In social systems or spaces, distance between the centre and the periphery breeds epistemic injustice. There are growing accounts of epistemic injustice in health-related fields, as in the article by Pratt and de Vries.1 The title of the article asks: ‘Where is knowledge from the global South?’ Like me, you may answer by saying: ‘Knowledge from the global South is in the global South’. That answer says a lot about how we right epistemic injustice done to actors in the global (...) South or the periphery, including in health ethics. Pratt and de Vries identified four sets of actors (individuals, institutions, journals and funders) responsible for righting epistemic injustice. For three of the four sets of actors, they recognised the need for—or the possibility of—symmetry between global North and global South. Except journals. They did not seriously consider that journals are either present in or could belong to the global South; to the periphery. Platforms for knowledge exchange, circulation, cultivation and curation—such as journals, conferences, publishers, blogs, archives, seminars, books and the media, social or traditional—are neither physically nor epistemically neutral. They are situated. The BBC cannot do for Nigeria or Australia what it does for Britain; neither can the BMJ. Many of us take our position at the centre or periphery as neutral, natural, necessary or permanent. But the African American writer Toni Morrison proved the opposite with her career: ‘I stood at the border, stood at the edge and claimed it as central. l claimed it as central, and let the rest of the world move over to where I was.’2 Although physically in the USA, Toni Morrison was writing …. (shrink)

Background Inadequate knowledge among health care providers (HCPs) and parents of affected children limits the understanding and utility of secondary genetic findings (SFs) in under-represented populations in genomics research. SFs arise from deep DNA sequencing done for research or diagnostic purposes and may burden patients and their families despite their potential health importance. This study aims to evaluate the perspective of both groups regarding SFs and their choices in the return of results from genetic testing in the context of orofacial (...) clefts.Methods Using an online survey, we evaluated the experiences of 252 HCPs and 197 parents across participating cleft clinics in Ghana and Nigeria toward the return of SFs across several domains.Results Only 1.6% of the HCPs felt they had an expert understanding of when and how to incorporate genomic medicine into practice, while 50.0% agreed that all SFs should be returned to patients. About 95.4% of parents were willing to receive all the information from genetic testing (including SFs), while the majority cited physicians as their primary information source (64%).Conclusions Overall, parents and providers were aware that genetic testing could help in the clinical management of diseases. However, they cited a lack of knowledge about genomic medicine, uncertain clinical utility, and lack of available learning resources as barriers. The knowledge gained from this study will assist with developing guidelines and policies to guide providers on the return of SFs in sub-Saharan Africa and across the continent. (shrink)

_This article examined the accounts of diplomatic relations between Russia and Syria. It interrogated a significant aspect of global politics, where the interaction of geopolitical interests, ideological affinities, and regional influences played defining roles in shaping this diplomatic association from the height of the Cold War in the 1960s and 1970s to the Syrian Civil War that began in 2011. This scope allowed extensive research into the changing nature of Russo-Syrian relations, providing a diverse revelation into their historical evolution. This (...) article relies on a wide array of primary sources, including diplomatic records, as well as secondary sources offering useful context and perspective. The primary aim was to reveal the motivations and strategies that steered diplomatic exchanges between them and the real-political considerations that formed the basis of their engagement. Moreover, this article considered the ramifications of Russo-Syrian relations on the broader Middle East region and how partnership affected regional stability, conflict, and the distribution of power such as the Soviet Union's support for the Ba'athist regime in 1963, Syria's involvement in the Arab-Israeli conflict in 1967, and Russia's military intervention in the Syrian civil war in 2015. Through historical evaluation, this article contributes to an understanding of international relations and their implications for security and stability._. (shrink)

Over the last 4 or so decades, Dudley Shapere has developed a rich and interesting alternative to the Kuhnian “relativist” account of science and its development. This paper is a review of this alternative viewpoint. It is a critical evaluation of Shapere’s arguments in support of the claim that radical methodological change can be allowed in science without thereby embracing relativism (and without ending with an irrational account of scientific change).

_The goal of this study is to investigate the ethnic conflict in southern Kaduna in connection to eastern Ukraine, which has now spread internationally as a result of major countries' action on Ukraine's behalf. The Hausa-Fulani are Muslims, whereas indigenous Christian communities make up the bulk of the population in southern Kaduna. Although the root causes of the situation in southern Kaduna are multifaceted given their theological and sociopolitical undertones, they are primarily cultural and patriotic in the case of Ukraine. (...) The special status of the Russian language is a subject of heated debate among those on the side of Ukraine's government and opposition nationalists who are pro-Russia. The study's purpose dictated that premordialism theory be used as a working model. Ethnic activists and nationalists commonly employ primordialist ideas to explain and defend ethnic wars, like the ones under study (in southern Kaduna and eastern Ukraine). In addition to hoping that the United Nations is permitted to fulfil the purpose for which it was established so that peace can return to Ukraine, we also hope that the same can be achieved in southern Kaduna if the recommendations of the state and federal governments assigned to investigate the crisis are dusted off and implemented._ _In conclusion, it is hard to discuss peace in an environment rife with injustice and nepotism. More peace advocacy is needed from the main international political powers, but they can only do that if they allow the United Nations (UN) to function freely. Primordialist theories are frequently used by ethnic activists and nationalists to explain and justify ethnic conflicts, such as those in southern Kaduna and eastern-southern Ukraine, which is why this research supports the use of the primordial theory of ethnic conflict despite its flaws._. (shrink)

This Viewpoint calls attention to the pervasive wrongs related to knowledge production, use, and circulation in global health, many of which are taken for granted. We argue that common practices in academic global health (eg, authorship practices, research partnerships, academic writing, editorial practices, sensemaking practices, and the choice of audience or research framing, questions, and methods) are peppered with epistemic wrongs that lead to or exacerbate epistemic injustice. We describe two forms of epistemic wrongs, credibility deficit and interpretive marginalisation, which (...) stem from structural exclusion of marginalised producers and recipients of knowledge. We then illustrate these forms of epistemic wrongs using examples of common practices in academic global health, and show how these wrongs are linked to the pose (or positionality) and the gaze (or audience) of producers of knowledge. The epistemic injustice framework shown in this Viewpoint can help to surface, detect, communicate, make sense of, avoid, and potentially undo unfair knowledge practices in global health that are inflicted upon people in their capacity as knowers, and as producers and recipients of knowledge, owing to structural prejudices in the processes involved in knowledge production, use, and circulation in global health. (shrink)

Fabi and Goldberg have helpfully shed some light on the wrongs perpetuated by the current funding architecture on research, sponsorship, and career development in the field of bioethics. The...

These two volumes contain all of my articles published between 1956 and 1975 which might be of interest to readers in the English-speaking world. The first three essays in Vol. 1 deal with historical themes. In each case I as far as possible, meets con have attempted a rational reconstruction which, temporary standards of exactness. In The Problem of Universals Then and Now some ideas of W.V. Quine and N. Goodman are used to create a modern sketch of the history (...) of the debate on universals beginning with Plato and ending with Hao Wang's System L. The second article concerns Kant's Philosophy of Science. By analyzing his position vis-a-vis I. Newton, Christian Wolff, and D. Hume, it is shown that for Kant the very notion of empirical knowledge was beset with a funda mental logical difficulty. In his metaphysics of experience Kant offered a solution differing from all prior as well as subsequent attempts aimed at the problem of establishing a scientific theory. The last of the three historical papers utilizes some concepts of modern logic to give a precise account of Wittgenstein's so-called Picture Theory of Meaning. E. Stenius' interpretation of this theory is taken as an intuitive starting point while an intensional variant of Tarski's concept of a relational system furnishes a technical instrument. The concepts of inodel world and of logical space, together with those of homomorphism and isomorphism be tween model worlds and between logical spaces, form the conceptual basis of the reconstruction. (shrink)

This history of theories and theorists of economic growth elucidates the economic theory, economic history, and public policy observations of the renowned scholar W. W. Rostow. Looking at the economic growth theories of the classic economists up to 1870, Rostow compares Hume and Adam Smith, Malthus and Ricardo, and J.S. Mill and Karl Marx. He then examines the period 1870-1939 and its economic theorists, including Schumpeter, Colin Clark, Kuznets, and Harrod, and surveys the three forms of growth analysis in the (...) postwar era: formal models, statistical morphology, and development theories. This authoritative overview also includes an agenda of unresolved problems in growth analysis and a description of the five major tasks statesmen will confront over the next several generations. (shrink)

Via a reading of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian and a critical appraisal of Foucault’s break with historical materialism, W. Oliver Baker finds, at the limits of the new materialisms, space for a new post-humanist critical materialism that sees utopia not in post-human assemblages, but in the abolition of colonial and capitalist structures that condition those assemblages in the first place.

When the "human sciences" in the West followed the physical sciences in the 18th and 19th centuries with new measurements, methods, and language, the "metaphysics of infinity" lost its credibility. The response of Western religions was to retrench in a stronger authoritarianism, especially by the last half of the 19th century. While the new human sciences were being extended even to study the history and philosophy of religions, those religions themselves placed more emphasis on their understanding of the Absolute or (...) Unquestionable. That split became a burden both to those who were religious and to those who were not. Here, W. Royce Clark argues that humanity's survival may depend on the development of a universal or inclusive ethic in which religions move beyond their Absolutes. Clark poses the sharp challenge: Are religious communities ready to abandon the foundations that until now they have insisted were the only adequate foundation for ethics? (shrink)

By far the best edition is that of L. D. Reynolds . Other modern editions referred to are those of W. C. Summers ; R. M. Gummere ; F. Préchac et H. Noblot.

A severe critique of contemporary society as one in which there remains no significant class or group capable of radically opposing things as they are. Marcuse works on the assumption that advanced industrial society is indeed sick, much as some recent sociologists have depicted it to be. He sees evidence of alienation in political and cultural life, in the technical jargon of the bureaucracy, in the technological cult of "operationalism," and especially in contemporary analytic philosophy, which he sees as the (...) triumph of "one-dimensional thought." His conclusion is not optimistic: at this juncture in history, he believes, the only possible task for "critical philosophy" is to be negative.--W. L. M. (shrink)

This metaphysical essay opposes all theories which place man's ultimate significance within a totality. The priority of a rupture of the totality is asserted in such phenomena as desire, enjoyment, will, reason, and communication. The reasoning and problems chosen are too often dependent upon a special existential-phenomenological vocabulary.--E. W.

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)

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)

"An invitation addressed to the average reader to learn about, and to join in, the eternal quest." The author deals, in a series of informal, non-technical chapters, with such topics as reality, life, death, God, man, beauty, and the good life.--W. C.

The starting-point is the soul, as the subject of power, will and participation in being; about it the activities of man are to be ranged. A dialectic of liberation appears, sometimes explicitly sketched, sometimes underlying the comments and analyses of human experiences. The central steps show that understanding is love, and therein lies a source of liberty, an opportunity to discover the infinite depths of Being. Love is the constraint and the aspiration to seek deliverance from temporality, finitude, unhappiness. The (...) true, the beautiful and the good are perfections similar in structure, the knowledge of which is the enterprise of science, art and communal morals. A sizable chapter draws specific examples from theoretical physics to show what kinds of phenomena the central themes are meant to illumine.--E. W. (shrink)

A project accomplished largely by Roman members of Catholic Action. It is a compendium of maxims and discussion in moral theology, arranged alphabetically by subject. The book shows a sustained effort to incorporate evidence from, and problems posed by, contemporary jurisprudence, medicine and psychiatry, and political and social theory; but the moral authority founded upon revelation, Catholic tradition, and the pronouncements of Pius XII is never qualified. An introduction spells out in detail the purpose and standpoint of the work. A (...) forty-page bibliography is organized under special and general topics. The many articles upon matters sexual and familial make for interesting browsing; the general topic heading of the longest section is "marriage." Comments upon other religions, and non-Catholic philosophical and political views, are brief and harsh. For purposes of reference to a definitive Catholic point of view upon questions of practical morality, the work is of interest.--E. W. (shrink)

A very useful collection of extensive selections from the Metaphysics, the Categories, On Interpretation, Posterior Analytics, the Physics, On the Soul, Ethics, Politics and Poetics. Entire works, or groups of related books within a work are given. The translations are popular. In the general introduction and the commentaries before each major section, the editor attempts to briefly state the issues in the context of present discussion and relate Aristotle's doctrine to current work in British and American analytic philosophy. The collection (...) is of some merit for introducing students to Aristotle, though it provides many causes for doubt in one at all familiar with Aristotle already.—W. G. E. (shrink)

In fascicles 9 through 12 of this volume, Weiss continues his analyses of art and begins to develop themes for his discussion of history and religion. There are also significant and lengthy sections devoted to metaphilosophy with critiques of Kant, Hegel, and Wittgenstein. The discussion of the arts reaches a degree of insight and breadth of synthesis not matched in the earlier fascicles, nor in The World of Art and The Nine Basic Arts. For here Weiss achieves a systematic relation (...) between fundamental concepts of Modes of Being and those of his aesthetic theory that is both less strained and schematic and more fruitful than any found elsewhere. The discussions of history are less happy, too quickly generalized and formalized in cosmic terms. The sections on religion are, however, excellent. Predominantly Christian themes are discussed at length. Weiss's metaphysics seems naturally sympathetic in their analysis. The metaphilosophy provides a valuable insight into Weiss's working habits and reveals what is, paradoxically, both a major strength and weakness-his appreciation of the formal and schematic demands of systematic thought. This appreciation can lead to productive analysis and insight, but also beyond experience and understanding. It is to Weiss's credit that these working journals show the dangerous side of his philosophic technique far more often than his regular, published work does. Now that we have the entire first volume of these journals, a few words must be said about their value as published works. They are, first, a useful, two-way bridge joining Weiss's formal, metaphysical works and his more descriptive, phenomenological works, such as The World of Art, Nine Basic Arts, History: Written and Lived, The God We Seek, etc.). Such a bridge is not absolutely necessary for one reasonably familiar with the whole of Weiss's published work, but it is helpful, especially to one beginning a study of Weiss with the more speculative formal writings. As independent works, the journals frequently provide valuable insights, suggest previously unsuspected avenues of analysis and inquiry, and demonstrate a level of argument and mode of explanation all too often ignored by contemporary philosophers. They should be read as what they are, journals, much as one would read Pepys' Diary. The Index is a thorough, accurate, and necessary tool for reference.—W. G. E. (shrink)

Two brief essays, one on ethics, the other on beliefs, are presented in the form of short allegories and connecting comments. The approach is that of contemporary British analysis, and the style has a refreshing novelty. Several Thurber-like cartoons and a "Somatic Sonata" complete this brief volume.--W. S. L.

A leading British historian brings considerable philosophical insight to bear in criticizing the cult of facts, treatments of great men in isolation from their societies, and the view that historians should make moral judgments upon their subjects. His esteem for Collingwood and other idealists is tempered by a warning against their excessive subjectivism. Carr upholds the reality of historical causation, and the belief in some progress.--W. L. M.

A translation of the earlier books of Galen's On Anatomical Procedures, extant in the original Greek text, was published by Charles Singer in 1956. The remainder, surviving in an Arabic translation, is here presented in a handsomely published English translation. A welcome supplement to the meagre Loch Galen.--R. W.

In this 1964 Saint Augustine Lecture, Callahan shows how Augustine refashioned three major doctrines which he inherited from his Greek and Christian predecessors. By far the most interesting doctrine that Callahan presents deals with the evolution of the concept of perfection. The author traces the development of the concept from its most anthropomorphic appearance in Homer and the pre-Socratics to its most famous expression in the ontological argument of Anselm. He shows how Anselm had derived his own argument for God's (...) perfection from an argument which Augustine used in the seventh book of the Confessions to establish God's incorruptibility. Callahan also examines Augustine's presentation of the ancient theme of the "flight of the soul" from the evils of this earth to the sanctuary of holiness or wisdom. In this portion of his lecture and in the final portion that deals with Augustine's psychological approach to the problem of time, Callahan is not at his best. His speculation on the extent of Augustine's indebtedness to Gregory of Nyssa provides the reader with little insight into Augustine's own viewpoint. This tendency toward distraction flaws the book because it fails to point out how Augustine infused inherited philosophical abstractions with the baroque vitality of his own genius.--W. D. T. (shrink)

A densely-packed and comprehensive textbook of scholastic metaphysics. Metaphysics is understood as including "not only a general investigation of beings but also the study of knowledge and of the divine nature and attributes in the light of natural reason." Owens brings to this task the Gilsonian understanding of a Christian philosophy, his own considerable knowledge of Aristotle, Aquinas and scholastic philosophy generally, and a conviction that metaphysics is a knowledge of the universe and the things within it, founded on necessary (...) principles. Though intended as a college text, Owens' work might be better taken as a standard reference manual, much like the classic Latin text of Gredt.--W. G. E. (shrink)

These essays were originally presented at the first of an annual series of seminars in the humanities at John Hopkins. To avoid imposing an artificial unity on the subject, the contributors were deliberately left unguided in their choice of subject and method. The result of this policy is a rich and stimulating collection ranging from gardens to musicology. Reproductions of paintings and copious printings of musical scores show that no expense was spared to make the book as useful as possible. (...) Of greatest interest to philosophers are George Boas's witty demolition of "the age of reason" as a description for the period, J. A. Passmore on "the malleability of man," Isaiah Berlin's long reconsideration of Herder, Alfred Cobban on "the Enlightenment and the French Revolution," and Henry Guerlac on Newton's place in intellectual history.—W. B. K. (shrink)

This is a massive doctor's dissertation completed for the Graduate School of Religion at Yale University. The author demonstrates rather conclusively that the concept of beauty provides Jonathan Edwards with a model for the manner by which God governs the world. What is more, the same concept is employed by Edwards to characterize the goal and means of redemption. For the Edwardsian cogniscenti!--W. A. J.

This bibliography signals a monumental event in philosophical research and for the future of comparative philosophy, East and West. It is in effect the first volume of the proposed multi-volumed Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies which has been inaugurated with this research tool. The outline of the bibliography will constitute the table of contents for the subsequent volumes of the forthcoming encyclopedia, now being written by an international team of scholars. The entire enterprise is sponsored by the American Institute of Indian (...) Studies and is under their general supervision. The bibliography, which has taken five years to complete and consists of 9222 entries, will be revised periodically as more material is compiled from the Indian languages and as contemporary work continues. Since Indian thought systems do not clearly differentiate between religious and philosophical expression, the compiler limited his selections to the Indian darsanas and vyakaranas. Indian literature is included if it is philosophical throughout, theoretical in function, and expository in content. This excludes the more didactic literature such as religious scriptures and classics. Three general sections divide the work: Sanskrit texts with authors known; Sanskrit texts with authors unknown; secondary literature arranged according to the various philosophical schools. General sections on Jainism, the traditions of Buddhism, and Hinduism offer philosophical sources for the major Indian religions. The listings are chronological within a particular subject. This not only facilitates additions to the bibliography but also gives a focus to scholarly discussion on a particular point. The work ends with three indices: Index of Names of Persons; Index of Titles ; Index of Books and Articles. The final index should prove the most useful to the researcher and general scholar. The publishing of the bibliography, done in India and according to Indian standards, is inferior in binding and paper stock. The price, Rs.80., has been listed in American bookstores at various prices from $18.00 to $24.00 for those who do not wish to order directly from the Indian publisher. The American Institute of Indian Studies should be commended for directing this work and every effort should be made for the completion of the entire encyclopedia. In terms of Asian studies it is the most significant publishing venture since the appearance of Max Mueller’s Sacred Books of the East over a century ago. Mueller opened the world of Asian religions to Western investigation while this bibliography should expose the breadth of Indian philosophy both in its intrinsic value and its effect upon world philosophy.—W. C. C. (shrink)

This book is part of Prentice-Hall's new Central Issues in Philosophy series, and seems a welcome addition. The editor's introduction does little more than state the problem and review some of the ways with which it has been dealt. We are then brought immediately to the meat: the first section of the book contains selections from Descartes, Spinoza, and Hobbes intended to acquaint us with some of the more classical solutions to the problem. The second part, entitled "The Identity Thesis," (...) contains one of J. J. C. Smart's influential essays for this thesis and two replies, one by Jerome Shaffer and one by James Cornman. Part three, entitled "Theoretical Materialism," contains essays by Jaegwon Kim, in which he denies the validity of having only physical property descriptions; and Thomas Nagel and Keith Gunderson, who both argue that the case for materialism is stronger than the case against it. The fourth part, containing essays by Jerry Fodor, Hilary Putnam, and David Lewis, focuses on functional materialism. The fifth section of the book is devoted to the rather radical view of the eliminative materialists. There is a short note by Paul Feyerabend, a full length essay by Richard Rorty, a reply by Richard Bernstein and a rejoinder by Rorty. All of the essays in this book are well-written pieces of solid philosophy, but none is so technical that it can not be understood by a relative beginner. After finishing this book and thoroughly digesting its contents, the reader will be well versed in modern thought on this problem and well capable of continuing his research in any of several directions. To aid the student in this task there is a large bibliography included.--W. de V. (shrink)

In this lecture to the British Academy, Strawson points to inter-personal, "reactive attitudes" such as those of resentment, gratitude and forgiveness, as the key to getting around the usual arguments between "optimists" and "pessimists" concerning the alleged moral consequences of the thesis of determinism. These calculative arguments, he thinks, over-intellectualize the facts; the moral sentiments are given along with human society, and are not to be externally justified.--W. L. M.

This number of the continuing series is extremely rich and quite densely written. Much of the writing is reminiscent of Modes of Being in its formality. The major concern is togetherness as a human product, especially political organization. Fully one half of the fascicle is devoted to an extensive and very intricate analysis of the state. Two other sections demand attention: one short and pointed comment on possible kinds of approach to the art object, and a lengthy statement of an (...) "urphilosophy" for Modes of Being, giving the basic positions and moves which can be applied analogously to each of the four modes.—W. G. E. (shrink)

Woven in and among the insights and discussions of this fascicle there is a highly complex but extremely dense theory of knowledge. To get at this theory one must piece together the discussions on pages 441-444, 452-455, 471-474, 479-485, 486-497, and 501-503. These must be read as an Aristotelian treatise, a progressive sifting of insights and precisions, so that the "official" doctrine is never clearly stated but must be constructed from the elements and qualifications and clues provided. Nor are the (...) discussions mono-directional, but point to the many interconnections between a pluralistic metaphysics and its coordinate theory of knowledge. Ideas must be related in many ways to many kinds and levels of entities as well as to the ultimate modes of being. These many relations must be cross-referenced and synthesized in a systematic unity, related in a special way to the mode of Actuality without becoming derivatives or projections of that mode. At best this fascicle supplies some of the tools for the job and some hints what the finished theory must accomplish.—W. G. E. (shrink)

This volume by a political scientist has important implications for the philosopher, in particular the ethicist. Schall recognizes the urgency for men to come to grips intelligently and realistically with the issues associated with population control and ecology, but he argues that the central issue at stake is the meaning of man himself. Schall argues that in general in the western philosophical tradition nature is not its own norm but serves a necessary though functional relation to man. Man is the (...) norm of the natural, not vice versa. Man, because of his power of reflective thought and freedom of choice, has been regarded as in some way unique and superior to other beings. In this tradition lower animals and inanimate nature were directly related to man as his natural supports inasmuch as man could know and use them. The world of animals and non-living nature was accorded respect, but this respect was ultimately a respect for man, who, because of his intelligence, could understand this world and improve it. In addition, in this tradition each human being was regarded as something valuable in himself, with a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; he was not regarded as a pure function or instrument of a larger whole, the human species, expendable if he lost his functional utility. Finally, in this tradition man was regarded as essentially two-sexed, male and female, with human offspring begotten by a union of a human male and a human female and brought to maturity and nurtured in a human family. Today, Schall notes, all these characteristics thought historically to constitute man as a distinct being in nature are being seriously challenged and brought into question. Joshua Lederberg, Charles Galton Darwin, Julian Huxley, Eugene P. Odum, Lynn White, Jean Rostand, and many other biologists, geneticists, zoologists and others are urging a new view of man, a view that subordinates the individual to the species, the species to the world of nature, a view that radically separates human sexuality from human reproductivity. What results basically is a new image of what constitutes a "good" man. The good man, in this view, is not the person who has achieved moral goodness as a result of moral choices taken personally by him in the companionship of his fellow men but is rather the result of genetic or behavioral control exercised by an elite during the process of his coming to be and growing to maturity. This well-documented work, despite occasional rhetorical overstatements, merits careful consideration by philosophers today.--W. E. M. (shrink)

Surely the least familiar area of the generally unfamiliar subject of medieval philosophy is that of Islamic classical philosophy. This is the first appearance in the non-Arabic world of Al-Färäbï's lively three-part work on the nature of philosophy and the reconciliation of the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. The present translation is from the newly recovered Arabic text. It seems designed to appeal to a wider audience than that of students of medieval philosophy, Islamic or otherwise. Yet it does serve (...) the valuable purpose of calling attention to an unjustly neglected tradition in the history of western philosophy and to one of the founders of that tradition.--W. G. E. (shrink)

In this lecture Armstrong argues that the main point of difference between Saint Augustine and other Christian Platonists centers less on how they view the effectiveness of man's free will than on their view of man's relationship to God. The Platonic tradition always stressed the goodness of the deity. Augustine, however, stressed God's immutability and power, and paid little attention to His goodness and His offer of redemption to all men, including those who stand outside the institutionalized church. This engaging (...) 1966 Saint Augustine Lecture is an unabashed polemic which is cast within an examination of three topics which illustrate Augustine's relationship to pagan and Christian Platonism. The criticism is stated with refreshing boldness and masterly erudition. The extensive notes are stimulating and informative. In the first section the author discusses the natural divinity of the soul and tells why most Christian thinkers, including Augustine, rejected the Platonic view that man's soul is naturally divine. The second topic presents the different attitudes Augustine and Platonism expressed toward the body and the material universe. Here Armstrong argues that in their fervent rejection of the Plotinian doctrine of the mystical body of the universe, Christians lost the sense of the holiness of everyday life and thereby dampened their awareness of the immediacy of the Holy Spirit. In his last topic of discussion Armstrong preaches against Augustine's doctrine of selective predestination and his conception of God as an arbitrary tyrant. These two views, says Armstrong, bring bad news to mankind and cause extreme pessimism rather than an awakening of love--the motive force which speeds man back to God.--W. D. T. (shrink)

Joining his monumental erudition in the phenomenology of religion with affinity and skill in the arts, Gerardus van der Leeuw has produced a really beautiful work. Tracing the genesis of the various arts from an original unity in expressive religious dance, through their assertions of independence as distinctive secular forms marked by the individualism of their practioners, he tries to show that each art form structurally expresses an aspect of the holy. His concern is to prepare for the reunification of (...) the arts based on a religious esthetics. The writing is somewhat diffuse but graceful, the presentation descriptive rather than argumentative. Throughout, one senses the quality of the author's cultivation and concern. The posthumous translation and publication of this work gives his many admirers in the English-speaking world a fitting memorial of a beloved master.—W. G. E. (shrink)

Bernard Lonergan is a Jesuit philosopher-theologian whose work is having an increasing influence, particularly on those concerned with identifying the nature of theological reflection and its relation to other areas of human inquiry. The purpose of this volume is to introduce a broader philosophical and theological audience to the world of Lonergan's thought. This world is principally characterized by Lonergan's notion of horizon-analysis. Perhaps the best way to explain what this means is to link it to Lonergan's view that man (...) is a being who can ask questions. Questions that he can raise and answer constitute the known. Questions that he can raise but cannot answer as yet constitute the known unknown, the docta ignorantia. There are still other questions, meaningful in themselves. that man, because of his historical situation, cannot even raise simply because they are not meaningful for him, and these constitute the unknown unknown, the indocta ignorantia. An horizon marks the boundary between the known unknown and the unknown unknown, that is, it provides the maximum field of knowledge available within the range of questions possible within a given methodological structure. A new horizon, that is, a new field of knowledge, emerges when a new kind of consciousness with an implicit new kind of method which makes it possible for a man to ask questions that previously were meaningless for him. Lonergan's work has been a careful attempt, based on horizon-analysis, to investigate the possibilities for metaphysical and theological understanding. Tracy, in setting forth as comprehensively as possible the full range of Lonergan's work, shows how his early studies of Thomas Aquinas focused on the centrality in the Thomistic noetic of the dynamic character of the act of knowing, an act that is not one of confrontation with an object but one of identity-in-being, of a deepening interiority making it possible for new questions to become meaningful. In his major epistemological study, Insight, Lonergan sought to show how the scientific method and the critical movement in philosophy were of crucial significance in providing new horizons for the question-asking being, man, whose dynamic interiority grounds a metaphysics and whose dynamism prolonged into doing grounds an ethics. The later Lonergan, the Lonergan of the post-Insight period, is the Lonergan who is seeking to discover how a new historical consciousness, a consciousness distinct from that of "classical" man, provides a new horizon for asking questions of philosophical and theological import. Thus Lonergan's major concern today is with method, that is, with a normative pattern of recurrent operations resulting in cumulative and progressive results. Through horizon-analysis Lonergan is currently seeking "to move fully and coherently from... a notion of theology as 'reason illuminated by faith' to 'method illuminated by faith'." Because Lonergan has significant things to say about human knowledge and because his highly original approach has affinities to developments in phenomenology and linguistic analysis, this patient and painstaking introduction to his thought should be of value to many contemporary philosophers.--W. E. M. (shrink)

"Heretic, barbarian, parasite. That is the profane trinity that sums up the pacifist." This quotation also sums up one chapter of the book, the stated purpose of which is to draw the "battle-line" in the "war" between the egalitarian Left and American Conservatism. In the chapter on McCarthyism, it is alleged that Constitutional guarantees of free speech do not extend to freedom of thought. In the discussions of Locke and of Mill, we are occasionally reminded that the author was once (...) regarded primarily as a scholar. The thesis that free speech does not presuppose freedom of thought seems to have made this "Conservative Affirmation" into a very liberal negation.--W. L. M. (shrink)

This translation of the Fons Vitae, "specially abridged," is stiflingly verbal. There is no critical apparatus, no index, no attempt to lay bare the philosophic doctrine, no explanation of the "abridgment." The book is useless to a serious student and too clumsy to interest any but the most general reader.--W. G. E.

Oberman's subject is the theological schools which make up late medieval nominalism. The major figure is Gabriel Biel, who forms the crucial link between Occam and Luther. A comprehensive and detailed examination of Biel's theology, as expressed in both systematic and devotional works, serves to substantiate Oberman's claim that neither Catholic nor Reformed historians have given a fair and balanced account of nominalism: one group sees only the weakening of philosophic claims in theology, the other sees only the biblical and (...) pastoral strengths. A grasp of the integrity and force of the many positions which comprise the nominalist movement serves to establish the continuity between medieval scholasticism and Reformation theology. This study of Biel should provide an incentive and a model for future study of a much misunderstood and neglected period of thought.--W. G. E. (shrink)

The first of Bachelard's highly original and influential treatises on the four elements has finally been made available to us in a highly satisfactory translation. Bachelard launches into his admittedly somewhat disorganized analyses with a masterful command of the history of science and of much literature, and with a Comtean conviction that his role is to exorcise primitive error; nevertheless, the errors prove to be most fascinating. There is a brief preface by Northrop Frye.--W. L. M.

Kateb poses as a defender of an actually attainable utopia and considers some recent attacks on this idea. He finds flaws in various arguments against any use of violence in attaining utopia, denies that utopian government need be highly authoritarian or machine-guided, and shows the immorality of certain "aesthetic" objections to life in utopia. While condemning theories of indeterminism, he sympathizes with expressions of hostility to utopian psychologists, such as B. F. Skinner, who would like "conditioning" to supersede older forms (...) of being virtuous. The author makes good use of a wide range of works in philosophy and the social sciences, maintains a high level of argumentation, and displays great respect for most of his anti-utopian opponents.--W. L. M. (shrink)