status to fundamental particles. "Main-line" philosophers of science may feel ill at ease with Heelan's phenomenological terminology of "intentionality-structure," "noema," and "horizon" and may object to his treatment of "meaning" and "language." But if they "bracket" these reservations they will find this book an unusually well-informed and penetrating study of the philosophical implications of modern physics.—E. M. M. (shrink)

A competent and philosophically subtle study of S. K.'s notion of the relation of Christianity and history. The relation of time and eternity, of "sacred history" and ordinary history and the problem of contemporaneity in the Fragments, the Postscript and Training in Christianity are brought into focus through S. K.'s doctrine of the incarnation. This Holm interprets as "fictionalist"; "it is valid to believe that this man is God... as if it were so, although his empirical appearance can never reveal (...) it." --F. M. S. (shrink)

A sympathetic study of the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition which attempts to clarify the nature of the Free Church heritage and show its contributions to religious and political freedom. Though well-documented and competent, it is episodic and somewhat disorganized; it dwells less on history than on the relevance of Free Church ideas to contemporary problems of religion and society.--F. M. S.

A mimeographed book on the philosophy of "Being" from Thales to Aristotle. The author states that the book has evolved out of his lectures in an introductory course on metaphysics. Almost half the pages are devoted to Platonism. The whole treatment is somewhat repetitious and is more pedagogic than scholarly, making relatively free use of terminology.--M. G.

Drawing upon recent contributions to an already developed literature of diverse speculation on Bayle and his milieu, the author attempts to assess the historical significance of Bayle's writings by means of a chronological treatment of the French Calvinist's changing understanding of the relation of faith and reason. One may find here the main lines of Bayle criticism judiciously set forth, together with a careful investigation of some biographical material and the exposition of Bayle's principal ideas on the role and limits (...) of reason as a speculative and moral guide, the function of grace, the grounds of faith and morality, the problem of error, and, the centrality of Providence. The author argues convincingly for the thesis that Bayle remained consistently loyal to the traditions of the Reform. On the other hand, the closely related attempt to illuminate the logic of Bayle's ambiguous statements of the dualism of reason, as an instrument for yielding clarity and evidence, and as the agent of man's struggle with the unknowable, lacks critical vigor. Nonetheless, this work is a very readable summary of the intellectual contribution of a crucial figure in the evolution of French philosophical and religious thought. A valuable bibliography is included.--J. M. S. (shrink)

The author regards faith as a restless quest for that which can save man from his self-destructive tendencies and allow him to actualize most completely his constructive potentialities. Wieman critically examines several answers to this quest of faith, including those of Dewey, Tillich, and Barth. In contrast he develops the view of "liberal religion," which finds the answer in a divine creativity fostered by communication, and is productive of fresh insights which transform human ideals.--J. M. W.

Seeks to show, from the development of Vedantic doctrine, and by comparison of it with Plato, Berkeley, Kant, Hegel, Bradley, and some contemporary western philosophic movements, that Indian idealism has attacked similar basic problems.--J. M.

Herder spent two years studying at the University of Königsberg and attended four courses taught by Kant, who at the time had just published his first really important philosophical writing on the "Only Possible Proof of the Demonstration of God's Existence." Herder's notes are probably the only ones preserved from any lecture by Kant in that decade. The texts on logic and mathematics are short and insignificant. The pages on metaphysics are devoted to mostly psychological inquiries. Herder's notes are most (...) complete on "Practical Philosophy after Hutcheson and Baumgarten" where Kant analyzes not only purely ethical questions, but treats at some length religious issues as well. Even though these notes do not revolutionize our understanding of the genesis of Kant's philosophy, they do help us to retrace in more detail his road to the Dissertation of 1770 and to the critical writings. The editor's introduction is brief but good, and the bibliographical notes are abundant and excellent.—M. J. V. (shrink)

The first part examines the basic postulates of logic, logistics, and theory of science. These the author designates as non-object sciences or meta-sciences which make judgments on judgments of objects. The foundation of meta-science precludes its being sought in a particular region of science; instead it must be found in the structure of knowing itself—in an investigation of the transcendentality of knowing. Next he takes up the task of describing the structure and elements of a transcendental theory of consciousness. Husserl (...) and particularly Fichte, provide the main articulation. Finally, on this basis, the author evaluates the claims of cybernetics. The limitations of the argument are those of Husserl himself; their elucidation would require confronting Heidegger of whom no mention is made.—M. M. (shrink)

Markovic draws upon the Zagreb school of Marx-interpretation, as well as on the data of the historical development of socialism in Yugoslavia in his attempt to develop a critical social theory. He constantly opposes the use of Marxian theory as an ideological orthodoxy simply legitimating political practice. And he points out how Marxian social thought may be a means of critically comprehending social processes, as well as a self-critical theory developing in relation to the historical data at whose evaluation it (...) is directed. Markovic insists that critical social theory must take as its subject matter a range of data comprised of contemporary phenomena, the history of such phenomena, and the human evaluations and aspirations which the historical situation engenders. This points up the importance of a theory of man for a critical social theory. Only an adequate theory of man enables social theory to comprehend and evaluate the goals arising from specific social processes. Markovic outlines elements of such a theory of man, as discoverable in Marx. With these guiding ideas, he examines specific themes such as economics and human values, technology, politics as a professional institution, and revolution. Markovic’s examinations valuably illustrate a balanced Marxian approach to social questions. It is argued, for example, that technological innovations must be analyzed in relation both to the concrete economic processes of given societies, and to the human needs operative in those societies. Markovic draws upon the Yugoslav experience to show the concrete nature of such an analysis. The viability of the professional political institution is discussed, with reference to specific productive relations in societies, and the political possibilities thereof. And in the context of a distinction between political and social revolution, he writes with sensitivity and discernment on the concept of revolution in Marx. Problematically, the precise status of a theory of man in a social theory of the Marxian variety remains unanswered herein. But the work stands as highly useful to those interested in non-ideological developments of Marxian social theory.—M.J.D. (shrink)

This is the second volume of the author's ambitious attempt at outlining the history of the dogma of original sin from its beginning to our days. The reader of the first volume witnessed a concerted attack against the dogma and especially against its Augustinian formulation. The second volume deals with perhaps the most obscure period of this dogma's development: the one between the fifth and the eleventh centuries. In the West—thanks to Augustine's undisputed authority—the dogma became accepted as an integral (...) part of Christian theology, even though those theologians of the Dark Ages tried to "humanize" its original, savage formulation. The Christian East, however, would never have accepted it, and took a rather ambiguous position towards the meaning of the "curse of Adam." This is, briefly, the author's thesis, and to prove it he marshals an impressive array of quotes and references, fruits of a wide and often really impressive scholarship. Yet, the whole book is written in the same spirit of crusading, shallow rationalism as was the preceding volume. The speculative issues are not really treated and the whole work lacks that synthetical approach which is so indispensable for an enterprise of such magnitude.—M. J. V. (shrink)

A good and useful book with over 100 pages of appendices, bibliography and index, its utility perhaps will be due more to its qualities as a reference than as critique. The first of five parts sketches the background of pragmatism, concentrating on the problems of scientific knowledge. Part II gives a chapter each to Peirce, James, Dewey, Lewis, and G. H. Mead, emphasizing their answers to the problems of Part I. Part III treats pragmatism in Europe. Part IV is called (...) "Consequences." Here Thayer includes the attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction, a discussion of instrumentalism in philosophy of science, and he gives an exposition of Dewey's ethics. In Part V, "Speculations," the author lists attitudes and topics of renewed interest in contemporary philosophy which are characteristically pragmatic. This "Pragmatism" is a revolutionary shift in methodology and criticism. It finds that non-philosophical contexts are the initiating and terminating points of philosophical analysis, and it is tolerant of pluralism. The ethics of Dewey and Lewis, which stress the necessity for communication between philosophic valuation theory and the empirical sciences, are one expression of this "Pragmatism." The successes of an empirical philosophy which aims to account for originative thinking and valuing in either science or morals support Thayer's speculation that "the future may well be with Dewey, Lewis, and Mead."--M. B. M. (shrink)

One of the most important and most interesting questions of the history of Christian thought is that of the influence of Platonism on Patristic and Scholastic speculation. Today, perhaps more than ever before, this question of the influence of Plato--and that of his later, more faithful disciples, the Neo-Platonists--presents itself as a fascinating issue. Ivánka is a historian, and the shorter essays and studies of a thirty-year research career are here recast and integrated into a unified book, focussing on some (...) major figures and problems of Christian Platonism. After a lengthy and highly interesting general reflection on Platonism and its historical fortunes, we have chapters on Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine, representing the culmination of Platonism in the Greek East and the Latin West respectively. The second part of the book is devoted to speculative mystical theology: Pseudo-Dionysius, Maximus Confessor, the pre-Thomistic West, and at the end a fascinating chapter on the Platonic core of the spiritual doctrine of the late Byzantine centuries.--M. J. V. (shrink)

With the addition of the words "Anglo-American" after "Contemporary," the title of this book could serve as its review. The emphasis of the collection is on analytic British and American ethical theory since 1950, although the editors do dip back into 1903 for G. E. Moore. There are five sections: Moral Reasoning and the Is-Ought Controversy; Rules, Principles, and Utilitarianism; Concepts of Morality; Why be Moral?; and Normative, Religious, and Metaethics. The editors have kept their explanatory material to a minimum, (...) three pages serving to introduce most sections. The eleven pages of bibliography list selections of the same genre, mainly from the 1950's and 60's. Comparing this book with Philipa [[sic]] Foot's 1967 Theories of Ethics, which has the same emphasis, almost the same contributors, and several of the same articles, Pahel and Schiller give us a longer, more substantial, hard-cover book, and in this larger compass are able to provide more examples of dialogue between authors, critics, and replies.--M. B. M. (shrink)

An important addition to logical empiricist literature on the nature of scientific knowledge. It argues for the substitution of the conventional for the a priori, of the changeable truths of evolving rationality for the eternal verities of static reason, maintaining that this substitution enables one to avoid pseudo-problems about the nature of knowledge and science. Includes analyses of the natures of deductive systems, physical theory, language and pseudo-problems, and concludes with a comprehensive history and critique of classical theories of knowledge.--M. (...) F. (shrink)

This posthumous and unfinished book by the author of The Revolt of the Masses is in the continental tradition of philosophy as literature. The theme of this historical and etymological essay is the justification of that tradition. Ortega's writing is graceful, and includes aphorisms intended to evoke in the reader the philosophical frame of mind, and a sense of wonder. He finds that philosophy so far has provided no system which is adequately true for us; it is dialectical, revealing the (...) past as a defunct world of errors, which are at the same time involuntary instruments of future truth.. In ancient Greece man first felt an excess of possibilities over needs, both in economics and in explanation. The consequent necessity to choose brought about the phenomenon of rationalism. The means of choosing constitutes method. Science and theology thus emerge in Greece as secondary speculations on primary poetic-mythological explanations. In chapters on Parmenides and Heraclitus, Ortega analyzes the style of each, and illustrates his views on the relation between style and the growth of philosophy. His tool here he calls "etymology," although to those trained in the Anglo-American tradition, his word-analysis is more lyrical than analytic. He concludes that Heraclitus used the oracular or sibylline formula for expressing universal wisdom, and that this in fact is philosophy's most suitable vehicle of expression.—M. B. M. (shrink)

Based on the 1963 Storrs Lectures at Yale, these four related essays are an attempt to clarify Fuller's conception of a procedural, non-substantive natural law, which requires that such characteristics as generality, promulgation, non-contradiction, etc., be present in any genuine legal system. These requirements, he indicates, can never all be perfectly met, and hence the "inner morality of law" must remain largely a morality of "aspiration" rather than of "duty." The third essay, entitled "The Concept of Law," is rather disappointing (...) as an answer to possible criticisms and as a half-hearted attack on the book of the same title by Fuller's opponent, Hart; only Fuller's fundamental point, namely, that positivism neglects the notion of purpose in law, comes through very forcefully. In his final chapter, Fuller concludes, tentatively, that promoting communication would probably be the highest goal of any more substantive natural law conception; here, he is weakest of all. Nevertheless, his fine style, his excellent use of cases and other examples, and his sensitivity to crucial issues outweigh the book's inadequacies.—W. L. M. (shrink)

A symposium presented in 1959 which includes essays by P. W. Bridgman, A. Grunbaum, A. Landé, H. Margenau, and others. It shows how difficult it is for philosophers and scientists to find a common ground for discussion. --W. M. W.