This book offers a new account of the origins of modern biblical criticism. Focusing on the scholarship of J. D. Michaelis , it shows how critics created a post-theological academic Bible to replace Europe's scriptural Bibles and assimilate biblical scholarship to the social goals of the Enlightenment.

This book continues the classical Newtonian theory in both its initial spirit and the spirit of general relativity. It throws a bridge between classical Newtonian theory of forces and some contemporary concepts of the atomic, nuclear and particle theories. This book takes the Skyrme theory of nuclear matter mainly from the point of view that it allows the initial analogy between the atomic edifice and the solar system in all details. Especially important is the detail that the atomic nucleus works (...) exactly like the Sun, and they can be described in the same way. Based on this unitary description, the authors go further on, in showing that the Skyrme theory is the only theory naturally suited for the explanation of structure of nuclear matter. Thus it should be actually a classical theory, inasmuch as it simply carries over into microcosmos the very Newtonian theory of forces extracted from the planetary Keplerian synthesis of celestial motions. By this the problem of structure of the nucleus becomes actually a problem of classical physics. (shrink)

La narración de la etiología del altar de Júpiter Pistor asume el surgimiento de ese sitio cultual como retribución al dios por ayudar a los romanos ante el asedio galo. Roma es presentada como vencida y la construcción de esta derrota se vincula estrechamente con el tratamiento del espacio a lo largo del relato. Asimismo, dicha configuración espacial muestra una singular inclusión de escenarios épicos. Demostraremos que, al alejarse de los elementos y tópicos propios de la epopeya y acercarse al (...) ámbito de la elegía, este relato ovidiano deja ver los mecanismos genéricos del mismo poema. (shrink)

This article discusses how the Gawad Kalinga movement in the Philippines has operationalized good governance among its communities. This movement has not only provided opportunities for collaboration and cooperation between and among the three major governance actors, governments, business, and civil society, but more important, provided a framework for active citizen engagement in the process of improving their quality of life. Citizen participation is central not only in the theory of social quality but also in good governance. The paper argues (...) argues that in order for reforms to be successful and sustainable, institutional reforms and active citizen engagement are necessary. These reforms are key to addressing some basic problems facing nations today, an alarming decline in trust in institutions and corruption. This paper is divided into three parts. The first part discusses good governance approaches and reform of public administration in relation to social quality theory. The second part discusses the tenets of citizenship and civil organization leadership within the context of good governance. The third part focuses on an emerging citizens’ movement in the Philippines—the Gawad Kalinga movement, which highlights the aspects of citizen engagement. The last part contains some concluding remarks drawn from the Gawad Kalinga experience as applied governance reform, and its implications for enhancing social quality. (shrink)

In this paper, we aim at an exercise that is transdisciplinary, involving science and religion, and interdisciplinary, involving disciplines and theories which appeared in the second half of the 20th century. The latter required the reformulation of quantum mechanics theories starting with the beginning of the century, based on the substance-energy-information triangle. We focus on information and we also attempt a transdisciplinary approach to the imaginary from a psychological - physical - mathematical perspective, but the religious perspectives find their place (...) along with the philosophical or even philological vision. (shrink)

From the theoretical discussions, transdisciplinarity starts to have practical consequences in the development of programs that include consortia of universities, bringing together a large variety of professionnals who set ambitious goals, such as the Human Genome Project in the past decade, and also the Human Brain Project for this decade. We intend to present an approach in the spirit of the new paradigms of knowledge in the Human Brain Project generous program started earlier this year in Europe. A possible transdisciplinary (...) approach on brain functions and structure is to bring a valuable, significant and innovative, unconventional contribution to the theory of multi-scale topics of the HBP project. More precisely, we intend to develop the subproject Mathematical and Theoretical Foundations of Brain Research within the HBP project. Our approach aims at exploring brain function from the perspective of the theories which influenced the last decade researches in Physics and Mathematics, such as the fractal theory, chaos and the dynamics of the nonlinear systems, in order to formulate new theories regarding brain mechanisms. We bring together models and new theories based on a principled approach to nonlinear reality. We wish to develop a new paradigm for assessing brain function, the theory of complex systems, which requires a revolutionary attitude, by rethinking how brain works and it is biologically structured. By this approach, we intend to study not only the corpuscular, but also the wave part of the matter. (shrink)

Was the above-named bill, which was brought forward in 122 b.c. by the tribune M. Liuius Drusus, and provided that the Latins should under all circumstances be exempt from the penalty of scourging, duly passed by the Roman Assembly and entered upon the statute-book?

This is a book about everything. Literally. It is also a book about how anything whatsoever happens. By answering the question what is a thing?, philosopher M. Oreste Fiocco reveals what it is to exist, what a being, any being at all, is. In this way, he illuminates reality as a whole and what it is to be real. Such profound matters require a special method of inquiry, which Fiocco introduces and elaborates. Any assumption about the world or anything in (...) it might distort the correct answer to a question as general as what it is to exist. Thus, the method employed herein -- original inquiry -- begins with no assumptions about reality. It is, then, a method independent of any figure, trend, or tradition in the history of philosophy. Via this method, one simply confronts all this, the world, an all-encompassing diverse array of whatnot, and on this basis can come to a secure account of what it is to be. In simply confronting the world, however, one's experience shifts, is transient: all this goes from one way--with, say, a cat here--to some other way--the cat being over there. This manifest inconstancy must be accounted for in any comprehensive account of the world. Yet so must a manifest constancy. If the cat is now, at this moment, over there, that the cat is now, at this moment, over there is forever true. These seemingly contradictory phenomena, inconstancy and constancy, demonstrate the importance of time to understanding the world. Since any legitimate inquiry is directed at something or other and since many objects of inquiry (including inquiry itself) occur over time, correct accounts of temporal reality and of being - of time and the world - provide insight into all inquiry. These accounts provide constraints on and, hence, guidelines for investigating any subject matter in any field. Therefore, this is a book for anyone curious about such grand, abstruse matters as the nature of reality or of time itself, as well as a book for someone curious about any thing at all. (shrink)

Philosophie et sciences: voila un theme difficile, central, de notre temps, ou il est necessairement question de son sens. C'est ce sens qu'interrogent, d'une facon a la fois historique et problematique, les essais du present volume. J. Merleau-Ponty questionne les rapports entre sciences et vulgarisation scientifique. J. Ladriere pose le probleme de La normativite de la pensee scientifique. J. Lambert met en evidence le probleme du Livre de la Nature chez Galilee et Kepler. P. Kerszberg confronte les structures internes de (...) la philosophie critique kantienne et de la theorie de la relativite sur la question cosmologique. M. Richir analyse L'illusion transcendantale dans la theorie cantorienne des ensembles. B. d'Espagnat et G. Hottois evoquent le problemes des rapports difficiles, aujourd'hui, entre science et philosophie. (shrink)

David Hume was a highly original thinker. Nevertheless, he was a writer of his time and place in the history of philosophy. In this book, M. A. Stewart puts Hume’s writing in context, particularly that of his native Scotland, but also that of British and European philosophy more generally. Through meticulous research Stewart brings to life the circumstances by means of which we can get a deeper understanding of Hume’s writings on the nature and reach of human reason, the foundation (...) of morals, and, especially, on the philosophy of religion. Stewart pays particular attention to Hume’s intellectual development, beginning with his education at the College of Edinburgh, the writing of his Treatise of Human Nature, and his subsequent philosophical responses to criticisms of that book. He argues that Hume’s scepticism set him at odds with the Christian Stoicism of Scottish contemporaries including that of Francis Hutcheson - and shows that this conflict played a major role in his failure to obtain the Edinburgh Moral Philosophy Chair in 1745. Stewart’s detailed study of the physical character of Hume’s surviving manuscripts in Chapters 8 and 9 provides the best available dating of his early ‘Essay on Modern Chivalry’, his ‘Early Fragment on Evil’ and the periods of composition of his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Other chapters compare Hume’s theory of abstraction with that of Locke and Berkeley, provide the 17th and 18th century philosophical context of the central argument of his essay ‘Of miracles’, and consider the 18th and 19th century reception of his writings in England and Ireland. (shrink)

Since the introduction of the computer in the early 1950's, the investigation of artificial intelligence has followed three chief avenues: the discovery of self-organizing systems; the building of working models of human behavior, incorporating specific psychological theories; and the building of "heuristic" machines, without bias in favor of humanoid characteristics. While this work has used philosophical logic and its results may illustrate philosophical problems, the artificial intelligence program is by now an intricate, organized specialty. This book, therefore, has a quite (...) specialized audience of its own although it can be very valuable to those philosophers who are interested and competent in using this pioneering material. Five scientific papers report attempts to solve five different kinds of problems. Bertram Raphael describes an attempt to build a memory structure that converts the information input into a systematic model by "understanding" the informational statements as they are made. Daniel Bobrow's machine can set up algebraic equations from informal verbal statements. M. Ross Quillan asks: "What sort of representational format can permit the 'meanings' of words to be stored?" Thomas Evans' machine, Analogy, serves as a model for "pattern-recognition" rather than the "common-property" method of semantic memory. Fischer Black has developed a logical deduction mechanism for question-answering which keeps track of where we are and avoids endless deduction. The editor and John McCarthy contribute more general chapters, providing the historical background of cybernetics, and dealing with the problem of formalizing a concept of causality. Minsky ends the volume with his view that our convictions on dualism, consciousness, free will, and the like are used in the attempt to explain the complicated interactions between parts of our model of ourselves.--M. B. 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)

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)

A rather elementary survey of the tasks of the philosopher in the modern world. American philosophers, the authors claim, by withdrawing from the social and moral concerns of our age, have failed to exert their influence where it is most required, in education.--C. M.

A book which might well become a classic on Heidegger. Richardson discusses most of Heidegger's works in chronological order, offering a close analysis of each. Most chapters include a general exposition of the argument of the work discussed, a detailed analysis of the problems of Thought, Being and Dasein in the work, and a résumé. While maintaining very high standards of scholarly precision in the rendering of Heidegger's ideas and terminology, Richardson yet succeeds in making his book very readable and (...) lucid. Without "supplementing" Heidegger in any way, refraining from explanatory speculations and staying always very close to the text, he manages to clarify some of the most difficult passages of Heidegger's works. His frequent cross-references make the commentary of genuine value to the advanced student as well as to the novice. Heidegger, in his own preface to the book, criticizes Richardson for the sharp distinction between Heidegger I and Heidegger II, but gives a most important substantiation to two of the author's main theories, viz., the difference between Heidegger's Seinsdenken and Husserl's phenomenology, and the central status of the concept of Ereignis in Heidegger's philosophy. Richardson regrettably does not pursue the Heidegger III suggested by Vycinas, the Heidegger of the Geviert, the question of the nature of Being as such. In some chapters at least this omission makes the interpretation seem partial and sometimes inexact. One hopes for a sequel as good and illuminating.—E. M. Z. (shrink)

This book's purpose is the exposition of the inability of natural science to disprove the existence of God. Clark argues that the acceptance of a mechanistic world view based on Newtonian science makes, unjustifiably, a philosophy of science in which science forgets the many idealizations built into its laws' mathematical formulations. The philosophy of science Mr. Clark espouses is Percy Bridgman's operationalism, i.e., the reduction of the meaning of a concept to the operations used to measure it. The separation of (...) the physical world from what the scientist says about it leads Clark to deny that science is cognitive. It is, rather, a way of increasing nature's utility. As such, it may not be used to support any ethical position whatever.—J. M. B. (shrink)

One of the long-standing problems in particle physics is the covariant description of higher spin states. The standard formalism is based upon totally symmetric Lorentz invariant tensors of rank-K with Dirac spinor components, $\psi _{\mu _1 \cdots \mu _K } $ , which satisfy the Dirac equation for each space time index. In addition, one requires $\partial ^{\mu _1 } \psi _{\mu _1 \cdots \mu _K } = 0{\text{ }}and{\text{ }}\gamma ^{\mu _1 } \psi _{\mu _1 \cdots \mu _K } (...) = 0$ . The solution obtained this way (so called Rarita–Schwinger framework) describes “has–been” spin-(K+ $ - \frac{1}{2}$ ) particles in the rest frame and particles of indefinite (fuzzy) spin elsewhere. Problems occur when $\psi _{\mu _1 \cdots \mu _K } $ constrained this way are placed within an electromagnetic field. In this case, the energy of the spin-(K+ $ - \frac{1}{2}$ ) state becomes imaginary and it propagates acausally (Velo–Zwanziger problem). Here I consider two possible avenues for avoiding the above problems. First I make the case that specifically for baryon excitations there seems to be no urgency so far for a formalism that describes isolated higher-spin states as all the observed nucleon and Δ(1232) excitations (up to Δ(1600)) are exhausted by unconstrained ψ μ , $\psi _\mu ,\psi _{\mu _1 \cdots \mu _3 } {\text{ }}and{\text{ }}\psi _{\mu _1 \cdots \mu _5 } ,$ , structures which originate from rotational and vibrational excitations of an underlying quark–diquark string. Second, I show that the $\gamma ^{\mu _1 } \psi _{\mu _1 \cdots \mu _K } = 0$ constraint is a short-hand of a more general definition of the parity-singlet invariant subspace of the squared Pauli–Lubanski vector, W 2. I consider the simplest case of K=1 and construct the covariant projector onto that very state as $ - \frac{1}{3}(\frac{1}{{m^2 }}W^2 + \frac{3}{4})$ . I suggest to work in the sixteen dimensional vector space, Ψ, of the direct product of the four-vector, A μ , with the Dirac spinor, ψ, i.e., Ψ=A μ ⊗ψ, rather than keeping space-time and spinor indices separated and to consider $( - \frac{1}{3}(\frac{1}{{m^2 }}W^2 + \frac{3}{4}) - 1)\Psi = 0$ as the principal wave equation without invoking any further supplementary conditions. In gauging the equation minimally and, in calculating the determinant, one obtains the energy-momentum dispersion relation. The latter turned out to be well-behaved and free from pathologies, thus avoiding the classical Velo–Zwanziger problem. (shrink)

The body of this book consists of facing English and Latin versions of Scotus' treatise prepared by Father Wolter from study of existing manuscripts. Textual variants are marked in frequent notes, but, perhaps because he doubts that one correct or personally written version ever existed, inconsistencies in the argument or apparent errors in the text are unremarked by the editor. Included as a 30 page appendix is Wolter's translation of Scotus' commentary on Peter Lombard's work, Two Questions from Lectures on (...) Book I of the Sentences. Wolter considers this to be an early version, of which the Treatise is the definitive argument. Scotus' demonstration intends to overcome two classical problems afflicting other proofs of the existence of God: the conclusion that the universe is eternal, and that either God's omnipotence or man's moral freedom is limited by His necessary inclusion in the causal order of the world. These metaphysical difficulties are avoided through Scotus' skilled use of modal logic. The book should be of great interest to students of logic and analytic philosophy on account of the display of technique in the logic of contingency and necessity, as well as to medievalists, for reasons of its substance. Wolter performs a real service in making available this workmanlike edition of a powerful and ingenious original.—M. B. M. (shrink)

Another volume in a rich list of publications in the history of philosophy by the University of Urbino. Although the present book is an unpretentious commentary on Schelling's Philosophy of Art, making use of a few more of his texts related to aesthetics, still it is a welcome sign of the renewal of interest in the early Schelling after three decades of research oriented almost exclusively to his middle and late periods. After a rather comprehensive treatment of the role of (...) the philosophy of art within philosophy as such, of the evolution of Schelling's aesthetics and of the relationship between beauty and truth, the author offers us his interpretation of the Philosophy of Art as a "Goethean system." An interesting appendix consists of the German text and the Italian translation of the few poems we know from Schelling.—M. J. V. (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 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)

Mill's defense of the open society is interpreted as the means toward a closed one. Mill himself is treated as the apostle of cultural solidarity--hostile to Christianity and the clergy which once provided it, and a militant advocate of the Religion of Humanity. The interpretation is defended with some force, but the vehement critique of Mill's position is launched from a fideistic position so radical that its relativism undercuts not only Mill, but Cowling himself. Carelessness of organization and style fit (...) the author's misology only too well.--M. W. (shrink)

Mérleg is an interesting quarterly selection of articles of general interest translated from the major Western languages into Hungarian. It is a Catholic publication for a general intellectual public and it contains besides the longer studies review articles, reviews, interviews and also short summaries. The most important articles of the two issues we are reviewing: A. Greeley, "The Sacred and the Psychedelic"; A. Plé, "The affective life of the consecrated celibate"; K. Franke, "Apology for the protection of the unborn life"; (...) "Basic issues of the Abortion Problem"; "Catechesis according to the Council"; R. Schnackenburg, "The birth of Christ without legends and Myths"; P. Caspers, "The role of the Church in Asia"; C. Aguiar, "Latin-American Catholicism"; "The Memory of Mauriac." The very difficulty of publishing in Hungarian a theologically orientated digest makes this selection dramatically sparing and it seems to give us a more coherent and more essential view of the "happenings" of the West than many of the reviews of America, France or Germany.--M. J. V. (shrink)

It becomes increasingly difficult to keep up with studies of Schelling, or more generally of the history of German Idealism, without being conversant with the rapidly growing Italian literature in this field. This book appears twenty-five years after that of Horst Furrmans, and ten years after that of Walter Schulz—the two major studies to date of Schelling's later philosophy. Although Bausola's study does not display the depth and extent of scholarly penetration to be found in Furrmans or Schulz, neither does (...) it display their pretention. It does not claim to be the ultimate interpretation. Its avowed aim is to treat one major theme in the later Schelling: that of relationship between metaphysics and revelation. Yet it also points to a rather novel interpretation, or at least a sketch, of the relationship of the middle Schelling to the writings preceding the Bruno. For the non-specialist, this book is a valuable introduction, offering a clear and well written account of the great themes of Schelling's late philosophy. Included is a competent review of the relevant secondary sources and a bibliographical notice of publications after 1953, the closing date of Schneeberger's standard Schelling bibliography.—M. J. V. (shrink)

This book is primarily a survey of commonly accepted theories of memory. In the course of the book Locke attempts to show that the traditional theories of memory, that is the Representative and the Realist theories are inadequate because of certain mistaken assumptions adopted by the advocates of these views. For example, both of these theories’ proponents mistakenly assume that remembering is an occurrence, that this occurrence consists in a mental experience in the form of having mental images, and that (...) memory-knowledge is knowledge based on or derived from the memory-experience or the memory-image. These notions are mistaken, Locke claims, because memory consists in immediate knowledge of the past, not in the immediate experience of the past; and memory is a form of knowledge, not a form of quasi-perceptual awareness. The notion that memory is a form of knowledge is considered by Locke to be the standard contemporary account of the nature of memory. It is in these terms that he analyzes the different forms of memory: factual memory, which is defined as retained factual knowledge or knowledge we have possessed before and still possess; practical memory, which is defined as retained practical knowledge or knowledge that consists in possessing certain acquired abilities and skills; and personal memory, which is defined as memory of items that one has experienced for himself. The true test of the contemporary account, as Locke sees it, is whether it allows one to answer affirmatively the question "Is memory reliable?". In the final analysis, however, this seems to be impossible. Generally speaking, one believes that he is entitled to rely on something insofar as it can be established that what is relied upon is normally an accurate guide to the facts of the matter. Nevertheless, if one can never tell when memory is correct, it cannot be established that memory is a reliable guide to anything; thus, one can never be entitled to rely on memories. One solution to this dilemma seems to lie in the suggestion that even if one cannot demonstrate that memory is reliable, this is the simplest and possibly the only plausible assumption to make to explain the plain facts of the human situation. Moreover, one who rejects this pragmatic use of the reliability of memory is committed to saying that knowledge is impossible in any case. If there is no avenue to the past, then there is no assurance that anyone or anything has a past history at all. Without a past history, one has never acquired any information nor any reason for knowing anything, not even about the present. Memory-knowledge, then, is not a matter of simple utility, rather it is a matter of what presuppositions or assumptions have to be made if knowledge is to be possible at all. In effect, Locke sees this as simply a "transcendental argument" for the reliability of memory; that is, an argument that shows that a certain principle has to be accepted as true if a certain form of inquiry is to be possible.—T. L. M. (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)

The two pieces translated here, "Philosophy as a Rigorous Science" and "Philosophy and the Crisis of European Man" represent one of the earliest and one of the latest presentations by Husserl of the discipline of phenomenology. The first essay sets up his phenomenological method over against naturalism, psychologism, historicism, and Weltanschauung philosophy as the only way to secure a rigorous scientific basis for philosophy. The second essay was a lecture which introduced the major ideas of his last work, Die Krisis (...) der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. In it he identifies the telos of European civilization as the infinity contained in the ideas of reason. Modern European man's current spiritual crisis stems from his having naturalized the spirit making it a function of or an extension from the physical world. Only by returning to a spirit-centered science with the infinite task of exploring the ideal world of spirit of which nature is but a part can European man harmonize himself with his telos and resolve his spiritual crisis. Lauer's introduction to the whole of Husserl's philosophy is helpful.—P. M. (shrink)

The true devotional nature of this loosely structured romance is obscured by an all-pervading mawkishness.--S. M. F.

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)

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)

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...

Despite the promise of international collaboration and sharing by bringing together bioethicists from throughout the world at the 2024 IAB conference in Qatar, I will not be attending. The authors...