In the last decade literature focused on a “less is more” approach has been primarily represented by clinical cases describing the excesses of an aggressive, redundant, non-personalized, and non-respectful medicine. Most of these articles focus on a “more is worse” approach and centre around the downstream negative consequences of medical overuse. Having identified a gap in the literature on the experience and practice of less, rather than the harms of excess, we carried out an exploratory qualitative study into how a (...) “less is more” approach works in practice. A hermeneutic phenomenological approach was adopted to allow us to examine the realm of lived experience as a valid data source and as a path from which to understand a “less is more” approach “from the bedside.” A Phenomenology of Practice was chosen as a more specific frame for this research because of its added focus on action and practical application in professional settings. Seventy stories written by physicians, patients, nurses, caregivers, and other health professionals have been received and analysed. These stories were gathered as part of a project called “Slow Stories” which aimed to collect clinical cases that have been positively resolved by adopting a “less is more” approach to patient care. After having conducted an in-depth analysis, separately and as a group, the researchers identified five key phenomenological themes; Time to relate is time to heal; Doing more does not mean doing better; Settings for a slow medicine; Slow care at the end of life; and Personalized vs. standardized treatment. Each of these themes offers insights into how a “less is more” approach can be used in practice and illustrates how a “less is more” strategy can play a significant role in positively resolving certain clinical cases. (shrink)

t. 1. A-D -- t. 2. E-M -- t. 3. N-S -- t.4. T-I︠A︡.

Originally published in 1939, this volume contains the text of an inaugural lecture delivered by M. M. Postan on his accession to the Professorship of Economic History at the University of Cambridge. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in economic history or the history of the study of humanities.

In his report to the Twenty-seventh Congress of the CPSU, M.S. Gorbachev noted that "our philosophical and economic front, indeed the social sciences in general, find themselves in a state … somewhat removed from the demands of life."1 He further pointed out that "the times demand that the social sciences address the concrete needs of practical activity on a broad front, that social scientists respond keenly and deftly to the changes taking place in life, that they not lose sight of (...) new phenomena and draw conclusions capable of truly guiding practical activity". (shrink)

The work of Hegenberg is more than a simple translation into Portuguese of major parts of the body of current work in the philosophy of science. Behind his thorough work of research and compilation, behind the remarkable clarity and succinctness in the exposition of vast amounts of material, lies an expert organization of theories and problems that promises original contributions by the author in some of the areas here surveyed. After a philosophical preamble on belief, science, and philosophy, Hegenberg advances (...) a general analysis of scientific explanation embracing both deductive and probabilistic explanations. In an extensive third part he deals with the attitudes toward determinism in contemporary science, and with particular kinds of explanation such as teleological, psychological, sociological, and historical explanatory structures. Without abandoning the basic thesis of the unity of science, the author shows in this last part a great awareness of the distinct problems posed by explanation in every one of those fields. The bibliographical references after each chapter are rather complete, though references are missing concerning the most recent work in structural linguistics, economics, and anthropology.--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)

A sequel to a previous work on Croce's philosophy of history, the present volume contains the author's critique of pragmatic historiography. In Croce's own system, art, law, and religion had been originally differentiated along Hegelian lines. The influence of Pareto and of Marxism brought him to the realization of the autonomy of economics. His Filosofia della pratica put side by side all of these categories of action. For Croce the pure freedom that defines moral action, and the responsibility for evil (...) corresponding to the element of negativity in choosing, belong properly in the social realm. Bausola's interesting and timely book follows closely Croce's long struggle with this antinomy in his constant reworking of his analyses of culture.--A. M. (shrink)

This is the first of a two part study on Croce that ought to give a significant turn to current interpretation of this author as well as to current opinion about his value. Bausola leaves for the second part discussion of Croce's vitalism in its variations, and also the ethical and political themes in which the Croce-Marx relation finds expression. This first part deals mostly with logical and ontological themes, all of them connected by Croce's constant struggle against any form (...) of transcendence. One would think that what is dead in Croce is precisely his ontological theory, while his philosophy of praxis, because of its emphasis on freedom, would more likely be alive and full of interesting suggestions for the present. The two fundamental contributions of this work are: the new light that it throws upon Croce's speculations on the concept of "concept," and its "phenomenological" understanding of Croce's distinction between the impossibility of transcending consciousness and the impossibility of objectifying it. Since these interpretations are made in the light of Croce's ideas, Bausola's work has the effect of bringing back the voice of Croce into the present dialogue on the question of immanence and transcendence.--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)

As the title indicates, the purpose of this book is twofold. First it offers a brief exposition of the fundamental doctrines of the Philosophical Investigations; secondly, it attempts to use some important concepts of the Investigations to justify religious language. The emphasis in the expository part is on language games as communication media, leading directly to forms of life as agreement situations, which would make indispensable the intervention of agents here conceived as persons. The application of these ideas to belief (...) statements is made in the course of analyses distinguishing first person from third person belief statements, assimilating the former to performatives, and then relating them to "believe in" assertions different from inductively justified "believe that" propositions. This study is interesting mostly as analytic argumentation reinforcing well known ideas and distinctions. A subservient attitude towards Wittgenstein leads to an unnecessary extension of his doctrines to cover intellectual achievements of various authors and even original insights of High himself. The final critique of Barth, Tillich, and Bultmann, all grouped under the sin of fideism, is a bit excessive. Better reasons might be found to show them as exponents of the symbolic ways of expression that High has so appropriately defended.--A. M. (shrink)

A central theme of the contemporary French school of epistemology is the evolution of the philosophical basis of scientific knowledge from the rationalistic stage to the present relativistic-structural stage. This transition is also the topic of this small but rich book. The purpose of the work is neither historical nor informative, but interpretative. The author discusses one of the main tensions in the theory of knowledge, viz., that between formalistic trends with their correspondent phenomenalism, and the attempts to give a (...) unified outlook to human reason on the basis of linguistic and phenomenological descriptions.—A. M. (shrink)

The philosophy of Max Scheler is hardly of the type that can stand compendious presentation. Obsessed by such clear distinctions as the analytic vs. the synthetic, mind vs. matter, and metaphysics vs. science, Scheler proposed still further ontological distinctions which often presented more problems than the distinctions they were designed to replace. Moreover, having renounced any diagnostic use of scientific materials, Scheler had to resort to tedious descriptions that would allow him to bridge the gap between common sense and rational (...) consistency. When the presentation of his doctrine is simply outlined, as it is in this book, the play with alternative ontological distinctions becomes conspicuously irrelevant. The rich insight so frequently hiding in descriptive detail and suggesting a myriad of fertile directions, cannot be reduced to the outline's topic headings. One wonders if any critical examination of Scheler in these terms can be fair, or even if it is worthwhile to know only that much about Scheler.--A. M. (shrink)

Developed from two reports to seminars organized by the Congress of Cultural Freedom, in 1962 and 1963, The Art of Conjecture constitues a programmatic document for the work of Futuribles, a team of intellectuals collecting materials on the role of the social sciences. The intellectual fabric of this work are woven with a fine mixture of hard-nosed mathematical analysis, derived from demographic and economic forecast, and less accurate, more imaginative, modelings for short and long term social forecast. Much of the (...) book is devoted to an analysis of common and special conceptions of the future. Here lies the greatest philosophical interest of this work. The method pivots around techniques of long term economic forecasting. The political and human aspects are ever present in the course of the study. Toward the end the author asks himself, and us, the question: should forecast be based on technological sources alone? The question has already been answered in such brilliant chapters as, "The Conditions of Political Foreseeability," "The Ecology of Social Ideas," "The Social Career of Ideas," "The Force of Moral Ideas," and "Empirical Relations between Ideas."—A. M. (shrink)

Originally prepared as a doctoral thesis which was presented in 1940, the present work ranges over the major figures in British idealism, and in the Angloamerican schools of neorealism and logical atomism. What is understood here as the problem of relations is, of course, the controversy regarding the internality or externality of relations. This controversy begins with some issues involved in the definition and classification of relations, issues which affect the definition and classification of other categories such as individual, quality, (...) and even quantity. Soon enough, however, this set of issues is augmented by the problems involved in the definition of the relations emerging with each different kind of knowing, and by the problems concerning the bearing that knowledge has on the reality of relations. The main body of Datta's work is the succinct exposition of the doctrine of relations in a great number of authors such as Lotze, Green, Bradley, Bosanquet, James, Perry, Moore, Alexander, Russell, Broad, Cook Wilson, all of which complement each other in an exhaustive analysis of the above issues. Of great interest is the exposition of the Indian doctrine of the categories, including relation, in the Nyaya-Vaisesika system which protested against the Buddhistic conception of reality as an eternal flux. Datta concludes that "relations are always inter-objective, so that whenever cognition is concerned the question of relation does not arise. For cognition is not a relational fact but the ground of all relational facts." In backing these conclusions, the author sketches a brief outline of an ontology in which the main postulate proclaims that the spatiotemporal world is not the whole of reality: reality must include the meaning world as well.--A. M. (shrink)

Consists largely of fragments from the works of poets, prophets, and philosophers, particularly the author's teacher, Charles E. Garman, all expressive of a kind of anti-dogmatic theism.--C. M.

This edition, providing the only available English language access to Collin de Plancy's long-forgotten Dictionnaire infernal, is directed to the reader who likes the reinforcement of being able to get through a whole book in an hour or so, whizzing through clean pages at incredible speeds. Perhaps the most misleading aspect of this flashy volume is the fact that the publishers never mention that it is abbreviated at all; it contains 177 truncated versions of Collin de Plancy's 2,400 plus entries, (...) which filled in the 1825-1826 edition of four volumes of text and one of plates. Wade Baskin, a master of condensation, does cover a lot of ground in his two and one-half page introduction. This, unfortunately, serves as little but a teaser to the reader interested in more than a mere mention of Collin de Plancy's colorful, success-oriented career, his filiations with spiritual brothers like Nodier, and his influence on other writers of the Romantic period. One can begrudge this sort of holding back with good reason, for Collin de Plancy is a name unfamiliar today even to French scholars. Baskin's translation is, as usual, excellent.—C. M. R. (shrink)

In this revised and expanded edition of his well-known study of Denis Diderot's life and works, Crocker combines solid scholarship with a vivid portrayal of his subjects. Leaving firm ground only occasionally, Crocker masterfully reconstructs Diderot's life by weaving into his narrative the testimony of Diderot's contemporaries and the philosopher's own anecdotes of the more picturesque episodes of his life. The author never departs from firm ground, however, in his presentation of Diderot's works. With a rare blend of erudition and (...) a lively critical sense, he sets them forth in the light of eighteenth-century currents of thought, highlighting Diderot's most significant contributions to materialism, sensualism, and experimentalism, while at the same time preserving, in quite readable summaries, the integrity of individual writings. His extensive consideration of the twenty years Diderot devoted to the Encyclopedia is particularly stimulating. By contrast, his summary presentation of Diderot's novels is somewhat disappointing, especially since he gives all too brief mention to Diderot's innovations in that genre. A needed index is lacking, but in spite of this and other minor shortcomings, Crocker's efforts have resulted in what is clearly the best complete English biography of one of the eighteenth century's most colorful geniuses.—C. M. M. (shrink)

An unusually effective introduction to metaphysics in the form of a brief account of the discovery of the two questions by which, according to the author, the domain of metaphysica generalis may be delimited: What is unity? What is being? A short essay, addressed primarily to a German student audience, the scope of its discussion is restricted, focussing on the progressive clarification of the notions of unity and universality in Greek philosophy. Platonists may disagree with the author's view of Aristotle (...) as developing, rather than suggesting an alternative to, the Platonic conception of unity, but this will not prevent them from admiring the clarity and sanity of the author's presentation of basic metaphysical issues. -- C. M. (shrink)

The author attempts, with little success, to develop a theory of evolution more comprehensive than any yet devised, eschewing "mathematical abstractions" in favor of "behavioral" categories.--C. M.

Costa de Beauregard, one of France's senior theoretical physicists, has written a "haute vulgarisation" of modern physics trimmed to a particular point of view. His historical accounts of early physics are marred by an overfacile interpretation. Thus, Newton's laws are presented as spontaneous inductions from a common sense base. His accounts of contemporary physics, however, are well informed and clearly written. The thesis underlying the book is that four dimensional space-time is real and objective and can supply the conceptual basis (...) required to unify relativity and quantum theory. In presenting this he adapts and modifies de Broglie's interpretation of quantum mechanics, considering fundamental particles as essentially nothing but integral occupation numbers in the space-time continuum. With this interpretation of particle phenomena he can defend a species of determinism based on the total symmetry between past and future for elementary interactions, an assumption that has been sharply challenged by developments in particle physics subsequent to the writing of this book. There is little discussion of the philosophical presuppositions or implications of his position.—E. M. M. (shrink)

An authorized, eminently readable translation of a work first published in German in 1957. Martin leads his reader into the problems of metaphysics by tracing the development of Plato's thought and Aristotle's criticism of Plato, focusing throughout on the question, "What is unity?" Although the book is introductory in intent and tone, it offers its own interpretation of Plato and Aristotle.--J. M. W.

A richly detailed history of French secular thought in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. A wealth of material is introduced from unpublished manuscripts. Spink's stress on the clandestine spread of the enlightenment, in spite of official suppression, is interesting and sobering.--J. M. W.

This brief monograph consists of three chapters on Nietzsche's sense of tragedy, on perspectivism and on the much debated theory of eternal recurrence. DeFeo believes that the first and last of Nietzsche's works represent the poles between which Nietzsche overthrew metaphysics. In the Birth of Tragedy, the discovery of the existential contradiction of the finite dimension of human existence obtains at the aesthetic level of tragedy. Here the human contradiction is evinced in the wisdom of Dionysius. In The Will to (...) Power, the existential contradiction is understood in the temporal form of an epic: it becomes the ability to overthrow any form of perspectivism. The motive of Nietzsche's philosophy is the search for a novel center of values which, DeFeo believes, Nietzsche finds in the Übermensch. Throughout his short essay, the author constantly cites Husserl, Sartre, and Heidegger. He explicitly interprets Heidegger in the tradition of Nietzsche. Yet it seems rather misleading to assimilate Nietzsche's reduction to Heidegger's existential analysis.--L. M. P. (shrink)

This book's fourteen short essays are neither very technical nor definitive, as Schaff warns in his forward. They do, however, reveal the struggle of a sincere philosopher, who happens also to be a high official of the Polish Communist Party, against the absolutes that plague him—absolute determinism, total party discipline, the definitive revolution. Schaff here continues his debate with the existentialists, notably Sartre, and contributes some clarification to the problem of "Marxist ethics."—W. L. M.

There has been a most deserving movement in the last years to unite in one volume the most important scholarly articles written on the same topic yet published in different learned journals. The present volume is devoted to the problems of medieval German and Dutch mysticism from its beginnings to The Imitation of Christ. The selection is interesting and varied yet a certain technical narrowness pervades the whole volume. Instead of sharing the pages somewhat equally between philological and philosophico-theological articles, (...) there is a heavy preponderance of the purely philological and of the strictly historical. Moreover, the papers of a more philosophical character talk less to the philosophically interested reader than to the specialist in the history of medieval philosophy. Of course, there are welcome exceptions like the fine study of Joseph Koch on Eckhart's doctrine of analogy or A. Ampe's article on the "essential return of the soul to God according to Jan Van Ruysbroeck"--but the general tone of the volume is such that the non-specialist would have difficulty to be interested in many of its chapters.--M. J. V. (shrink)

As the subtitle indicates, this book intends to discuss Descartes’ attempt of laying a new foundation of knowledge. In a lively and critical interpretation of Descartes’ writings, especially of his Discours de la Méthode and of his Meditationes, and a competent use of the corresponding philosophical literature the success of this attempt of enlightenment and its shortcomings, identified with the Cartesian re-introduction of the traditional metaphysics, are explained in order to allow the author in a concluding discussion to present his (...) ideas of the necessary revision of Descartes philosophy. Presenting the I as the subject not only for the first time but in an unique way, and concentrating upon the problem of the self-originating human knowledge in an exemplary manner, Descartes is found to have become the founder of subjective philosophy. As knowledge of knowledge, philosophy is not concerned primarily with objects, but with knowledge and has self-foundation as its main task. So it has to start with human knowledge and to place the self as the fountain from which all knowledge proceeds. The demands of subjective philosophy dictate its method described in the Discours. The foundation of knowledge, which as such can only be true and certain knowledge, leads to enlightenment, i.e., to the rebellion against and to the great confrontation with the culture of the time, that is, with the guiding principles of understanding and evaluating the world of his society, and to the introduction of self-experience as the primary source of knowledge. Appointing human reason as the only leader of his intellectual life, Descartes determines the program and future order of his thoughts; the method, in the form of the four rules, has "correctly to direct his reason and to seek the truth in the sciences." It brings Descartes over the methodical doubt to the unquestionable and unsurpassed foundation of human knowledge, the absolute certitude of the self in the Cogito. His analysis of the poor, unprotected I, related to itself knowingly, is unique and of priceless philosophical value. However, the further stations of the philosophical way of Descartes who, unable to stand the ontological loneliness of this philosophically determined self-awareness, sacrificed the idea of scientific progress to a rational theology, cannot be followed. The claim of the metaphysician to be able to discover or, at least, to test every humanly possible knowledge in terms of the absolute knowledge, disintegrates in view of the progress of the new sciences. Not eternal, necessary truth, but the finite human I is the origin of subjective philosophy. The stability of rational relations does not lie in these relations themselves as if they were existing for themselves, but in the strict consequence of logical reason. "'God’ is... the title for the transcendental-philosophical background of consciousness, for the conditions to which the I-think is always already subjected." All contents which allegedly are already given in the infinite knowledge and can always be deduced from it, have to be produced and developed out of the first human knowledge by way of scientific research. Science which received its new foundation in subjective philosophy and is sought in the efforts of communication of the scientists, is not characterized by truth, but by certitude. "'Truth’ is the concern of metaphysics or better of religion. It is of the essence of such truth, not to be capable of demonstration. The absolutely true has no need to prove itself; it is entitled to faith." Differences between metaphysics and religion, and the nature and possible justification of such metaphysical and religious faith are regrettably not discussed.—M. S. (shrink)

A collection of 24 out of the 35 papers presented at the Fourth Scandinavian Logic Symposium and First Soviet-Finnish Logic Conference, which took place simultaneously in Finland in 1976. Topics covered are proof theory, set theory, model theory, recursion theory, infinitary languages, generalized quantifiers, truthlikeness, natural language, and "philosophical logic." There is a paper by George Kreisel which discusses an intriguing distinction between the theory of proofs and general proof theory, the latter being the study of the allegedly definitional or (...) essential property of proofs, the former being the study of structural features such as length of proofs and of relations between proofs and other things. There is a paper by Hintikka in which he applies his "game-theoretical semantics" developed elsewhere to quantifiers in natural languages, e.g., the analysis of sentences like "some novel by every novelist is mentioned by every critic". I found the most interesting paper to be the one by Bengt Hansson, which studies the nature of paradoxes by articulating an analogy with mathematical equations, the crucial property about the latter being that they do not always have solutions. Almost all papers are highly technical and thus aimed at experts of the specialties mentioned in the book’s title.—M.A.F. (shrink)

This small book of the "Que sais-je?" series, is concerned with the question of after-life. The first half of the book is an excellent historical review of the various beliefs on this subject as held in different ages, in different parts of the world and in different religions. These surveys, though brief, are clear, and the material is tied together by an introduction and conclusion which raise the book somewhat above the "college outline" level.--M. B.

This collection contains such a wealth of topics that it deserves the attention of anyone seriously interested in what its title denotes, namely the philosophy of the history of philosophy. The content of the various essays, along with their translated titles, can be described as follows. "The New Aspects of the Philosophy of the History of Philosophy" claims to be, but is not, an introduction to the other essays; it abounds in obscurities and does not even make the effort of (...) integrating the various contributions into some common themes. "Meta-philosophy and History of Philosophy" is partly a methodological discussion of the connections among philosophy, metaphilosophy, and history of philosophy, and partly a discussion from a psychological-psychoanalytical and cultural anthropological point of view of questions like the following: whether anything like progress exists in the history of philosophy, what is the meaning of the whole philosophical history, and what are its prospects for the future. "Heidegger, Schelling, and German Idealism" discusses the relations between the history of philosophy and the philosophy of existence, using primarily Heidegger’s lectures on Schelling as a case study. "Hermeneutic Experience and Philosophical Historiography" is a discussion primarily of the theory of historical interpretation in Gadamer’s Wahrheit und Methode, and secondarily of some of its consequences for the study of the history of philosophy; it is highly informative, but one cannot fail to lament the fact that the author reports Gadamer’s critiques of historicism without any explicit indication that, besides Dilthey’s version, there exists Croce’s brand of historicism, which in my judgment is very similar to Gadamer’s hermeneutics as reported in this essay. "History of Art as History of Philosophy?" is a thoughtful and provocative brief discussion of the divergence between the histories of art and of philosophy; it also suggests that, nevertheless, data and facts from art-history can be used by the historian of philosophy for the reconstruction of the philosophical concepts of epochs and cultures whose available historical records abound in the field of art but are lacking in the area of philosophy. "The Hegelian Left and the History of Philosophy" is an analysis of some of the historiography of the 19th century Hegelian Left. "-Philosophy and the Theology of Secularization discusses the interconnections among philosophy, history of philosophy, the contemporary historical situation, and political philosophy, developing a Gentilean critique of the theology of secularization; it argues that Gentile’s critique refutes some presuppositions of this theology, namely, the idea of the progressive character of contemporary history and that of the irreversible process of secularization. "Philosophy of Religion and History of Philosophy," though terminologically and stylistically obscure, is a very stimulating justification of the thesis that an adequate philosophy of religion is to be grounded on a philosophy of history, which in turn is to be grounded on an all-encompassing history of philosophy; independently of the adequacy of this justification, the author makes a number of very suggestive comparisons between the history and historiography of philosophy and the history and historiography of the Church, such as the following: the analogy of the relationships between theology and Church history and between philosophy and philosophical history, the analogy between the "history of ideas" and ecumenical Church history, the analogy between the position of Hegel in philosophical history and that of Jesus in Church history, and the analogy between the visible/ invisible Church distinction in religious studies and the history/theory distinction in philosophical inquiry. "Beyond the Historical Disease" discusses to what extent philosophical hermeneutics solves Nietzsche’s problem that there is a conflict between historiographical awareness and the capacity to make history; it answers that, in spite of its insights, hermeneutics fails, and that the solution lies in the direction of certain suggestions found in Sartre’s Question of Méthode. "Interpretation and Translatability of Philosophical Texts" discusses certain problems in the theory of meaning from the point of view of analytical philosophy, and in relation to the meaning of philosophical passages. "Epistemology, Hermeneutics, and Analytical-Philosophical Historiography" is an interesting mixture of a critique of the view that contemporary analytical philosophy is ahistorical, a discussion of the similarities between Popper’s epistemology and Gadamer’s hermeneutics, and a study of the interplay between Popper’s epistemology and his interpretation of Plato in The Open Society and its Enemies. "Information Theory and Philosophy" studies the relation between science and the history of philosophy by comparing and contrasting certain philosophical ideas of Leibniz and Kant with recent results in information theory. A final essay deals with "The Myth of Faust in Kierkegaard."—M.A.F. (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)

Salutary reading for all philosophers, and not only for inductive logicians, philosophers of science and law, this important book presents an elaborate theory of inductive reasoning whose substantive features are as strikingly original as the approach is rare. First, the theory is based on concrete, real, actual, and significant instances of inductive reasoning, e.g., Karl von Frisch’s work on bees; that is, though its aim is genuinely theoretical in the sense that it engages in the proper amounts of idealization, abstraction, (...) systematization, precision, and rigor, it never loses sight of the fact that "theories in the philosophy of science, like theories in science itself, have to face up to the challenge of appropriately accredited experience within their appointed domains". Second, a central subject matter being analyzed is legal reasoning, that is, the types of proofs and arguments used by juries, judges, and lawyers in the Anglo-American system of jurisprudence, where criminal charges have to be proved beyond reasonable doubt and civil cases have to be argued on the balance of probability. Thus, in effect, Cohen’s synthesis of juridical and of scientific reasoning is an admirable example of the bridging of two "cultures." Third, and most importantly, the concept of "inductive probability," in terms of which Cohen makes sense out of his subject matter, is incommensurable with that of "mathematical probability," namely the classical calculus of chance according to which probability is measurable, additive, transitive, and obeys a multiplicational principle for conjunction and a complementational one for negation. This is not to say that "inductive probability" is a hazy, mysterious, or unstructured concept, and Cohen goes to great lengths to show that it is ordinal, modal, and formally analyzable; what it does mean is that essential types of reasoning in science and in law involve probable inferences whose probabilities are nonquantitative. Hence, though Cohen does not stress the qualitative nature of inductive probability, his book will be welcome by those who conceive of philosophy as scientia qualitatum. Specific conclusions reached by Cohen are that, in general, probability may be conceived as degree of provability, that differences in proof-rules generate different special cases of probability, that inductive probability may be viewed as the special case where the proof-rules are incomplete, that inductive probability is to inductive support as deducibility is to logical truth, and that some recent epistemological scepticism may be refuted by Cohen’s inductive logic. Finally, he sees himself in the British inductivist tradition, interpreting his predecessors as groping toward a logic of inductive support and probability rather than a methodology of discovery: from Bacon he develops the notion of eliminative induction but rejects that of induction by enumeration; Mill’s canons are analyzed as special cases of Cohen’s own "method of relevant variables," except for the method of residues, which is rejected as invalid ; he takes his critique of mathematical probability as a vindication of Hume’s thesis that "probability or reasoning from conjecture may be divided into two kinds, viz., that which is founded on chance and that which arises from causes" ; Whewell’s consilience of induction is justified ; and from Keynes, he develops the notion of the "weight" of evidence but rejects his mathematicist approach.—M. A. F. (shrink)

One of the forgotten "small masters" of German Romanticism is the aesthetician Solger. Besides his famous Erwin, his only major writing is the Lectures on Aesthetics. It displays a coherent and original theory of the beautiful and of art, even though a continuous polemical relationship to Schelling, Fichte and Hegel is ever present in its pages. Solger's sensitive theorizing reconciles the norms of classicism with the aims of romanticism and at the same time points beyond them towards the fundamental principles (...) and attitudes of the coming realistic aesthetic. This book is a posthumous one, based upon lectures which Solger never intended to publish. As a matter of fact, he strongly opposed the practice of printing university courses as such. Yet, these texts are perhaps most representative of the subtle and harmonious thought of this man who died at the height of his creative life. Their reprinting is an important literary event.—M. J. V. (shrink)

Although ostensibly defending speculative philosophy, Reck is doubtful that any unprejudiced speculative philosophy can exist: "No matter how much a philosopher may strive for neutrality, his test for the true philosophy is always predicated on the assumptions that his conception of being presents being as it is and that the conceptions of being his rivals uphold are partial or false." In the pursuit of neutrality, Reck attempts a mere chronicle of the distinctive conceptions of being which he feels have animated (...) the various metaphysical traditions: "Realism holds that whatever is in any sense is real; idealism that mind and its content alone are real; materialism that matter and its patterns alone are real; and process philosophy that process and the factors in process are real." The historical development of each of the four types is presented in masterly fashion. This book truly stands head and shoulders over its nearest rival in the Metaphilosophical literature for the depth of historical comprehension, the brilliant but controlled use made of a wealth of scholarship. A graduate student reviewing for comprehensive exams could do worse than to use Reck’s book. Those systems motivated at least in part by the drive-to-synthesis are disqualified a priori of being viable alternatives, motivated by distinctive intuitions. Realism, further, is found to have an inherent difficulty: "The task for the realist is to explain how the different levels or kinds of being can be related in a hierarchically ordered cosmos. The task is nothing short of explicating the bond of being." When Leibniz tries to relate finite particulars through a "Supreme Monad," he is faulted for "veering dangerously" close to Monism. Sympathetic toward Realism, Reck suggests a modification of Leibniz’s theory: not a rendering of the relations between man and God less mechanical, but a reduction of the "first Monad" from being supreme to a finite particular, struggling, like us, to overcome the hindrances posed by his environment. Reck concedes that the cognitive use of speculative philosophy, even when it redefines its project as Metaphilosophy, may be "futile"; however, he underscores the aesthetic value of the various systems, as Santayana would, when we can "bracket" the question of existence or truth and simply contemplate these cultural masterpieces as pure "essences." "Happy are those students who can suspend their critical search for truth sufficiently to savor the aesthetic values the systems of philosophy contain!" Reck refrains from judging between rival theories because such a judgment is always delivered from a view of what one takes to exist; and the impulse to go beyond "essence" to "existence" is, as Santayana teaches, prompted by fear, pain, instinct, or necessity. Rather than being a disinterested wonder at what "is," this passion is an "irrational agency of animal faith." "Needless to add," writes Reck, "animal faith is no more trustworthy than God’s existence to guarantee the truth of knowledge." This view can raise problems for Reck’s "finite" god. The finite god he prefers is perhaps "strong" enough to provide enough interconnection between existing particulars to justify a "Metaphilosophical" science, if not a properly "Philosophical" one, in the traditional sense; Reck could point to his own successful Metaphilosophy as evidence that his "god" is at least this strong. But isn't even this finite god an existential belief which, as the basis for a criticism, compromises one’s neutrality and thus constitutes a flaw in one’s Metaphilosophical theory? Is it possible that a totally adequate Metaphilosophical theory, on Reck’s canons, could not save enough interconnection between particulars to justify even a Metaphilosophy, as well as a Philosophy?—P. M. (shrink)

Is it a mistake to use "true" or "false" in certain contexts? White sets the stage for dealing with this issue by laying out a field of usages. He develops his position by characterizing and criticizing contemporary treatments of these data, moving rapidly from case to case. His numerous summaries and conclusions, obviously based on a wider view of the material than is presented in the text, may leave the uninitiated alternately puzzled, bristling, or suspicious. While White's data are expressed (...) clearly, the goal of his arguments and his organizational principles are frequently less apparent. White's discussions of fiction and modality are of particular historic interest. Here we find Frege and Russell arguing about whether they can argue about the King of France. We meet with Aristotle's ancient problem of the future naval battle, witness latter-day skirmishes over the nature of moral language, and find Leibniz, Hume, and Kant debating the logic of necessity and contingency. Are there really different types of truth which correspond with different modalities and existence presuppositions, as White seems to assume? This question, harking back to books 5 and 6 of Plato's Republic, is passed over by White in his usage-oriented quest for the sense of "truth." Truth will suit both student and researcher alike and is to be recommended for its breadth of concern and for its 18 pages of bibliography.--M. D. P. [[sic]]. (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)