We have synthesized a 582,970-base pair Mycoplasma genitalium genome. This synthetic genome, named M. genitalium JCVI-1.0, contains all the genes of wild-type M. genitalium G37 except MG408, which was disrupted by an antibiotic marker to block pathogenicity and to allow for selection. To identify the genome as synthetic, we inserted "watermarks" at intergenic sites known to tolerate transposon insertions. Overlapping "cassettes" of 5 to 7 kilobases (kb), assembled from chemically synthesized oligonucleotides, were joined by in vitro recombination to produce intermediate (...) assemblies of approximately 24 kb, 72 kb ("1/8 genome"), and 144 kb ("1/4 genome"), which were all cloned as bacterial artificial chromosomes in Escherichia coli. Most of these intermediate clones were sequenced, and clones of all four 1/4 genomes with the correct sequence were identified. The complete synthetic genome was assembled by transformation-associated recombination cloning in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, then isolated and sequenced. A clone with the correct sequence was identified. The methods described here will be generally useful for constructing large DNA molecules from chemically synthesized pieces and also from combinations of natural and synthetic DNA segments. 10.1126/science.1151721. (shrink)

In this paper we elaborate on the question how to bridge the gap between contemporary (New) music and the tradition of the past, often called ‘classical’ music. First we analyze the notion of tradition (in classical music) as being distinct from traditional music, nationalism and traditionalism. A central role in this paper is dedicated to the role of counterpoint education following J.J. Fux’s Gradus ad Parnassum in the development of Central-European classical music between the late Renaissance and late Romantic periods. (...) The developments in the 20th century New Music reveal several important trend breaks. The controversies raised during the early Renaissance, regarding the practice of polyphonic singing, are discussed with respect to their impact on music development in later ages. From these controversies and the re-discovery of Nicholas de Cusa’s view on mysticism, the experience of the non-experience in polyphonic music is elucidated. Herewith, an illuminative heuristic is found in the enfolding-unfolding paradigm both in music and pictural arts, from the Renaissance till the present. (shrink)

Studie over het werk van de Franse onderwijspionier Célestin Freinet (1896-1966).

This paper starts from the remarkable habit of yoik singing among the Sámi people and the notion of togetherness in ‘singing together’, being confronted with the role of technology in the contemporary manifestations of ‘singing’. An important link appears to exist between several forms of grooming and the social dimensions of language and singing, as previously shown by Robin Dunbar. These types of interaction surpass the physiological, hormonal and psychological roles of grooming in humans, in non-human primates and in other (...) mammals. For they also determine the constraints of group-forming processes in mammals, and social structures in humans too. The characteristic group size of grooming mammals has been reported to determine the necessity of social stratification. Number constraints therefore form a silver lining throughout this paper. The analogy with artificial language models, and modern language models (MLM) in particular, has been chosen following the suggested applicability of AI for the deciphering of the language of Whales (Cetaceans). The polemic discussion between Noam Chomsky’s so-called classical generative linguistics and propagators of the nonlinguistic MLM approach (referring to Steven T. Piantadosi) is found an instructive heuristic for analyzing the future impact of AI on human culture. It is suggested that AI-generated analogues of ‘singing together’ will profoundly interact (or already do so) with social stratification and with the conservation of human values. (shrink)

Philosophers of many different traditions—Platonist, positivist, and critical realist—have taken a hand at criticizing and evaluating the history of science, but this work represents the first attempt by an idealist philosopher to examine this emergent field of study and suggest historicism as an appropriate philosophy to guide its future efforts. After dedicating his work jointly to Croce, Feyerabend, Popper, and Scriven, whom he admits constitute a heterogeneous group from which to draw inspiration, Finocchiaro devotes most of his nineteen chapters to (...) poking holes into the explanations offered by noted historians of science for various discoveries and happenings within science over the past three centuries. (shrink)

This book contains three essays: "The Mask and the Face: The Perception of Physiognomic Likeness in Life and Art" by Gombrich, the renowned art historian and critic; "The Representation of Things and People" by psychologist, Julian Hochberg; and "How Do Pictures Represent" by philosopher, Max Black. The book is based upon lectures delivered in the Johns Hopkins 1970 Thalheimer Lectures, where, taking off from the question "how there can be an underlying identity in the manifold and changing facial expression of (...) a single individual," there is an interdisciplinary attempt at clarifying the problem of representation. Gombrich’s central thesis is that the key to artistic representation is empathy and projection, which is guided by the interlocking display of the permanent and mobile features of the object represented. Perceptual activity and empathy rely more on the muscular imitation than on passive visual reception. He holds that what is singled out as the likeness-factor uniting the permanent and mobile features in, for example, the photograph of the four-year old Lord Russell and such factors in the ninety-year old Russell is the "general tonus, the melody of transition from given ranges of relaxations to forms of tenseness." Hochberg’s essay spells out the position that perception is purposive behavior, wherein the purpose is the information sought and behavior is the "succession of glances in different directions." Holding that perceptual activity is grounded in expectations, he lays aside Gombrich’s muscularity-thesis in favor of a learned expectation of feature characteristics. Black’s essay is a conceptual analysis of "depiction," or more precisely, of "P displays a subject S if and only if R, where R ‘will constitute the necessary and sufficient condition for P displaying S'." The essay, which proceeds in a Wittgensteinian Investigations-type fashion ends where the reader would hope it begin. He concludes that the problem can only be adequately answered by moving from logical investigation to the world of the artisan and art lover. To arrive at this conclusion he debunks six candidates that claim to meet the depiction conditions: causal history, selective information, intention, mimesis, resemblance, and "looking-like." At best, depiction may be considered a "cluster" concept of all six. Further determination, he holds, requires knowledge of the purpose of a particular depiction, and this takes us out of logic and into art; and so Black stops, unfortunately.—W. A. F. (shrink)

The fulfillment of the pedagogical intention of this work takes the form of developing a specific conception of metaphysics. The author’s conception is not the original one in terms of the object of metaphysics, but one that encompasses as well the various philosophical developments that affect the original conception of it, including critiques of it. The author conceives metaphysics in terms of "motives" of thought, originally articulated by Plato, namely, 1) the knowledge of principles of being; 2) the standard of (...) true knowledge; and 3) the way in which this knowledge is attained. According to the author, the first definitive treatment of the first of these themes is given by Aristotle, in the conception of the essences of things as the principles of being. In subsequent treatments, these themes undergo various transformations, which are presented by the author as being the result of critical reflections on prior treatments. In fact, they are the result of shifts in perspective, the most fundamental of which is, as the author himself notes, the introduction of perspectivity as a category in the sense of a condition of knowledge. The author traces the function of this category in the thought of various philosophers from Augustine to Nietzsche, suggesting, though not explicitly establishing, its theological origin. (shrink)

This is a marvelous book. Although billed as a Dogmatics, it is really a rambling and magnanimous presentation of the Christian faith-theology as well as practice. It is guided by the attempt to be systematic and comprehensive. It is filled with wonderful human insights into the nature of the Christian posture in a wayward world. It is part philosophical theology, part a theology of culture, and part practical theology. But it is more than all of its parts. What we have (...) is Hartt's mature ruminations on a vast number of subjects germane to Christian thinking. Hartt is a Barthian with humor, a neo-Reformation theologian with pizazz, a Methodist who has drunk deeply of American culture. Hartt divides his book into three parts: The Vocation of the Church as a Critic of Culture; The Dogmatic Content of Practical Theology; and Applications. The first part is an attempt to work the church into the role of a cultural interrogator, conscious on the one hand of its historic roots in that theological tradition known as the Christian faith, and on the other of its iconoclastic role, relativizing all absolutistic pretensions that civilization may attain, and in general, lose itself in the world, but not to the world. It is in this section that Hartt gives credence to the title of his book, A Christian Critique of American Culture. Part II emphasizes the "preachability" of the Gospel. Part III demonstrates what Hartt means by the applicability of the Gospel, its critique of art, politics, and mass culture. A chapter on "The Holy Spirit and 'Revolution'" concludes the work. There are no footnotes, no bibliography and no index. But none is needed. In the end what the reader has is Hartt and not a conglomeration and distillation of the thoughts of the theological luminaries of our day. Hartt's writing is the best among living theologians--and that fact alone ought to make anyone who is interested in great theologizing buy this book.--W. A. J. (shrink)

This book centers around a new translation of Aristotle’s small treatise, On Memory. It is preceded by three essays by Sorabji and is followed by a section of notes. The treatise treats of the distinction between memory and recollection and what each is. Memory is "the having of an image regarded as a copy of that which it is an image" and it belongs to "the primary perception part [of the soul] and that with which we perceive time." Here the (...) key ideas, finely modulated, are image as in itself and as copy, and time perception. Recollection is distinct from memory; it is the natural or habitual succession of given image: starting from one image and moving to something similar, opposite or neighboring, until the required image is present. Recollecting is "a sort of search" requiring deliberation and peculiar to men, whereas remembering is common to many higher animals. An interesting point regarding the act of remembering is, besides the succession of images, the attendant perception of proportioned time-lapses, so much so, that "when exercising his memory a person cannot think he is not doing so and fail to notice that he is doing so." The section of notes contains many illuminative remarks on the translator’s choice of words for all the major phrases as well as helpful explanations of the structure and meaning of the textual arguments. The three essays by Sorabji, on memory, mnemonic techniques and recollection, are critical accounts of Aristotle’s doctrine, taking into account the teachings of thinkers ranging from Plato and Berkeley to the Australian materialists and William James. Here Sorabji is most helpful in demonstrating the importance and relationship of the doctrines of On Memory to the larger Aristotelian teaching on thinking and on dialectical reasoning. The essay on recollection centers around Aristotle’s relationship to Plato on the same topic and on the systematic problem of association of ideas. All in all, Aristotle on Memory is an excellent little book, illuminating the larger context and satisfying in itself.—W. A. F. (shrink)

The author is convinced that autobiography is revelatory of great cultural movements, and that the Christian faith is historically multi-dimensioned. Tsanoff has a marvelous facility to bring together diverse materials into a conceptual whole. He is capable of making St. Augustine representative of the patristic period and Newman of the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England. In addition to these two Christian thinkers, Tsanoff portrays St. Teresa of Avila, George Fox, John Bunyan, John Wesley, Ernest Renan, count Tolstoy, Albert (...) Schweitzer, and Pope John XXIII. Each represents what Tsanoff calls an "alternative in Christian experience." And each describes in his own person a significant development in the ongoing life of the Christian community. Tsanoff's Autobiographies can be a very useful book, especially for courses dealing with the history of Christian thought. The author is faithful to the scholarly texts, quoting when necessary, providing anecdotes about the life of a theologian when illuminating. A good, substantial, interesting and helpful volume.--W. A. J. (shrink)

Abbagnano clearly belongs to the first rank of European philosophers. He is an existentialist concerned primarily with the category of "the possible." He outlines his basic ideas in several essays, "What is Existentialism?" and "Existentialism is a Positive Philosophy," in which the distinctive character of "the possible" is related to other existentialistic notions. Other essays deal with "Faith, Philosophy, Religion," "Science and Freedom," "Experience and Metaphysics," "The Method of Philosophy." What makes the volume so very attractive to the American reader (...) is the editor's introduction. Mr. Languilli, in seventy pages, places Abbagnano in the proper context of European philosophy, and traces his intellectual development within the unique Italian academic environment.--W. A. J. (shrink)

Two philosophers look at religion without any preconceived notions about the nature of God and the problem of evil and suffering in the world. They demonstrate that their conclusions are the same as those of many others who have explored those problems: God cannot exist if there is evil in the world!--W. A. J.

Günther Bornkamm, a chief disciple of Rudolph Bultmann, has gathered together a number of his expository articles in this volume. The chapters deal generally with themes familiar to Bultmann's aficionados, concentrating heavily on Paul's Epistle to the Romans and other letters of Paul. The chapters are headed "God's Word and Man's Word in the New Testament," "Christ and the World in the Early Christian Message," "Faith and Reason in Paul," "The Revelation of God's Wrath," "Baptism and New Life in Paul," (...) "Sin, Law and Death," "The Praise of God," "On Understanding the Christ-hymn," "Lord's Supper and Church in Paul," "On the Understanding of Worship," "The More Excellent Way." The translations of the articles are admirable, and were completed by Paul L. Hammer.--W. A. J. (shrink)

This volume, published to commemorate the two-hundredth anniversary of Hegel’s birth, is a collection of fifteen essays on Hegel, all in German, written by men from various European countries and with various professional backgrounds. The subject of the first two essays is Hegel the man: the essays are contributions to Hegel’s biography and psychography, and are of little philosophical interest. The subject of the remaining essays is Hegel’s work, at least that part of it which is judged by the contributors (...) to this volume to be of more than historical interest. This is primarily the practical-philosophical part of Hegel’s work. Specifically, the essays deal with Hegel’s philosophy of history ; his philosophy of religion ; and his philosophy of law. (shrink)

Shestov's name appears from time to time in existentialist literature. Camus, for example, refers approvingly to Shestov in The Myth of Sisyphus: "Shestov... tracks down, illuminates, and magnifies the human revolt against the irremediable." Kierkegaard and the Existential Philosophy was translated earlier into French and into Danish in 1947, and German in 1949. The Danes received Shestov's book with great appreciation, and were particularly happy about his attempt to relate Kierkegaard to such diverse thinkers as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Hegel, Spinoza, (...) Luther, and others. And that is what Shestov's work on Kierkegaard is fundamentally all about, an attempt to place Kierkegaard in the history of philosophical and theological thought. Shestov is appreciative of Kierkegaard as the great champion of the revelational character of the Christian faith. Revelation stands over against reason, and the truths of one cannot be reconciled with the truths of the other. Shestov attempts to set in opposition the proponents of a rationalistic philosophy, Socrates, Spinoza, Hegel, and Kant, and the advocates of Biblical faith, Job, Abraham, Paul, Luther, and Kierkegaard, arguing that a reconciliation is impossible. One must choose to live the life of "the knight of faith," rather than attempt to find answers to, or reasons for, life's ambiguities. The author employs a methodological device much in vogue among Kierkegaard scholars in the 30s and 40s, i.e., he employs Kierkegaard's own life and experiences as a model to analyze and clarify theological conundrums. Kierkegaard's unhappiness is related to the human problem of suffering, just as Kierkegaard attempts at knowledge fail because he had forgotten the Biblical truth that "all that is not faith is sin." Finally, man must reject Spinoza's injunction "Do not laugh, do not weep, do not condemn, but understand." Not understanding, but faith. Kierkegaard's own life reveals an alternation between those polar opposites.--W. A. J. (shrink)

This is undoubtedly the most constructive approach to the solution of the God problem to appear in the past decade. The author displays considerable erudition, having assimilated practically all of the significant literature on his subject, and thus is able judiciously to assess both the difficulties in the problem and the limitations of various attempts to surmount them. The focal point of his study is the problem of conceptualizing God on the two suppositions that human knowledge is basically conceptual and (...) that a proper concept of God is forever beyond human formulation. In successive steps, and with enviable clarity, he explains how the "representative realism" of traditional scholasticism gradually gave way to a "symbolic relativism," variously expressed in the thought of Sertillanges, Barth, Brunner, Bultmann, and Tillich. He then explains efforts to go beyond the limits of conceptualization under the inspiration of transcendental philosophy, leading to divers types of "theological intuitionalism," of which Maréchal, Rahner, Lonergan, and Schillebeeckx [[sic]] are representative. The critical problem posed by these endeavors leads the author to re-open the question of analogy, using insights from Aquinas but developing them in a highly original way. (shrink)

Frend's thesis about the origins of Christendom is that "Christianity came up from below." Christianity had its greatest impact and appeal on the lower classes of the Greco-Roman world. The earliest Christians had little influence upon the classical literature of the first century. But there were institutional and ideological influences among the lowest social order that were substantial. Archaeological research and discovery have amplified the kind of everyday life that the Christians lived. Frend looks at Christianity primarily as a social (...) movement which slowly but firmly established itself within a dominantly pagan society. But Christianity was a revolutionary social movement which could not fully accommodate itself to the Greco-Roman world in which it lived. Christians were prepared to work with the world--unlike the apocalypticists who rejected it--and it is this fact alone that allowed Christianity in time to overcome the world.--W. A. J. (shrink)

The essays which comprise this collection made their first appearance in 1948 to celebrate the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the British science journal, The Philosophical Magazine, which initially published many monographs in which distinguished scientific discoveries were announced. The present edition is a reprint of the supplement to the regular issue of 1948 and is now put out in book form to be more available for students of the history of science. The "natural philosophy" in (...) the title reflects the way in which the meaning of the term "philosophy" has changed over the past two centuries, for all the essays are devoted to science as we now know it, even as The Philosophical Magazine has itself become a journal now devoted mainly to solid-state physics. Thus a succession of chapters details the history of astronomy, physics, chemistry, mathematics, and engineering through the eighteenth century; other topics include the history of The Philosophical Magazine and histories of scientific periodicals generally, of scientific instruments, and of scientific societies throughout the same era. The concluding essay, by F. Sherwood Taylor, is entitled "The Teaching of the Physical Sciences at the End of the Eighteenth Century"; this is a well documented study of syllabi for courses taught in the universities, as well as an account of the educations received by men who figured prominently in eighteenth-century science. The essays, whose authors include such notables as Sir H. Spencer-Jones, Herbert Dingle, J. R. Partington, J. F. Scott, and Douglas McKie, are uniformly good. They will interest mainly historians of science for their detailed coverage of both internalist and externalist aspects of eighteenth-century thought. They will also appeal to philosophers, however, if only to remind them how their own discipline gave birth to the "new science," and indeed gave it a unity in its early stages that it would do well to recover in the present day.—W.A.W. (shrink)

This is a rather helpful volume, containing a collection of introductory materials in the field of the philosophy of religion. The authors group the contents of the volume about six topics: reason, faith, and philosophy; arguments for the divine reality; religious experience and revelation; religion and ethics; the meaning of religious statements; and God, man, and the world. To provide a helpful alternative to this division, the authors locate four different philosophical traditions in the above material : rationalism-idealism; empiricism; Existentialism; (...) and analysis. The volume is extremely well edited, up to date, and the material attractively presented. The book could well become a standard text in introductory philosophy of religion courses.--W. A. J. (shrink)

Ever since Herbert Butterfield’s lectures at Cambridge in 1948, the period known as the "Scientific Revolution" has intrigued historians and has gradually come to challenge the "Renaissance" as a significant marker in the periodization of intellectual history. This phenomenon has generated great interest among historians of science, but because the earlier practitioners of this discipline thought largely in terms of a positivist philosophy of science, it also tended to restrict the scope of studies concerning the origins of the "new science." (...) Generally, the mechanical philosophy and the exact mathematical description of nature have been singled out as the dominant factors that made the Scientific Revolution possible. The role of experiment has been much debated, but due credit has rarely been given to the powerful impetus given the new movement by two other ancient traditions: Aristotelian physics with its empirical orientation, its logical rigor, and its insistence on a realist interpretation of nature; and the alchemical or hermetic tradition, with its reliance on experimentation, its appreciation of the crafts, and its general utilitarian outlook. The articles collected in this volume make a serious attempt to fill the lacunae that have thus been created, and on balance, objectivity, and clarity of presentation they score very high indeed. They will interest philosophers mainly because of their recurring concern with the problems of rationality and irrationality in science, the role of mysticism in intellectual discovery, the challenges to authority and the quarters from which they came, and the value of recent subjectivist philosophies of science to account for the "revolution" that was eventually produced. (shrink)

This is a collection of early essays. It ought to be read with The Future of Man before any of his other works, particularly before trying to stumble through such terms as the 'Noosphere,' 'forced coalescence,' 'Migh-Synthesis'. Teilhard does not argue in syllogistic form, which may be scandalous to Scholastics. But then he does not argue at all. He seems to assume that he is writing to a select group of cognoscenti, who know as much about science and philosophy as (...) he. He does not take issue with his contemporaries --nor with the great thinkers of the past. One senses something of his intellectual isolation, and one is awed all the more by Teilhard's accomplishments. There are some problems with Teilhard's use of familiar scientific terms, especially as they are presented to a non-scientific reader. Teilhard supports the mentality of the modern believing Christian. He argues that "at extreme degrees of physico-chemical complexity, attaining the order of a million atoms, particles become 'animate'. At the level of the viruses we meet an ill-defined function which separates living from non-living beings." It is that kind of world-view that is consonant with both modern theology and modern science, at least in a Christian context.--W. A. J. (shrink)

This small pamphlet presents a critical analysis of the "situational ethic" as it has been proposed by a number of Protestant writers. Gleason is a Jesuit and clearly takes issue with such innovations in ethics. He favors instead the natural law tradition in which man is bound to conscience and must be obedient to the principles of that law: "In creating man God has given him a natural light of the intelligence by which he may know what is to be (...) done and what is to be avoided in the moral sphere."--W. A. J. (shrink)

The year 1666, on Newton’s own testimony, was the "wonderful year" wherein, at the tender age of 24, he developed the fundamental principles of the integral calculus, verified the composite nature of sunlight, and satisfied himself by calculation that the earth’s gravitation holds the moon in its orbit. Fittingly to commemorate the third centenary of that year, and at the same time to bring together the considerable results of recent Newtonian scholarship, Robert Palter organized a symposium at the University of (...) Texas in Austin on November 10-12, 1966. The proceedings of that symposium, including sixteen major papers by scholars of international reputation and the comments they elicited from learned colleagues, first appeared in The Texas Quarterly, Vol. 10, no. 3 ; they are now made available to a larger reading public in this book, many in revised and expanded form. Not all of the contributions will interest the philosopher, but the attention of those specializing in the philosophy of science is directed particularly to R. S. Westfall’s and I. B. Cohen’s scholarly articles on Newton’s optical theories and on his force concept respectively, both of which contain considerable material for philosophical analysis. Of more general significance are Palter’s own treatment of Newton’s inductive method, Howard Stein’s analysis of Newtonian space-time, and J. H. Randall’s reflection on the religious consequences of Newton’s thought. One of the most stimulating articles is Dudley Shapere’s evaluation of the philosophical significance of Newton’s science, made in the context of his on-going debate with T. S. Kuhn and P. K. Feyerabend, which sheds yet further light on the problems of meaning invariance and scientific change.—W. A. W. (shrink)

This book covers a period of Austrian history stretching from 1848 to 1933, a period of amazing intellectual activity, on a scale comparable perhaps only with renaissance Italy. Johnston includes chapters on Emperor Franz Joseph, the Beidermeir culture, legal and economic theorists, Austro-marxists, and Viennese aestheticism. Perhaps most interesting for philosophers are sections on positivism and impressionism and the author’s discussions of men such as Mach, Boltzman, Schlick, Mauthner, the ever-present Karl Kraus, Wittgenstein, Buber, and Freud. There is another notable (...) section on Bohemian Reform Catholicism which includes discussions of Bolzano, Herbart, Brentano, and Husserl. The author’s scholarship is excellent. A large amount of significant information is exceedingly well-organized. (shrink)

This book is made up of three rather superficial essays by Russell, hardly more than tapes of lectures given years and years ago. It's a pity that Russell, or someone, sanctions such bowdlerizing of what was once philosophical profundity. Russell is at his acerbic worst in these essays, shallow and intolerant.--W. A. J.

The subject of this book is the construction of a house commissioned by Mrs. Margarethe Stonborough-Wittgenstein, which was partially designed and supervised by her brother, Ludwig. The book consists of two main parts. At the beginning Leitner presents, in the original German, with an English translation, a recollection of Wittgenstein and the building of the house. They are short excerpts from Family Recollections written in the early forties by his other sister, Hermain Wittgenstein. Speaking of the house, she writes, "I (...) always knew that I neither wanted to, nor could, live in it myself. It seemed indeed to be much more a dwelling for the gods... at first I even had to overcome a faint opposition to this ‘house turned logic', as I called it, to this perfection and monumentality. However, this house fitted my sister Gretl like a glove...." Throughout, the tone of the excerpts is easy but tempered by the style of an intelligent, perceptive, cultured woman. (shrink)

This is one of those obviously worked-over doctoral dissertations. There is one chapter which reviews all previous studies dealing with Schweitzer, with copious footnotes in many languages. In spite of Clark's underlying attitude of adulation of the Master, his analysis of Schweitzer's thought is rather helpful. He places Schweitzer in the main stream of nineteenth-century German romantic thought and examines the impact that that thought had upon the theologians of the period. But he believes that Schweitzer is foremost an ethical (...) thinker, not a theologian, and that the true sources of his thought are in the ethicists of the nineteenth-century and not the theologians. Clark insists that Schweitzer's thought is characterized by two major emphases, one that ethics must be founded on rational thought, the second that human selfhood is fundamentally good. Clark finds the origins for these two notions in Kant's Fundamental Principles of a Metaphysics of Morals. Schweitzer's relationship to such diverse thinkers as Darwin, Schopenhauer, Spencer, and Nietzsche is also traced. The term "world-affirmation" emerges in Schweitzer's thought as a fundamental ethical category: it implies "ethical self-devotion to one's fellow-creatures." Hence, it is rather easy to make the jump from one's fellow-creatures, conceived solely as human fellow-creatures, to a "reverence for life" of all creatures, human and animal. Schweitzer owes a great deal to the social gospel movement of the latter half of the nineteenth-century. He believed in the "coming Era of Peace" and he spoke of the Kingdom of God as a possibility within history. "Sooner or later," he writes, "there must dawn the true and final Renaissance which will bring peace to the world." The result of Clark's work is that Schweitzer remains the enigmatic, other-worldly patrician Renaissance-man, but we now have at least a hint as to the sources of his unique and complicated philosophy of civilization. Clark mentions in passing that Goethe may be the major influence on Schweitzer's thought.--W. A. J. (shrink)

This is a translation of a work, which appeared originally in French in 1923, that exposes in considerable detail the doctrine of Giordano Bruno on various kinds of minima. Bruno is justly famous for his teachings on infinity, but is little known for adumbrating atomic concepts through his finalist approach to the ultimate constituents of matter and mathematical continua. The author proposes to remedy this defect by exposing, in a systematic way, the contents of Bruno’s somewhat confusing Latin poem De (...) triplici minimo et mensura, ad trium speculativarum scientiarum et multarum activarum artium principia, first published in 1591 at Frankfurt. Like others of Bruno’s compositions, this is "a tiresome melange of irregular hexameters," in imitation of Lucretius, interspersed with Latin scholia "occasionally more poetic than the verses themselves". In three chapters the author successively details the various forerunners of Bruno’s doctrine ; makes sense of the three minima ; and offers a critique. (shrink)

This volume has a misleading title: one might think that the material in this long work is by the great Indian spiritual leader. But it is not. Rather it is a collection of essays by A. R. Wadia, M.P., and it is only the first essay in the tome which is about Gandhi. Wadia is obviously some kind of Renaissance man, an interpreter of all knowledge--philosophical and religious, western and eastern--to the Indian mind. In one volume can be found Wadia (...) on "Pragmatic Idealism," "Philosophy and Religion," "Science and Philosophy," "Buddha as a Revolutionary Force in Indian Culture," "The Psychological Background of Politics and Sociology," "The Problem of Population in India," and there is lots more.--W. A. J. (shrink)

This impressive volume presents the results of a symposium on the structure of scientific theories held at the University of Illinois, Urbana, on March 26-29, 1969; lest this create the wrong impression, let it be noted at the outset that the volume is much more than a collection of papers. Indeed, when one takes into account Frederick Suppe’s book-length introduction, the editing of the critical comments, the extensive bibliography, and the fine index, the work must be seen as the best (...) account of scientific theory now available, one that surely commends itself to every philosopher of science with the slightest interest in metaphysics. The thrust of the symposium was to examine the view of scientific theories that has enjoyed great vogue among logical positivists, who have seen such theories as "axiomatic calculi in which theoretical terms and statements are given a partial observational interpretation by means of correspondence rules." Suppe refers to this as the "Received View," although it has been increasingly questioned in recent years, particularly by philosophers who have some proficiency in the history of science and by scientists who question its fidelity to actual scientific practice. One of the major aims of the symposium was to subject the Received View to analysis and debate by its proponents and by its critics, to assess its present status, and to see if any consensus has begun to develop on this topic—which plays such a key role in the philosophy of science. Suppe performs the analytic function in his critical introduction, and Stephen Toulmin adds a postscript that attempts to chart a course for future research. The message seems to be that the Received View has run its course and has proved to be more a hindrance than a help to philosophizing about science; what will take its place, however, does not emerge with any clarity. Participants in the symposium include all the luminaries in the philosophy of science movement: Carl Hempel, Patrick Suppes, David Bohm, Hilary Putnam, Thomas Kuhn, and Dudley Shapere, among others. Especially noteworthy are Suppe’s account of the development of the Received View and the criticisms that have been lodged against it, viz., its reliance on the analytic-synthetic distinction; the tenability of the observational-theoretical distinction; the notion of partial interpretation; its failure to include models as integral components; its analysis of correspondence rules; and its reliance on axiomatization. Suppe also details some of the proposed alternatives to the Received View, giving in the process lucid expositions of the thought of Toulmin, Kuhn, Hanson, Popper, and Feyerabend—all of which he treats under the rubric of "Weltanshauungen [[sic]] Analyses." Those interested in the relationships between history of science and philosophy of science will find the interchange between I. Bernard Cohen and Peter Achinstein stimulating as well as illuminating. Kuhn takes this occasion to offer his "Second Thoughts on Paradigms," and Shapere continues his criticism of both Kuhn and logical positivism—now more constructively than heretofore—with a penetrating essay entitled "Scientific Theories and their Domains." About the only thing that is lacking is a treatment of recent developments in England, particularly the work of Rom Harré at Oxford and related thinkers, who likewise reject the Received View and offer interesting alternatives to it that have yet to be appreciated and critiqued in the U.S.—W.A.W. (shrink)

The author of this little but suggestive volume believes that the "Death of God" theologians answer questions no one is asking. And for that reason he rejects in toto the kind of theology advocated by this strange breed of Christian "apologist". But MacGregor believes that theologizing about the "absence of God" is salutary for the intellectual concerns of the modern Christian. He finds references to the notion of the "hiddenness of God" in all of the reformers and especially in those (...) theologians of this century who identified their position with that of the reformers: Barth, Bonhoeffer, Tillich and others. MacGregor wants to show the methodological similarities between the notion of the deus absconditus and the emotional and intellectual inability to find God as part of the human experience. And it is an evident truth that modern man hardly gives any credence to the traditional claims that Christians make about the nearness of God hovering over His creatures like a mother-hen. MacGregor argues that the sense of the absence of God in the contemporary mood is a positive sense of absence. It is not mere indifference, but a malaise, a God-forsakenness. And the God-forsakenness is a means by which the individual faces the world courageously. There is tragedy in this attitude, even wistfulness for the beliefs of the enchanted years, but the whole thing thrusts one out to face the world as a man. MacGregor's book is one of the most stimulating pieces of popular theology to appear in a long time. The author is precise and lucid, and profoundly philosophical, but he has the marvelous gift of couching his theologizing in language and categories that can be comprehended.--W. A. J. (shrink)

This is an extremely helpful book, superbly edited by Professor Molina, whose earlier book Existentialism as Philosophy provided a helpful introduction to existentialism as a serious, systematic philosophy. Molina successfully avoids all temptations to exploit the faddish quality of existentialism. After all these years, even the most protected, sequestered, academic institutions have had their resident left-bank habitue. And so one could play about lightly with Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, sell lots of books, sound serious, and leave still another generation impressed with (...) the shallow and the superficial. But Molina is at all times the scholar. He refuses to couch difficult concepts in popular terms. And the result is a weighty, but well-written companion volume to the earlier expository work, providing the reader with an interesting selection of primary sources in the philosophy of existentialism. The authors represented are Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, Ortega y Gasset, Sartre, Tillich, Heidegger, Gendlin, and Merleau-Ponty. Each selection is prefaced by Molina's interpretation of the material, excellently written and philosophically sound. The book ought to be a standard text for courses in Existentialism.--W. A. J. (shrink)

The author is a student of the renowned German medievalist, Josef Koch. Having himself worked for more than ten years on medieval commentaries on Aristotle's Physics and Metaphysics, Zimmermann wishes to make the result of his researches available to others. To reduce his mass of material to tractable dimensions, he follows the pattern of F. Stegmüller's Repertorium of commentaries on Lombard's Sentences, giving first a description of the manuscripts examined, then a transliteration of the titles of all questions treated in (...) the respective commentaries, together with the folio at which each question begins, and grouping the works of identified authors before the anonymous works in each category. The first volume is limited to manuscripts contained in collections at Munich, Innsbruck, Cambridge, Oxford, London, Paris, and Cambrai; a second volume, with wider coverage, is promised shortly. The majority of the authors reported on in the first volume are anonymous, but those identified include Adam of Bocfeld, Augustine Triumphus of Ancona, Boethius of Dacia, Geoffrey of Aspall, John of Wacfeld, Peter of Alvernia, Radulfus Brito, Siger of Brabant, Simon of Faversham, William Bonkys, William of Chelvestun, and William of Clifford. This, like Stegmüller's, is clearly a reference work for scholars, and its principal merit lies in that it provides an accurate list of physical and metaphysical topics being discussed at centers of learning in England and on the Continent from the mid-thirteenth to the mid-fourteenth centuries. It was during this period, of course, that Aristotle was having his greatest impact on Latin Christendom. The questions listed by Zimmermann have their intrinsic interest, but even more they provide historians of science and of philosophy with considerable material for investigation, for analysis, and, hopefully, for the dating and identification of the works listed as anonymous. Zimmermann makes no attempt at completeness of reference, supplying only a few citations in his notes; on Geoffrey of Aspall, for instance, he refers only to Emden's Biographical Register, missing Enya MacRae's Geoffrey of Aspall's Commentaries on Aristotle, Medieval and Renaissance Studies 6. Regrettably the volume has neither a subject index nor a register of names, deficiencies that seriously impair its usefulness--W. A. W. (shrink)

An important book. This Festschrift presented to Professor Datta on the occasion of his 70 birthday, contains important contributions by a number of non-Eastern philosophers, including Edwin A. Burtt, "A Problem in Comparative Philosophy," William K. Frankena, "Ethics in an Age of Science," Cornelius Kruse, "Immanuel Kant," F. S. C. Northrop, "The Philosophical Roots and Validity of Tagore's Genius," and H. W. Schneider's, "Religious Diversity in America." Dr. D. M. Datta was both a scholarly and professional philosopher, as well as (...) a colleague of Gandhi in India's nonviolent struggle for freedom.--W. A. J. (shrink)

This work, a reworked doctoral thesis written for Roland Bainton at the Yale Divinity School, begins with an announcement of a specific scholarly purpose: "To clarify the relationship between the clergy and the magistracy which grew out of Zwingli's reforming work at Zurich... the main focus of the study is upon the early stages of Zwingli's career at Zurich.... The ensuing study accepts the assumption that Zwingli believed in a Christian society ruled by two God-ordained officers, the magistrate and the (...) pastor, and asks 'What place did Zwingli assign to the magistrate and the clergy in order to realize the rule of God?'" Using as his model the German habilitations schrift, the author exhausts every possible aspect of Zwingli's theological and political thought. All of Zwinglian scholarship is summarized here, and problems in Zwingli's thought are dealt with emphasizing its development and its contradictions. Basically Walton argues that most of the scholarship about Zwingli is wrong because it assumes that Zwingli advocated domination of the government by the clergy. Zwingli was a defender of a theory of government which envisaged a co-operation between the spiritual and secular authority in a Christian society in order to realize the will of God. Walton finds that Zwingli's success in reforming Zurich was based upon the fact that his formulation of a Church-State detente conformed to pre-existing conditions in that city. Zurich was dominated by a corporate form of government which had already permitted the magistracy to take on a semi-sacral character. Zwingli, Walton argues, fit his theory of government to the conditions as they existed at Zurich. This is a book for Zwingli aficionados. It is an example of extremely well-done Continental scholarship: precise, insightful, and dry. No doubt the work has already become a definitive work on Zwingli's notion of theocracy.--W. A. J. (shrink)