Die meisten Systematiker, vergleichende Anatomen und Paläontologen ziehen es vor ihr Material, so weit es möglich ist, in allmählich abgestuften Serien zu ordnen. Dass solche Reihen dem Gange der Evolution wirklich entsprechen, ist nach der Erfahrung der Genetiker unwahrscheinlich. Vor zwanzig Jahren hat schonMorgan darauf hingewiesen, dass man die verschiedenen erblichen Typen vonDrosophila der Flügelform und auch der Augenfarbe nach in allmählich abgestuften Reihen ordnen könne, dass aber nichts dafür spräche, dass solche Reihen phylogenetische Bedeutung haben. Für die Haarfarbe vonMus (...) musculus undMus wagneri kommt Verfasser zum gleichen Schluss. Wenn man schwarz und weiss als Extreme einer Farbenserie annimmt, so kann genetisch der Übergang von schwarz zu weiss in einem Sprung gemacht werden oder aber mittels einer Serie von neun Abstufungen, die teilweise rückläufig sind. Wenn man die Wildfarbe, schwarz-agouti, als Ausgangspunkt annimmt, so wird Melanismus mit einem einzigen Sprung, Albinismus aber entweder mit einem Sprung oder mittels einer Reihe von Zwischenfarben erreicht. Für solche Reihen von Zwischenfarben gibt es dann noch verschiedene Möglichkeiten. Die abgestuften Typenserien stellen daher keine Entwicklungsserien dar, wenn nicht festgestellt ist, dass sie chronologische Serien sind. Dass man sich einfach mit ihrer Aufstellung zufrieden zu geben pflegt, erschwert das Studium der Evolution.La plupart des systématistes, d'anatomistes comparatives et de paléontologistes préfèrent autant que possible à classer leurs objects dans des séries graduées. L'expérience de généticistes rend invraisemblable que de telles séries représentent le cours de l'évolution.Morgan a démontré, il y a vingt ans, que les différents types héréditaires deDrosophila se laissent classer dans des séries graduées d'après la forme des ailes et d'après la couleur des yeux. Pourtant, toute indication manque que ces séries ont une importance phylogénétique. L'auteur arrive à la même conclusion quant à la couleur des poils deMus musculus et deMus wagneri. Si l'on admette que noir et blanc sont les extrêmes d'une série de couleurs, la transition de noir à blanc peut être le résultat d'un seul changement génétique; ou bien elle peut être l'effet d'une série de neuf changements dont quelques uns reviennent sur leurs pas. Si l'on prend la couleur noire-agoutie de la souris sauvage comme point de départ, le mélanisme est obtenu par un seul changement génétique. L'albinisme peut être obtenu par une de plusieurs séries de couleurs intermédiaires ou bien par un seul changement génétique. Les séries graduées des types peuvent représenter l'évolution seulement au cas qu'elles sont en même temps des séries chronologiques. L'habitude de se contenter de les reconnaître partout empéche plutôt l'étude de l'évolution. (shrink)

This brief work valuably shows how a distinguished historian ascertains the causes of his historical facts. Koht, a Norwegian European historian, eschews any philosophy of history, claiming only that the nature of man is permanent through historical change. Drawing from his own historical research he discusses the significance of the different forces of history. These are religion, economics, class consciousness, the power of the state, war, revolt, science, and internationalism. No one force or cause is primary.—A. B. D.

The present volume is welcome for a dual reason; one that it marks the resumption, after a period of over twenty years, of the scholarly translations of St. Bonaventure, begun under Boehner; the second is the intrinsic value of the translation and lengthy introduction, almost a third of the book. Since the Saint Anthony Guild and Franciscan Herald Presses have published some of the shorter and more popular writings of the saint, it is fitting that the Franciscan Institute, noted for (...) its more technical philosophical and theological studies, should have chosen this series of disputed questions. They are undoubtedly one of Bonaventure's most mature and important writings, stemming from his days as the Franciscan regent master of theology at the University of Paris. The translator has already distinguished himself with a number of other articles and translations of the Seraphic Doctor. His scholarly and informative introduction falls into three chapters, one on the historical background, a second on the originality of Bonaventure's general trinitarian theology, and the third on the specific themes treated in this set of disputed questions. The first throws new light on the origin of the Dionysian and Richardian elements that separate Bonaventure's treatment of the trinity from that of Aquinas. Bonaventure became acquainted with pseudo-Dionysius and Richard of St. Victor through the Summa fratris Alexandri attributed to Alexander of Hales and the early Franciscan Masters at the Paris house of studies. Fontal plenitude, fecundity, and goodness, that figured largely in the Greek Fathers, are developed by Bonaventure in an original and personal way. The incompleteness of the Dionysian model is filled in by Richard's psychological analysis of love and his conception of personhood. Innascibility as the key characteristic of the Father is given a positive twist; it implies one who is first in an absolute sense as the summation of Parmenidean perfection and whose fontal plenitude is not only the source of the dual procession in the Trinity, but spills over into a richly diverse and continuing creation that bears in varying degrees the stamp of its triadic source. Man as microcosm mirrors this most of all, especially that man in whom the Logos, or macrocosm of archetypal ideas, became incarnate. It is only in treatment of the Son and his relationship to creation as exemplar cause that the distinctive influence of Augustine appears. In the final introductory chapter, the specific Trinitarian themes of unity, based on a dynamic rather than a static Aristotelian notion of deity, simplicity, infinity, eternity, immutability, necessity, and primacy are discussed and what emerges is a deeper appreciation of the synthetic genius of Bonaventure, who drew from such a myriad of sources, yet wove his material into a unique system in which philosophy functions not as a propadeutic to theology, but as an integral and essential part. For that reason the work is of far wider interest than an arcane theological study that only philosophers with a penchant for history might read with profit.--A.B.W. (shrink)

A far less exhaustive work than Richardson's scholarly tome, but more focused than Vycinas' ventriloquial interpretation, Guilead's book concentrates on the theme of freedom in Sein und Zeit and in Heidegger's later works. The author is in full control of Heidegger's terminology and he succinctly reports how Heidegger uncovers and destroys the subjectivism of modern philosophy, as represented by Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Nietzsche, and Marx. Guilead contends that the germ of the "Kehre" was already present in Sein und Seit [[sic]]. (...) Heidegger's later thought shows that man is a cosmic being, a relation to Being, and his freedom can not be rooted in subjectivity but in the realization of his authentic cosmic being, in his "habitation," "dwelling," and "building." The author finds two problems in Heidegger's philosophy: a lack of real otherness in beings, and a danger of humanizing Being. But are they not one problem?—A. B. D. (shrink)

Based on the Mahlon Powell lectures given at Indiana University, this slim, well translated book is surprisingly rich and visionary in its pursuit of a metaphysics of language. Dufrenne, a phenomenologist, argues that positivistic and syntactical linguistics wrongly ignore the phenomenon of living speech, while formal logic, seeking to rid itself of its natural and intuitive origins, is necessarily rooted in them. What is needed is a phenomenology of human speech which would lead to a metaphysics of man's spoken intercourse (...) with the world. In the end, poetry has the last word.--A. B. D. (shrink)

A reprint of the book published in 1942, with the addition of an appendix and a new preface. Beginning with the concrete and conceptual aspects of the person and showing how the principles of logic are embodied in human experience, the author describes the ontological and logical connections between the world, man and God.--A. B. D.

This is a systematic and admirably clear exposition of a philosophical anthropology by the dean of Latin-American philosophers—it is nothing less than philosophy in the grand manner. Romero begins with a novel theory of intentionality. Intentional consciousness differentiates man from the lower animals. For this consciousness is originally an objectifying and cognitive awareness. From man's intentional consciousness Romero then traces the constitution of the self, a community, and spiritual consciousness. Basically, man is a duality of his intentional, aggressive consciousness and (...) his spiritual, disinterested consciousness; this duality is manifested in the phenomena of self-consciousness, sociability, historicity, and meaning. A greater part of the book is devoted to spirit, the essentially human element of man's being, and the cource[[sic]] of universality, unity, freedom, and value. There are many echoes of Heidegger, Scheler, Dilthey, Hartmann, and Husserl in Romero's work, but his system is an original synthesis of their different views.—A. B. D. (shrink)

A very brief, uncritical and rather gossipy presentation of the views of Romero on the nature of philosophy, man, spirit and culture.--J. A. B.

In the French unclassifiable genre, Brun explores biological evolution, poetry, philosophy, mythology, dance movements and palm-reading to unearth the significance and function of the human hand. Man does not have a hand; part of his being is being-a-hand. He is differentiated from animals not only because he is a tool-user, but because he can make tools to make other tools. Brun shows that the sense of touch overcomes the separation between man and the world in a second section dealing with (...) the erotic, cognitive and existential meanings of le toucher. A difficult, sometimes insightful study but mainly overstated.—A. B. D. (shrink)

A reprint of the book published in 1942, with the addition of an appendix and a new preface. Beginning with the concrete and conceptual aspects of the person and showing how the principles of logic are embodied in human experience, the author describes the ontological and logical connections between the world, man and God.--A. B. D.

The author guarantees the partial truth of Socrates' reputation as a sophist by presenting the ideas of Protagoras, Gorgias and others, measuring Socrates' agreement with them, and specifying how he went beyond their relativistic humanism. All the themes in the Socratic dialogues are actually one theme: What is man? Versényi shows that the answers to this question were given as much in Socrates' life as in his teachings. Indeed, Socrates is aptly described as a Heideggerian hero whose death was an (...) authentic affirmation of his life. But such existentialist overtones are not overbearing in this very readable book.--A. B. D. (shrink)

This book is primarily for the patient and empathetic poetaster; it is a treasure-chest of themes on the imagination, metaphor, day-dream, and memory. Bachelard presents a phenomenology of the poetic image of inner or inhabited space, or what he terms "felicitous space." Inner space refers not only to the house of man but to the houses of things, drawers, chests, and wardrobes, and to the houses of animals, nests and shells. Bachelard's method is to articulate the many reverberations which any (...) poetic image calls forth in the reader's mind. He masterfully interprets the images which he draws from a vast amount of literary material and he is also adept at describing his own daydreams. The last two chapters deal with a dialectic of inside and outside and a phenomenology of "roundness" which he had hoped to include in a later, more metaphysical work.—A. B. D. (shrink)

With their common concentration upon the theme of man as a pilgrim on the highway of life, the verbal imagery of English Renaissance writing relates to the visual imagery of Continental art. The book is an enormous achievement in collecting, collating and interpreting texts, engravings and paintings. A definitive source-book, it provides a beginning for subsequent speculation about the expressions of human imagination.--A. B.

That "The Classics of Western Spirituality" should regard the man Dante hailed as "beyond the human in contemplation," and St. Bonaventure believed to be the medieval rival of the greatest patristic contemplative worthy of a special volume is not surprising. Richard of St. Victor’s masterful analysis of the ascent of the mind to God in contemplative prayer and meditation, emphasizing the individual’s relationship to other individuals as the paradigm of how the Three Divine Persons are related in their inner life (...) of love, is at the same time of psychological interest for anyone attempting to identify and classify the various mystical states medieval philosophers felt were necessary to characterize their spiritual growth. Since the bulk of the present translation is devoted to Richard’s two major attempts to systematize the discipline needed to attain contemplation, known more generally as Benjamin Minor and Benjamin Major, one might wonder why the work is being reviewed in the present journal. But while the major interest of this volume will undoubtedly be for those interested in ascetic theology, for the influence of Richard on subsequent writers from St. Bonaventure to St. Teresa of Avila is profound, nevertheless the relatively short third portion of the work is of sufficient philosophical importance to merit at least a brief note, namely bk. 3 of The Trinity. One would hardly expect a work of this sort to come from the pen of a mystic, for what Richard sets out to do is nothing short of a purely rational or metaphysical analysis of the "Athanasian Creed," which was recited almost daily by the Canons of the Abbey of St. Victor during the twelfth century. Because the inner nature and life of the Trinity, unlike creation or the salvation history of God’s intervention in the affairs of man, is a necessary consequence of what medieval thinkers believed God to be, rather than what he chose to do, Richard was convinced that with sufficient ingenuity one could theorize fruitfully as to why God must possess the various attributes we believe him to have and which are set forth in the aforesaid "creed," which stresses both the unity of God, the divine nature and all the divine attributes, while continually reminding its confessor of the trinity of "persons." In the Anselmian tradition of "faith seeking understanding" Richard seeks "necessary reasons" why God should not only be one but three. Most medieval thinkers have considered the trinitarian character of the divine nature to be the most profound of all the mysteries of the Christian faith. While reason may at best refute objections to a trinity of persons in one divine nature, it can hardly be expected to provide positive support for the doctrine. Richard, on the contrary, believed that St. Anselm had found the key to the "divine processions" in the fact that God is perfect love, with all that this implies. It is obvious the experience of "love" as an interpersonal sharing of the deepest kind, something St. Paul enjoined upon the Christians of the "Church of Corinth," is a far cry from what Sartre seemed to have reached in writing L'etre et néant or what that term connotes to our age, but it is not unknown to contemporary psychologists. Duns Scotus described the "perfect lover" in a Richardian sense as "Perfecte diligens vult dilectum condiligi!" It is especially in bk. 3 of The Trinity that Richard argues that a personal nature that is "summum bonum" must contain more than one person, and need contain no more than three. For the philosopher of religion interested in Richard’s metaphysical analysis of the Godhead, it would be profitable to preface the reading of Zinn’s fine translation of bk. 3 with the selections from bk. 1.—A.B.W. (shrink)

In this first of the projected "Yale Ben Jonson" volumes, the editor philosophically interprets Volpone's character and the course of the play as a spiritual degeneration to brute matter; for man, according to the Great Chain of Being, may rise to the level of rationalism or sink like Volpone to the lowest level of materialism.--A. B.

Aiming at a modest analytical ontology, the author shuns any metaphysical system of Being and, in the Parmenidean tradition, keeps his mind away from non-being. Instead he proposes three ways of being--natural, cultural, and formal--for which man is the common matrix. Given originally as a series of lectures, the book omits discussion of such topics as historical being and the interaction of the ways of being.--A. B.

In some respects this work represents the culmination of a search Weiss first began in a systematic way some twenty years ago when he set out to investigate reality in terms of what he called "cosmic necessities." This quest resulted in his ontological classic, Modes of Being in which he reduces the necessities to four, Actuality, Ideality, Existence and God. He then circled back, as it were, to study specific areas of philosophic interest in detail, employing his fourfold conceptual scheme (...) to throw light on the God we worship, man and his manifold activities, with special studies on art, sport, cinematics, and finally personhood itself. In the course of this gargantuan enterprise he discovered both the strength and weakness of his original categorial system. The result of this critical reevaluation appeared in two complementary works, Beyond All Appearances and First Considerations. This neo-Weissian view contrasted actuality, as the category of the irreducible, independent, contingent centers of action and value with the five finalities or a priori conditions of intelligibility, namely Substance, Being, Possibility, Existence, and Unity. These are required analytically by the actualities in order that they may have unifying contexts and thus a relational field from which stems their comprehensibility and ultimate value. The self or person is the most important actuality, and Weiss explores the complex interrelationships between persons in terms of the personal pronouns. For those who have followed Weiss's intellectual odyssey, this will undoubtedly be a stimulating book, particularly if it is read in connection with Weiss's seventh volume of Philosophy in Process, in which the thinking processes that led up to the production of the present work are set forth in a more informal and readable fashion, together with a number of tentative drafts of what its contents should be. One of these represents a tour de force of how his expanded categorial scheme might be applied. Another reflection questions the wisdom of trying to apply this scheme too mechanically. (shrink)

This may be the most impressive and important single study of Bonaventure’s philosophy that has appeared to date or for many a year to come. Obviously the fruit of many years of painstaking research, this monumental work begins with an 80 page review of characterizations of Bonaventure’s philosophy given by such historians as De Wulf, Mandonnet, Gilson, Patrice Robert, Van Steenberghen, Van der Laan and Ratzinger. Next follows a careful and detailed analysis of the saint’s own teaching about natural knowledge (...) in terms of its foundations, principles and modes, certitude and the role illumination plays in his theological synthesis. This material, used to reveal the historical constitution of Bonaventure’s original and personal philosophy, is organized under nine chapter headings: Composition of Body and Soul in Man; Essence and the Nature of Human Soul; Problem of Plural Forms; Potency of Human Knowledge; Acts and Modes of Human Knowledge; Certitude of Natural Knowledge; Illumination of Natural Knowledge; Order of Reason to Faith in Theology; Problem of Christian Philosophy. Despite the author’s disclaimer that his primary objective is not to settle the historical disputes over the nature of Bonaventures’s philosophy, the general conclusions at which he arrives often differ so markedly from what other’s have said on that subject that he finds it useful to conclude his independent source-study with a 56 page analysis of how far the saint’s own writings support or disprove the opinion of the historians mentioned above. Since it is impossible to even summarize more than a small slice of this detailed study in any informative way, the remainder of the review will concentrate on this concluding portion in view of its more general interest. (shrink)

This article provides current Schwartz Values Survey (SVS) data from samples of business managers and professionals across 50 societies that are culturally and socioeconomically diverse. We report the society scores for SVS values dimensions for both individual- and societal-level analyses. At the individual-level, we report on the ten circumplex values sub-dimensions and two sets of values dimensions (collectivism and individualism; openness to change, conservation, self-enhancement, and self-transcendence). At the societal-level, we report on the values dimensions of embeddedness, hierarchy, mastery, affective (...) autonomy, intellectual autonomy, egalitarianism, and harmony. For each society, we report the Cronbach’s α statistics for each values dimension scale to assess their internal consistency (reliability) as well as report interrater agreement (IRA) analyses to assess the acceptability of using aggregated individual level values scores to represent country values. We also examined whether societal development level is related to systematic variation in the measurement and importance of values. Thus, the contributions of our evaluation of the SVS values dimensions are two-fold. First, we identify the SVS dimensions that have cross-culturally internally reliable structures and within-society agreement for business professionals. Second, we report the society cultural values scores developed from the twenty-first century data that can be used as macro-level predictors in multilevel and single-level international business research. (shrink)

This article provides current Schwartz Values Survey data from samples of business managers and professionals across 50 societies that are culturally and socioeconomically diverse. We report the society scores for SVS values dimensions for both individual- and societallevel analyses. At the individual- level, we report on the ten circumplex values sub- dimensions and two sets of values dimensions. At the societal- level, we report on the values dimensions of embeddedness, hierarchy, mastery, affective autonomy, intellectual autonomy, egalitarianism, and harmony. For each (...) society, we report the Cronbach' s? statistics for each values dimension scale to assess their internal consistency as well as report interrater agreement analyses to assess the acceptability of using aggregated individual level values scores to represent country span sp. (shrink)

The legacy of classical antiquity -- War and peace in the medieval world -- Holy wars, crusades, and religious wars -- Humanism and Neo-Stoicism -- The search for a science of peace.

What is it to be a woman? What is it to be a man? We start by laying out desiderata for an analysis of 'woman' and 'man': descriptively, it should link these gender categories to sex biology without reducing them to sex biology, and politically, it should help us explain and combat traditional sexism while also allowing us to make sense of the activist view that gendering should be consensual. Using a Putnam-style 'Twin Earth' example, we argue that none of (...) the existing analyses in the feminist literature succeeds in meeting all of our desiderata. Finally, we propose a positive account that we believe can satisfy all the desiderata outlined. According to our theory, the genders 'woman' and 'man' are individuated not by their contemporary connections to sex biology, but by their historical continuity with classes that were originally closely connected to sex biology. (shrink)

OBJECTIVES: To ascertain which conditions nurses believe should be in a law allowing active voluntary euthanasia (AVE). DESIGN: Survey questionnaire posted to registered nurses (RNs). SETTING: Australian Capital Territory (ACT) at the end of 1996, when active voluntary euthanasia was legal in the Northern Territory. SURVEY SAMPLE: A random sample of 2,000 RNs, representing 54 per cent of the RN population in the ACT. MAIN MEASURES: Two methods were used to look at nurses' opinions. The first involved four vignettes which (...) varied in terms of critical characteristics of each patient who was requesting help to die. The respondents were asked if the law should be changed to allow any of these requests. There was also a checklist of conditions, most of which have commonly been included in Australian proposed laws on AVE. The respondents chose those which they believed should apply in a law on AVE. RESULTS: The response rate was 61%. Support for a change in the law to allow AVE was 38% for a young man with AIDS, 39% for an elderly man with early stage Alzheimer's disease, 44% for a young woman who had become quadriplegic and 71% for a middle-aged woman with metastases from breast cancer. The conditions most strongly supported in any future AVE law were: "second doctor's opinion", "cooling off period", "unbearable protracted suffering", "patient fully informed about illness and treatment" and "terminally ill". There was only minority support for "not suffering from treatable depression", "administer the fatal dose themselves" and "over a certain age". CONCLUSION: Given the lack of support for some conditions included in proposed AVE laws, there needs to be further debate about the conditions required in any future AVE bills. (shrink)

The nature of tragedy has always been felt to be a problem, not only by the philosopher, but also, and perhaps even more, by the ordinary man. The question so often asked is: why, if there is so much suffering already in the world, do we want to go to a theatre or read a story describing more suffering? Why indeed should the spectacle of suffering ever be pleasing to us? Yet it is obvious that olarge numbers of ordinary people (...) do like reading or seeing tragedies; and that there are some tragedies which are generally judged to be the most valuable works of literary art ever produced. What then is the nature of the value which we extract from these works? That is the question to which I would like to address myself. (shrink)

_The purpose_ of the article is to clarify the most relevant philosophical dimensions of modern patriotism against the background of defending the processes of national identity. _The theoretical basis_ of the study consisted of institutional analysis, synergetic and philosophical-anthropological approaches, as well as existential philosophy and philosophy of applied ethics. Patriotism is seen as a path to self-expression, the world of life, mental self-limitation and self-aggrandizement of modern man. The peculiarities of modern considerations about the philosophical content of patriotism within (...) the framework of its comparison with other value structures, such as cosmopolitanism, liberalism, nationalism, etc., are established. _Originality._ The scientific novelty is that the article for the first time reveals the correlations of patriotism with other ideological and ideological doctrines and systems of political and social worldview, which fix the identity of individuals and groups in the context of ethnic, social or political community. _Conclusions._ The existential dimension of patriotism is based on worldviews of involvement in the local community. Trends in globalization are forcing modern people to "seek refuge" in small communities, or even in a family or other small group. "Local" or "neighborhood" patriotism acquires the character of an expression of involvement in a friend and relative. It almost completely "crosses out" the constitutional and ideological patriotism inherent in the states of the twentieth century. The reorientation of significant philosophical justifications of patriotism in modern conditions provokes a discussion about the spirituality and societal nature of patriotic meanings. In the struggle for the independence of modern Ukraine, we are all witnessing the process of overcoming "state" patriotism "local". This process is very important in the face of opposition to the totalitarian ideology of the Russian aggressor. (shrink)

Recent criticism of inalienable-Rights doctrine is shown to be based upon the erroneous assumption that, In calling certain rights inalienable, Eighteenth-Century constitution-Writers implied that they are unconditional. S.M. Brown, Jr., D.G. Ritchie, And e.F. Carritt all reject the doctrine because the exercise or enjoyment of these rights can sometimes be justifiably denied. Provisions of bills of rights and other writings are cited to establish that their authors did not consider these rights unlimited. What they meant in declaring them inalienable is (...) that no man can voluntarily relinquish them. Consequently, The distinction frankena proposes is not needed to save traditional theory from the adverse verdict of its critics. (shrink)

Betrachtet man den Gebrauch der Worte ‘Moral’ und ‘Vernunft’ etwas genauer, so stellt man fest, dass nicht klar ist, was sie bezeichnen bzw. wie Moral und Vernunft zusammenhängen. In dem Buch ‘Rationalität in der Angewandten Ethik’, in dem sich verschiedene Autoren die Aufgabe gestellt haben, diese Umstände in das Licht der Betrachtung zu rücken, finden wir Fragen darüber, wie “Moral”, “Angewandte Ethik” und “Vernunft” (auch in der Anwendung) zu verstehen und zu vereinen sind.

This book is a collection of 18 essays portraying a "humanistic" outlook on several contemporary moral problems, and includes such essayists as Kurt Baier, Carl Rogers, B. F. Skinner, Sidney Hook, Abraham Edel, John Somerville, and Corliss Lamont. Although each was requested first to give his own definition of humanism and then to work out one application of it from his particular field or interest, these directions are not always strictly adhered to. Half of the essays had in fact, already (...) been published in some form in The Humanist. The 5 topical headings of the book show the diversity of fields and interests portrayed: Ethics, Religion and the Meaning of Life; The Good Life; The Individual: Law, Morality and Social Organization; Justice and Society; and Death. Although the essays are of unequal philosophical depth and acumen, this variety may be appealing for some uses of this as a text. However, two of the essays in particular stand out for this reviewer: "Ethics Without Religion" by Kai Nielsen, which perceptively outlines the problematic for as well as against an ethics not rooted in religion, and "The Enforcement of Morals" by Ernest Nagel which aptly analyzes the problem of the relation between the spheres of morality and law taking as a focus the noted Hart-Devlin debate of this issue. The thread which Kurtz believes unites all of these essays is their portrayal of a humanistic viewpoint, a viewpoint which he attempts to summarize in his own 14-page introduction, "What is Humanism?" But defining humanism is not an easy task. One must steer between a strictly negative view which defines it only in relation to what it opposes, and a broader but rather indefinite view of it as some form of man-centered philosophy. Although Kurtz wants to be positive in his own definition, he seems unable to move away from a negative and rhetorical presentation in which theism is simply stated to be incompatible with humanism. Moreover, his outline of a humanistic ethics is somewhat superficial. For example, he seems unaware of the problems involved in holding that ethical values are man’s own "creation" and at the same time are normative and objective. Nevertheless, the book may be of some help as a supplementary text to stimulate undergraduate students in discussion and study of the topics treated therein.—B.A.M. (shrink)

The author demonstrates that W. E. Hocking’s political philosophy deserves far more consideration than it has so far received not only for its being a study in political philosophy, something there is too little of in the American tradition, but also because of the importance of the problems which are the focus of the study, the problems of liberty and community. Thigpen organizes material from a wide range of sources in Hocking’s extensive bibliography into an orderly presentation that moves from (...) relevant matter in Hocking’s theory of man and of knowledge, through practical applications of this matter to such issues as the basis and purpose of a state, and problems of rights and freedom, to the questions of international relations and world peace. (shrink)