The effort to link philosophical theories with the progress of science has been a persistent one, but most modern scientists do their work quite successfully without giving a thought to philosophical problems or issues. In the earliest days of intellectual curiosity, one could scarcely distinguish between philosophy and science for the Milesian metaphysicians were also physicists. Democritus’s ontological views presaged the atomic theory of matter. The metaphysician Aristotle was so brilliant as a scientist that few questioned his authority until the (...) fifteenth century. As the concerns of science became more particular and experimental, it began to separate itself from philosophy. Since the Renaissance, the two have rather gone their own ways. Philosophers have usually been more interested in what scientists were doing than vice versa. Not many scientists are affected by what philosophers have concluded. A. D. Ritchie once noted that had chemists paid serious attention to Ernst Mach’s reductionist criticisms of science, they would have “murdered a fine and lively science.”. (shrink)

Why another book on Berkeley? For one thing, because he is so curiously modern. He was one of the pioneers of the empiricism and nominalism so popular today. He discussed with great clearness many of the issues with which present-day philosophers are concerned--the status of sense-data, the nature of causation, the relation of primary to secondary qualities, the problems of universals, the importance of language, the existence of other selves, and how we communicate with them.

Well-versed in contemporary social science and in alternative views of theology and metaphysics, Walter Muelder has remained a practicing idealistic thinker for many years. The subtitle of this substantial volume is: “Forty Years of Communitarian Personalism.” Commencing with a brilliant forty-two page autobiographical statement, the volume contains nineteen essays, dating from 1939–1979, on various theoretical and practical themes. Without being combative or even polemical, Muelder straightforwardly deals with controversial issues and significant religious implications of philosophical Personalism, showing affinity with, if (...) not reliance upon, Ritschl, Bowne, Knudson, and Brightman. While not directly philosophical in character, one finds a philosophical perspective underlying every essay. They constitute a remarkable series of insights into the social nature of human personality and the ethical requirements laid upon society, the nation, and the church. They represent the practical outworkings of a technically trained mind, whose eminent leadership in the most forward areas of religious and social thought has not been duly appreciated. (shrink)

This book is an appealing, worthwhile, even illustrated study of the life and thought of an idealistic philosopher who has not been given the attention his originality deserves. John Elof Boodin belongs to what we may call the second generation of American idealists. Most of them studied under thinkers who represented the first real surge of idealistic thought on this continent. That group includes: G. S. Morris, B.P. Bowne, G. H. Howison, Josiah Royce, J. E. Creighton, and Mary W. Calkins. (...) Boodin’s generation includes J. A. Leighton, W. E. Hocking, Elijah Jordan, E. S. Brightman and Brand Blanshard. Only Jordan and Leighton are less well-know than Boodin. (shrink)

_Taking Religious Claims Seriously_ is a systematic, critical, and comprehensive study of the fundamental questions of the philosophy of religion: religious experience, the existence and nature of God, religious knowledge and truth, good and evil, immortality of the soul, religious diversity, religious claims about the person, faith, and the religious way of life. In this study the author seeks to capture the reality and meaning of the religious as such: What is the foundation of religion? Under what conditions is an (...) authentic religious way of life possible? His method of inquiry is phenomenological. The author begins his discussion with a general characterization of the basic features of all the literate and illiterate religions of the world. He then identifies the ideas, beliefs, and concerns which are common to these religions: What are the central claims of these religions? How did the various religions understand these claims? The author makes a serious attempt to clarify these claims and explore the possibility for a reconcilation between them. For him, the foundation of religion is the religious experience, and the essence of this experience consists in a serious, cognitive, and meaningful encounter with the Ultimate Being. This being is the ground of the world and human life. This book is a comparative, pluralistic study of the philosophy of religion. (shrink)