In The Value Gap, Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen addresses the distinction between what is finally good and what is finally good-for, two value notions that are central to ethics and practical deliberation. The first part of the book argues against views that claim that one of these notions is either faulty, or at best conceptually dependent on the other notion. Whereas these two views disagree on whether it is good or good-for that is the flawed or dependent concept, it is argued, as (...) against both approaches, that goodness and goodness-for are independent value notions that cannot be fully understood in terms of one another. The second part provides an analysis of good and good-for in terms of a fitting-attitude analysis. By elaborating a more nuanced understanding of the key elements of this analysis—reasons and pro-attitudes—Rønnow-Rasmussen challenges the widespread idea that there are no genuine practical and moral dilemmas. The result is that the gap between favouring for a reason what is good and favouring for a reason what is good for someone appears insurmountable. (shrink)

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, vol. 52, number 1, pp.44-63. R.M. Nugayev, Kazan State |University, USSR. -/- THE HISTORY OF QUANTUM THEORY AS A DECISIVE ARGUMENT FAVORING EINSTEIN OVER LJRENTZ. -/- Abstract. Einstein’s papers on relativity, quantum theory and statistical mechanics were all part of a single research programme ; the aim was to unify mechanics and electrodynamics. It was this broader program – which eventually split into relativistic physics and quantummmechanics – that superseded Lorentz’s theory. The argument of this paper is (...) partly historical and partly methodological. A notion of “crossbred objects” – theoretical objects with contradictory properties which are part of the domain of application of two different research programs – is developed that explains the dynamics of revolutionary theory change. (shrink)

What kind of knowledge is medical knowledge? Can medicine be explained scientifically? Is disease a scientific concept, or do explanations of disease depend on values? What is ‘evidence-based’ medicine? Are advances in neuroscience bringing us closer to a scientific understanding of the mind? The nature of medicine raises fundamental questions about explanation, causation, knowledge and ontology – questions that are central to philosophy as well as medicine. In this book Paul R. Thompson and Ross E. G. Upshur introduce the fundamental (...) issues in philosophy of medicine for those coming to the subject for the first time. They introduce and explain the following key topics: Understanding the physician-patient relationship: the phenomenology of the medical encounter. Models and theories in biology and medicine: what role do theories play in medicine? Are they similar to scientific theories? Randomised controlled trials: can scientific experiments be replicated in clinical medicine? What are the philosophical criticisms levelled at RCTs? The concept of evidence in medical research: what do we mean by ‘Evidence-based medicine?’ Should all medicine be based on evidence? Causation in medicine What do advances in neuroscience reveal about the relationship between mind and body? Defining health and disease: are explanations of disease objective or do they depend on values? Evolutionary medicine: what is the role of evolutionary biology in understanding medicine? Is it relevant? Extensive use of empirical examples and case studies is made throughout the book. These include debates about smoking and cancer, the use of placebos in randomised controlled trials and controversies about research into the causes of HIV and autism. This is an indispendable introduction to those teaching philosophy of medicine and philosophy of science. (shrink)

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Vol. 2, number 1, Autumn 1987, pp. 84-104. R.M. Nugayev. The genesis and structure of models in the modern theory of gravity. Abstract. The analysis of theory-choice problem in modern theory of gravity necessitates consideration of the genesis and the structure of the systems of gravitational abstract objects. My approach to physical theory structure uses and develops the ideas of V.S.Stepin. The basic equations of general relativity - Einstein’s equations – are shown to (...) describe the relations between the abstract objects of the basic model only. The whole theory of gravity chain consists of general relativity, nonmetric theories of gravitation, Newton’s theory of gravitation and special theory of relativity. All these theories describe the relations between the abstract objects of partial ideal models subordinated to the basic one. (shrink)

Osmanlı’da Huzur Dersleri Ramazan ayında, padişahın riyasetinde belirli plan ve program çerçevesinde yapılan tefsir dersleridir. Bu dersler, III. Mustafa zamanında h. 1172/m. 1759 yılında resmiyet kazanmış ve hilafetin ilgasına kadar devam etmiştir. İslam ilim geleneğinde Huzur Dersleri; muhâkemât, muhâdarât ve mecâlîs gibi ilmi toplantılarla benzerlik göstermektedir. Bu dersler, ümera ile ulemanın ilmi meclislerde bir araya gelmesine zemin hazırlamıştır. Dönemin önde gelen ilim adamları, mukarrir (dersi sunan) ve muhatap (müzakereci) olarak bu derslerde görev almıştır. Bu toplantılara padişahlar; dinleyici, müzakereci ve yönetici (...) olarak katılmıştır. Derslerin ana konusunu Kur’an âyetleri oluşturmaktadır. Derslerde takririn ardından müzakere heyeti, mukarrire sorular yönelterek soru-cevap usulüyle değerlendirmelerde bulunmuşlardır. Huzur Dersleri, Kur’an âyetlerinin yorumlanması ve müzakere edilmesi açısından tefsir ilminin bir konusudur. Bununla beraber Huzur Dersleri, tefsir ilminden başka; tarih, edebiyat ve din eğitimi gibi disiplinlere de konu edilmiştir. Alan yazındaki araştırmalar, Mardin’in Huzur Dersleri eseri bağlamında gerçekleştirilmiştir. Fakat, Mardin’in eserinde bazı mukarrirlerin sağlık, vefat ve sair gerekçelerle derslerini icra edemediği gibi bilgilerle takrir heyetinde yapılan değişikliklere işaret edilmediği belirlenmiştir. Bu sebeple Huzur Dersleri, Mardin’in eserinin yanında; Meşihat-ı İslâmiye Sicill-i Ahvâl defterleri, Devlet Arşivleri, ders davetiyeleri, dönemin gazete-dergileri ve sair evraklar dik-kate alınarak daha kapsamlı bir şekilde ele alınmalıdır. Çalışmada, bu kaynaklar incelenerek mukarrirlerin hangi padişah döneminde kaçıncı âyeti takrir ettiklerine dair veriler çok yönlü soruşturulmuş, ihtilaflı gözüken bilgiler elenmiştir. Takrir edilen âyet(ler)in tespit edilemediği Huzur Dersleri ise dikkate alınmamıştır. Araştırmada, Huzur Dersleri’nde; hangi padişah döneminde, kaçıncı âyetin, kim tarafından takrir edildiği incelenerek Huzur Dersleri kronolojisi oluşturulmuştur. (shrink)

Famous for the number-theoretic first-order statement known as Goodstein's theorem, author R. L. Goodstein was also well known as a distinguished educator. With this text, he offers an elementary treatment that employs Boolean algebra as a simple medium for introducing important concepts of modern algebra. The text begins with an informal introduction to the algebra of classes, exploring union, intersection, and complementation; the commutative, associative, and distributive laws; difference and symmetric difference; and Venn diagrams. Professor Goodstein proceeds to a detailed (...) examination of three different axiomatizations, and an outline of a fourth system of axioms appears in the examples. The final chapter, on lattices, examines Boolean algebra in the setting of the theory of partial order. Numerous examples appear at the end of each chapter, with full solutions at the end. (shrink)

Bireysel düşüncelerini başkalarına aktarma ve hatta empoze etme düşüncesi insanlık tarihi kadar eskidir. Nitekim ilâhî kitabımız, ilk insanların şeytanın söylediği sözlerden etkilenerek kandırıldığını ifade etmiştir. Hz. Peygamber’in insanları doğru yola sevk etmek için tebliğ ettiği ve bu vazifeyi yerine getirmekle görevlendirildiği bilinen bir gerçektir. Asıl itibarıyla insanın olduğu her yerde bu durumun gerçekleşmesi gayet tabiîdir. Fakat tarih boyunca özellikle kültürel ve teknolojik sahadaki ilerlemeler sözü edilen faaliyetlerde kullanılan araçları değiştirmiştir. Örneğin; yazı malzemesinin temininin kolaylaşması ve matbaa alanında gelişmeler yaşanmasıyla fikirler (...) daha çok yazıyla aktarılmıştır. Modern döneme gelince televizyon, bilgisayar ve bunların destekleyicisi olarak internetin geçirdiği dijital değişim ve dönüşümlerle birlikte görsel çalışmalar hız kazanmıştır. Bu doğrultuda televizyon ve akabinde dijital yayın platformları yaygınlaşmış ve hatta dijital platformlara rağbetin artmasıyla medya sektöründe zorunlu bir değişiklik gerekmiştir. Bu değişikliği öngörerek dijital yayın sektörüne hızlı bir giriş yapan ve milyonlarca abone sayısına ulaşan en büyük dijital yayın platformu Netflix’tir. Bilindiği üzere görsel medya uygarlığının tek olmasa da en önemli gayesi ekonomik çıkar elde etmektir. Ancak bununla birlikte Netflix ve benzeri şirketlerin içerikleriyle düşünce dünyalarını, hayatı anlamlandırma yöntemlerini ve hatta ideolojilerini kasıtlı ya da kasıtsız empoze ettiği de muhakkaktır. Bu doğrultuda hem ilgilisi fazla hem de ses getirme etkisi yüksek olduğu için dini imgeler taşıyan program, dizi ve film gibi yayınlara dijital platformlarda büyük oranda yer verilmektedir. Ancak kimi zaman insanların doğru bilgiye ulaşması ve her türlü hurafeden uzaklaşmasına yol açan bu yayınlar, çoğu zaman yanlış bir din öğretisinin aktarılmasına sebep olmaktadır. Sözü edilen platformda son günlerde en çok izlenen içerikler arasında yer alan ve İsveç’ten sözde İslâm Devleti’nin sınırları içerisindeki Rakka’ya giden bir ailenin dram dolu hikâyesini anlatan Kalifat dizisinin, izleyicilerini İslâm öğretileri hakkında farklı şekillerde yönlendirdiği görülmektedir. Çalışmamızda bu dizide yer alan İslâmî imgeler, din istismarı ve İslamofobi gibi başlıklar üzerinden tahlil edilecek ve dijital platformların din algısını ne denli şekillendirdiği üzerinde durulacaktır. Ayrıca değişen medya ve dijital platformların dönüşümüne, dizinin amaç ve hedeflerine uygunluğuna ve IŞİD militanlarının düşünce dünyalarının İslâm’ın esas öğretileriyle ne denli örtüştüğüne de temas edilecektir. Tüm bunların akabinde genelde medya sektöründe özelde dijital platformlarda algı oluşturmanın imkânına vurgu yapılacaktır. (shrink)

Thomas Hill Green was one of the most influential English thinkers of his time, and he made significant contributions to the development of political liberalism. Much of his career was spent at Balliol College, Oxford: having begun as a student of Jowett, he later acted effectively as his second-in-command at the college. Interested for his whole career in social questions, Green supported the temperance movement, the extension of the franchise, and the admission of women to university education. He became Whyte's (...) professor of moral philosophy at Oxford in 1878, and his lectures had a lasting influence on a generation of students. Much of Volume 1, edited by Green's pupil R. L. Nettleship and published in 1885, consists of Green's work on David Hume. In his essay, 'Introductions to Hume's Treatise of Human Nature', Green gives a detailed critique of Hume's metaphysical thought. (shrink)

In 1962 appeared one of the classic articles in Anglo-Saxon manuscript studies, the publication of two eleventh-century fragments of leaves of Old English found in the binding of a seventeenth-century printed book in the library of the University of Kansas, Lawrence. The fragment that more nearly concerns the present article now carries the shelf mark Pryce MS C2:1 in the Kenneth Spencer Research Library . It is a large part of a single leaf from The Legend of the Holy Cross (...) before Christ, an edifying work known in full only in a twelfth-century copy, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 343, fols. 14v–20v . Working from a photograph the great paleographer and codicologist N. R. Ker attributed the hand of the Kansas fragment to the scribe who also wrote the texts of two bits of the same work found in the library of Matthew Parker, archbishop of Canterbury , at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, now MS 557 . He concluded, no doubt rightly, that all three are part of one manuscript. (shrink)

It has come to be expected that collections issued by the Royal Institute of Philosophy will contain work that has quality or is otherwise interesting. This volume runs true to form and presents plenty of both. It gives the proceedings of the conference arranged by the Institute at Exeter in 1973, consisting of five symposia together with Chairman's remarks of about eight pages or so for each symposium, and in three cases postscripts by the first speaker. The contributors and topics (...) are: R. F. Dearden and Elizabeth Telfer on ‘Autonomy as an Educational Ideal’ with R. M. Hare as Chairman; R. K. Elliott and Glenn Langford on ‘Education and the Development of the Understanding’ with Paul Hirst as Chairman; David Cooper and Timothy O'Hagan on ‘Quality and Equality in Education’ with R. F. Atkinson as Chairman; Mary Warnock and Richard Norman on ‘The Neutral Teacher’ with Alan Montefiore as Chairman; Stuart Brown and A. Phillips Griffiths on ‘Academic Freedom’ with R. S. Peters as Chairman. (shrink)

pt. 1. De dicto: Necessary and contingent truths, by G. W. Leibniz. New essays concerning human understanding, by G. W. Leibniz. Introduction to the critique of pure reason, by Immanuel Kant. On the nature of mathematical truth, C. G. Hempel. Two dogmas of empiricism, by W. V. O. Quine. In defense of a dogma, by H. P. Grace and P. F. Strawson. The a priori and the analytic, by A. Quinton. The truths of reason, by R. Chisholm.--pt. 2. De re: (...) Reference and modality, by W. V. O. Quine. De re et de dicto, by A. Plantinga. World and essence, by A. Plantinga.--Bibliography (p. 200-202). (shrink)

A provocative contribution to the new approach to the history and philosophy of science which emphasizes the role of radically new paradigms in scientific revolutions. While normal science proceeds as puzzle-solving within a relatively fixed paradigm, scientific crises lead to new paradigms where data, scientific problems, procedures, and standards for solutions are all altered. Scientific revolutions do not simply modify our understanding of a world which exists independently--they change the data and the world in which the scientist works. The essay (...) is filled with fascinating historical interpretations, though the analysis of the concept of a paradigm and scientific revolution is more suggestive than rigorous.--R. J. B. (shrink)

A defence of the idea that there are sui generis duties of love: duties, that is, that we owe to people in virtue of standing in loving relationships with them. I contrast this non‐reductionist position with the widespread reductionist view that our duties to those we love all derive from more generic moral principles. The paper mounts a cumulative argument in favour of the non‐reductionist position, adducing a variety of considerations that together speak strongly in favour of adopting it. The (...) concluding section connects this debate with larger issues in moral theory concerning the general idea of obligation. (shrink)

An extended version of the James W. Richard Lectures delivered by the author at the University of Virginia in the fall of 1951. The first six chapters develop the seemingly irreconcilable contrast between Biblical personalism and the categories of ontology. The last two chapters indicate briefly how they supplement each other. Theologians accuse Tillich of slighting Biblical concepts; philosophers taunt him for too readily despairing of ontology. In this book he tries to do justice to both.--D. R.

Originally published in 1942, this widely read book appears now in its third edition. In a brief prefatory note, Mrs. Langer describes it as "frankly a prelude to Feeling and Form," her more recent book on aesthetics, which, she indicates, may itself eventually prove to be a prelude to a more comprehensive work which will include ethical problems in its scope.--D. R.

We argue that thoughts are structures of concepts, and that concepts should be individuated by their origins, rather than in terms of their semantic or epistemic properties. Many features of cognition turn on the vehicles of content, thoughts, rather than on the nature of the contents they express. Originalism makes concepts available to explain, with no threat of circularity, puzzling cases concerning thought. In this paper, we mention Hesperus/Phosphorus puzzles, the Evans-Perry example of the ship seen through different windows, and (...) Mates cases, and we believe that there are many additional applications. (shrink)

Day argues that the meaning of "probable" is partly evaluative and partly descriptive--to say that a proposition is probable is both to recommend its assertion and to say that a certain procedure shows it to be so. The paradigm of an inductive probability judgment, which is the major concern of the book, is "The fact that all observed A's are B's makes it probable that all A's are B's." Several more complex kinds of probability judgments are distinguished and discussed in (...) detail, the author's own theory being illuminated by extensive criticism of the views of other philosophers, including Aristotle, Hume, Whewell, Mill, Peirce, Russell, Braithwaite, Carnap, and Von Wright. Philosophic problems related to induction, such as the existence of other minds and the reliability of memory, are briefly discussed. Ambitious in scope and carefully executed, the book demands, and rewards, close study.--J. R. W. (shrink)

Since the publication of Edmund Gettier's challenge to the traditional epistemological doctrine of knowledge as justified true belief, Roberts and Wood claim that epistemologists lapsed into despondency and are currently open to novel approaches. One such approach is virtue epistemology, which can be divided into virtues as proper functions or epistemic character traits. The authors propose a notion of regulative epistemology, as opposed to a strict analytic epistemology, based on intellectual virtues that function not as rules or even as skills (...) but as habits of the heart. To that end, they divide the task of clarifying and expounding their notion in the book's two parts.In the first part, Roberts and Wood examine various components that constitute their notion of regulative epistemology. The first are the epistemic goods or goals that drive the epistemic process. What is needed, claim Roberts and Wood, is an enriched notion of these goods rather than the restricted notion of justified true belief. Epistemic agents are more than calculating devices in that …. (shrink)

A collection of essays by a group of international scholars from Israel, England, the United States, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, and Argentina testify to the humane influence of Baumgardt. There is little that unites the subject matter of these essays and only one deals explicitly with the thought of Baumgardt. A bibliography of Baumgardt's writings is included.—R. J. B.

A rich collection of essays in honor of Msgr. Mansion, including a study of Mansion's work, several essays on Plato, studies of various aspects of Aristotle's philosophy--textual and systematic analyses of his metaphysics, logic, psychology and ethics--and some essays on the influence of Plato and Aristotle on medieval philosophy. Contributors include Diès, Wilpert, Ross, and Minio-Palaello.--A. R.

A collection of previously unpublished essays--philosophical, literary and critical--presenting the influential views of T. E. Hulme and throwing new light upon the complex personality of their originator. The book also includes Hulme's war diary, his controversy with Russell on war, some poems and fragments, and a complete bibliography of his writings.--A. R.

A fairly routine work of Thomist scholarship which argues that, though both Aquinas and Aristotle regard prudence as a virtue, Aristotle cannot and Aquinas must analyze the vice of imprudence. The difference is found to depend on Aquinas' stress on the liberty of the will.--A. R.

An interesting study of Croce's political philosophy, its relation to his ethics and metaphysics, as well as its place in the political milieu of pre-war Europe. The author argues that Croce's political philosophy, unlike Hegel's, is both humanistic and liberal. --A. R.

An analysis of the realism of M. Blondel, with an attempt to distinguish its traditional elements from its novel features. Blondel's emphasis on the inseparability of philosophy and action is argued to be the foundation of his return to Christian realism.--A. R.

As an extremely technical study of Heidegger's revision of the history of ontology this work has the value of tying together, through paraphrase and quotation, the core of Heideggerian opinion on the subject, from Sein und Zeit up to his latest works. Nuño sees two grand stages in Heidegger's thought, a first and systematic stage and a second or historical stage, which represents the works coming after Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik. The author sees Heidegger's initial destruction of the (...) history of ontology arising out of its own ashes into a reconstruction of the foundations of ontology.--A. R., Jr. (shrink)

A study of post-Hegelian German historicism. There are chapters on Dilthey, Windelband, Rickert, Simmel, Weber, Spengler, Troeltsch, and Meinecke. The development of historicism as a form of Romanticism which treats history as a realization of an absolute principle, to its use as a justification for the relativity of values is traced, and its return to "the affirmation of the absolute" in the work of Troeltsch and Meinecke analyzed.--A. R.

A collection of essays on metaphysics and the philosophy of religion. Among the contributors are J. B. Lotz, J. Danielou, and R. Lazzarini.--A. R.

A discussion of some experiments concerning subjective attitudes toward games, gambling, risk-taking, guessing, etc. Some of the experiments described are novel and interesting; but insufficient account is taken of previous experimental results, and the reports in general fail to meet current standards of clarity and completeness. The theory of games, obviously relevant to the topics discussed, is nowhere mentioned. --A. R. A.

Selected chapters from the first half of Reality, translated into Hebrew. Includes an introduction, especially written for this edition, which was also published in this Review, VII, pp. 558-62.--A. R.

An assessment of the problem of evil in the philosophy of Schopenhauer, from the point of view of Christian nature-theory. Treats of metaphysical, as well as ethical, evil.--A. R.

An informative study of the conditions, the strengths, and the weaknesses of Russian totalitarianism by an expert on Russian affairs. The "Keys" are: the necessity of a struggle for power within the totalitarian regime, the necessity for secrecy and the complete control of all activity, the proscription of labor, the contempt for democratic election, the constant need for colonial expansion, and the subordination of the people to the state.--A. R.

Traces the historical significance of Leibniz in the movement from Platonism to the Kantian critical philosophy. The author argues, in a final chapter, that there is a tension within Leibniz between Platonic idealism, characterized as having "perfect unity between Being and Idea," and Kantian idealism, in which the unity of ideas and being exists only in the human mind. There is an extended bibliography.--A. R.

This book consists of three parts: a general theory of descriptive ethics, a general theory of ethical discourse, and an application of II to the ethical discourse of the Navaho Indians, based on the writer's own field studies. The work is careful, clear, thorough, and detailed, and the inclusion of field notes is helpful in understanding and evaluating Ladd's reconstructions. There are questions of detail where one might cavil, but the book is an important contribution to the relatively unexplored area (...) where philosophy and the social sciences overlap. --A. R. A. (shrink)

Mourant has provided a carefully edited, topically organized anthology. The introductions are clearly written. One still waits, however, for an Augustinian anthology which reveals, rather than conceals Augustine's development.—R. J. W.

Fifty two scholars from the east and west have contributed essays to this volume presented to T. M. P. Mahadevan, head of the Department of Philosophy, University of Madras on his fiftieth birthday. Although the range of papers is broad, collectively they present an overview of the diverse currents in traditional and contemporary Indian philosophy. A bibliography of Mahadevan's writings is also included.—R. J. B.

This is the first complete translation of the second part of Hegel's Encyclopaedia. It is based on the recent German text edited by Nicolin and Pöggeler and contains the Zusätze from Michelet's text. Findlay is to be congratulated for encouraging the publication of this book which is part of a project of completing the translation of the three parts of Hegel's Encyclopaedia together with their Zusätze. A. V. Miller who has already provided a new translation of Hegel's Science of Logic (...) has again undertaken the difficult task of translating this work. Among Anglo-Saxon philosophers there has been the grossest ignorance and the wildest prejudices concerning Hegel's views of the natural sciences and the philosophy of nature. For the first time, we now have a helpful text to understand exactly what Hegel did say and why. The most impressive fact about this volume is the seriousness with which Hegel reflected on the current state of the natural sciences of his own time. Indeed it is difficult to grasp many of his points without understand the specific developments that he has in mind. While much of what Hegel says is obscure and outdated, Hegel is not attempting to legislate for natural science, but to provide us with a philosophic understanding of the significance of our understanding of nature. In this respect, the spirit of Hegel's endeavor is not so foreign from that of contemporary philosophy of science. The publication of this part of Hegel's system will enable us to come to a more balanced understanding of Hegel's philosophy. Findlay's forward is helpful both in explaining and justifying the sources for this translation and for singling out the major themes of Hegel's philosophy of nature.--R. J. B. (shrink)

It is difficult to see the point of putting this book together. Presumably, it is intended to serve as an introduction to basic issues concerning the nature and status of Marxism. As such it fails miserably. The introductions to the various chapter headings, as well as the initial introduction, tend to be simplistic, dogmatic, and inaccurate. The selection of material and its organization is quixotic. It doesn't succeed in presenting the best of international Marxist interpretation and scholarship or in presenting (...) the material needed for a depth understanding of any of the topics treated. Most of the selections--even from eminent scholars on Marx--are so brief that it is difficult to grasp the logic of their arguments and positions. One can buy several paperback books of Marx's original writings for the price of this anthology, and certainly learn a great deal more about Marxism.--R. J. B. (shrink)

The demand for a synoptic philosophic overview is a perennial one. If contemporary professional philosophers are reluctant to satisfy such a demand, others will attempt it. In this brief sketch, Phenix argues that there are three perspectives for understanding the complexity of human nature. The natural sciences disclose the universal aspects of human nature, the social sciences describe those aspects shared with some but not all other persons, and the humanities show man in his uniqueness. Throughout his discussion Phenix is (...) concerned to show the relevance of these ideas to education and to clarify and justify the meaning of liberal learning.—R. J. B. (shrink)

This is the first new edition of the Meno with English commentary and annotation since Thompson's in 1901. Dr. Bluck brings to bear more recent scholarship in his commentary and notes, which are judicious and thorough; and his new collations help to make the text the best available. Any account of the Meno's truth and meaning should begin with the careful textual, philological, logical, and historical considerations of the commentary and introduction of this new edition.--R. S. B.

It is good to have this fine English translation of the second German edition of Kelsen's Reine Rechtslehre, which has heavily influenced so much contemporary thought on jurisprudence and the philosophy of law. Reading Kelsen now one is struck by the stilted and naïve positivism that pervades his thought. At the same time, one is also impressed by the clarity that he brings to what is normally a very muddled area. There is a bold statement of the "pure" theory, a (...) sharp distinction between the legal and the moral orders, a reiteration of the "dualism" of the is and the ought, and a defense of legal norms as the object of the science of law. While Kelsen's quasi-dogmatic pronouncements can provoke disagreements at almost every stage of his argument, the book is certainly one which must be directly encountered by any serious student of the philosophy and theory of law.—R. J. B. (shrink)

As seen by Professor Capek, Bergson’s views about the nature of matter were either misunderstood or ignored in the decades following their publication at the turn of the century. The explanation for this attitude of both Bergson’s opponents and his disciples lies in the fact that, at that time, although there were rumblings under the foundations of classical physics, "hardly anybody could then guess even remotely the extent of the coming scientific revolution." One of the main stumbling blocks for Bergson’s (...) readers was the non-pictorial character of his ‘model’ of matter, which was conceived as consisting of imageless events. In Bergson and Modern Physics, Capek attempts to remove this stumbling block and to evaluate the relation between Bergson’s thought and modern physics as it stands today. The book consists of three parts: Bergson’s biological theory of knowledge, his theory of duration, and his theory of the physical world and its relations to contemporary physics. Three appendices deal with Russell’s complex relation to Bergson, with the much discussed relation of microphysical indeterminancy to freedom, and with Bergson’s views on entropy and modern cosmogony, respectively. The book is indexed and carries extensive references to the scientific and philosophical literature. With this book Capek provides a competent exposition and historical perspective of Bergson’s philosophy and its relation to modern physics.—D. R. P. (shrink)

A model of German scholarship comprehensive and carefully written. The first part is devoted to an exposition of the views of the symbol taken by such thinkers as Goethe, Cassirer, Tillich, and Jaspers. The second part is a more systematic discussion of the symbol as it functions in theology and religion.--D. R.

A sympathetic and knowledgeable discussion of Freud in relation to literature and the present state of our culture. The crisis to which the title refers concerns the "progressive deterioration of accurate knowledge of the self and of the right relation between the self and the culture." Freud's contribution to our understanding of the self in culture is deftly outlined, and it is suggested that his theories of culture are not so fantastic as has often been supposed.--D. R.

The premise of this book is that the world's troubles are basically psychological in origin. Not only is the mind largely unconscious, but even the normal, conscious workings of the mind are subject to various warpings and distortions. By gaining insight into these distortions we may achieve a revolution in our approach to problems otherwise insoluble by normal processes of thought. In order to do this the mind must become quiet, silent. The author's presentation is able and systematic. --D. R.

This magnificent volume is the basic text for the study of Jung. Originally published in 1912 under the title, Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido, it marked Jung's first serious deviation from Freudian psychoanalysis and led to the complete break between the two men the following year. The chapter on "The Concept of Libido" gives Jung's reasons for generalizing this crucial notion from its specifically sexual meaning to that of psychic energy. The present translation is from the fourth German edition of (...) 1952. There are sixty-four full page plates accompanying the text. --D. R. (shrink)

A posthumous study of "Russia's greatest philosopher." The problems that so vitally concerned Solovyev seem strangely irrelevant today. Nevertheless he is a neglected figure and deserves this renewed attention.--D. R.