Contents: John BURNHEIM: Introduction. Mihály VAJDA: A Lover of Philosophy - A Lover of Europe. Phillippe DESPOIX: On the Possibility of a Philosophy of Values. A Dialogue within the Budapest School. Martin JAY: Women in Dark Times: Agnes Heller and Hannah Arendt. Johann P. ARNASON: The Human Condition and the Modern Predicament. Richard J. BERNSTEIN: Agnes Heller: Philosophy, Rational Utopia and Praxis. Zygmunt BAUMAN: Narrating Modernity. Peter BEILHARZ: Theories of History - Agnes Heller and R.G. Collingwood. Richard WOLIN: Heller's Theory (...) of Everyday Life. Paul HARRISON: Radical Philosophy and the Theory of Modernity. Arthur J. JACOBSON: The Limits of Formal Justice. Peter MURPHY: Civility and Radicalism. Peter MURPHY: Pluralism and Politics. Victoria CAMPS: The Good Life: A Moral Gesture. Laura BOELLA: Philosophy Beyond and the Baseless and Tragic Character of Action. György MÁRKUS: The Politics of Morals. Agnes HELLER: A Reply to My Critics. The Bibliography of Agnes Heller. (shrink)

It will come as a surprise to many to see a book coming from a contemporary Oxford philosopher claiming to be metaphysical. The author, in the last sentence of the last chapter, justifies his title with the remark: “So if metaphysics is the finding of reasons, good, bad or indifferent, for what we believe on instinct, then this has been metaphysics.” This remark gives us the point of the qualification “descriptive”, which is for Strawson, opposed to “revisionary” when applied to (...) metaphysics. The revisionary metaphysician is trying to produce a better set of basic concepts about the world, the descriptive metaphysician is content to describe “the actual structure of our thought”. (shrink)

It will come as a surprise to many to see a book coming from a contemporary Oxford philosopher claiming to be metaphysical. The author, in the last sentence of the last chapter, justifies his title with the remark: “So if metaphysics is the finding of reasons, good, bad or indifferent, for what we believe on instinct, then this has been metaphysics.” This remark gives us the point of the qualification “descriptive”, which is for Strawson, opposed to “revisionary” when applied to (...) metaphysics. The revisionary metaphysician is trying to produce a better set of basic concepts about the world, the descriptive metaphysician is content to describe “the actual structure of our thought”. (shrink)

Professor Kroner presents an aspect of Kant’s thought which receives comparatively little attention in most English works on Kant. His interpretation is that of the so-called Heidleberg school, which lays great emphasis on the moral and religious aspects of Kant’s thought, taking its epistemological aspects as essentially subservient to a wider context which explains their fundamental meaning. The present work is short and synoptic. It presents an overall picture, without arguing details of interpretation. Like most other attempts to arrive at (...) the “ultimate intention” of a philosophical system, Professor Kroner’s interpretation of Kant seems to base itself rather on the cultural, emotional and practical significance of the doctrines he favours than on their claims to objective truth. For example, he tells us that “nature is phenomenal because it is nothing but the material of the moral will…because man as a moral person is never permitted to derive his ultimate ends from nature”. It is difficult to see that this means anything more than: the doctrine that nature is phenomenal is commendable because it has these desirable consequences. (shrink)

Mr. Cassirer is the son of the late Ernst Cassirer. To judge by the reviews it has received, his book has proved something of a disappointment to many people. In spite of its many merits, it is neither a satisfactory commentary on Kant’s Critique nor an adequate appraisal of his thought.

Professor Kroner presents an aspect of Kant’s thought which receives comparatively little attention in most English works on Kant. His interpretation is that of the so-called Heidleberg school, which lays great emphasis on the moral and religious aspects of Kant’s thought, taking its epistemological aspects as essentially subservient to a wider context which explains their fundamental meaning. The present work is short and synoptic. It presents an overall picture, without arguing details of interpretation. Like most other attempts to arrive at (...) the “ultimate intention” of a philosophical system, Professor Kroner’s interpretation of Kant seems to base itself rather on the cultural, emotional and practical significance of the doctrines he favours than on their claims to objective truth. For example, he tells us that “nature is phenomenal because it is nothing but the material of the moral will…because man as a moral person is never permitted to derive his ultimate ends from nature”. It is difficult to see that this means anything more than: the doctrine that nature is phenomenal is commendable because it has these desirable consequences. (shrink)

Professor Kroner presents an aspect of Kant’s thought which receives comparatively little attention in most English works on Kant. His interpretation is that of the so-called Heidleberg school, which lays great emphasis on the moral and religious aspects of Kant’s thought, taking its epistemological aspects as essentially subservient to a wider context which explains their fundamental meaning. The present work is short and synoptic. It presents an overall picture, without arguing details of interpretation. Like most other attempts to arrive at (...) the “ultimate intention” of a philosophical system, Professor Kroner’s interpretation of Kant seems to base itself rather on the cultural, emotional and practical significance of the doctrines he favours than on their claims to objective truth. For example, he tells us that “nature is phenomenal because it is nothing but the material of the moral will…because man as a moral person is never permitted to derive his ultimate ends from nature”. It is difficult to see that this means anything more than: the doctrine that nature is phenomenal is commendable because it has these desirable consequences. (shrink)

Some of Lord Russell’s most interesting writings have until now remained hidden in the pages of rare periodicals. Professor Marsh has done a considerable service to students of contemporary British philosophy in making them readily available. Although most of these essays present neither Russell’s present views nor the views most commonly held at the present time, they do contain arguments and opinions which have had a great influence on the development of current philosophical thinking, either because they continue to go (...) uncriticised or because of the reactions they have provoked. This is especially true of the series of articles “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism’, which, Russell tells us, “are very largely concerned with explaining certain ideas which I learnt from my friend and former pupil Ludwig Wittgenstein.’ Much of Wittgenstein’s later writing is intelligible only as a criticism of this interpretation of his doctrine. Quite apart from this, these articles contain some of Russell’s keenest thinking. Other articles of interest from a doctrinal point of view are “On the Relation of Universals and Particulars”, “On Propositions: what they are and how they mean” and “On Order in Time”. Two technical articles, “The Logic of Relations” and “Mathematical Logic as Based on the Theory of Types” retain considerable value for the specialist. The book is very well produced. (shrink)

Mary Wyman sets out to show the affinity between the philosophy of Whitehead and the views of a large number of poets, including certain Chinese mystics, Goethe, Emerson, Whitman, and Wordsworth. That there are such affinities is, of course, well-known and the author does succeed in elaborating them in a thorough and often interesting manner. The danger in such works is a too-systematic and superficial interpretation of one author in terms of another. It is perhaps the greatest merit of her (...) book that Miss Wyman is aware of this danger and constantly strives to avoid it. (shrink)

Professor Mays’s book covers much the same ground as Ivor Leclerq’s, reviewed here last year. The interpretation of Whitehead’s philosophy is very different, both in overall import and in detail. Though issued by the same publisher, neither book refers to the other. Whereas Leclerq maintained that the metaphysics of Process and Reality is on a different level of discussion from Whitehead’s earlier work, Mays insists that the only difference is in degree of generality. Hence, where Leclerq interprets Whitehead as producing (...) answers to traditional problems of metaphysics, Mays interprets him as elaborating a conceptual scheme of much the same sort of import as a highly general physical theory. Mays is, I think, demonstrably wrong. (shrink)