Journal of the History of Philosophy

124 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Perhaps it is because he felt that more than explanation of a body of facts is called for in ethics that Lewis took up the problem of providing a ground for first principles in his later work. Both the autobiography in the Schilpp volume and some of the more informal essays in Collected Papers afford an interesting view of Lewis's career. (He says of his teachers at Harvard, "Royce impressed me the most .... James, I thought, had a swift way of being right, but how he reached his conclusions was his own secret" [C.P., p. 4].) Some additional areas that are covered in the Schilpp volume, which have not been touched upon here, are Lewis's work in logic, the a priori, value theory, and esthetics. JERRY CEDERBLOM University o/Nebraska at Omaha Dualismo Greco e Antropologia Cristiana. By Mario Moretti. (L'Aquila: L. U. Japadrr Editore, 1972. Pp. 209. Lire 3000) In the first part of this book Professor Moretti deals with modem views of Christianity, from Barth to Bultmann, from Bonhoeffer to Tillich. In the second part the author concerns himself with the dualism of body and soul, and he traces its history from Plato to Descartes. Inevitably, much of Moretti's treatment is not new. Many books have appeared recently on the views of Bonhoeffer, who sees Christianity as a serious secular effort to help the helpless or to improve society, and on Barth's concept of the Bible as the true word of GOd. Other important books on the dualism of body and soul are the studies of Abbagnano , Guzzo, Carabellese, Coutounier, G. Lewis, Dewart and G. Ryle. Also worth mentioning is l~tienne Gilson's Introduction d l'dtude de S. Augustine in which the famous scholar approaches the problem of the dualism between body and soul in St. Augustine and Descartes. What sets Moretti's work apart is that he approaches Christianity and the problem of dualism not merely as a historian of philosophy, who impartially expounds the ideas of the different thinkers, but as a writer with a definite point of view. He thinks that in philosophy and religion there are some fundamental truths which must be divested of their mythology or of their old cultural symbols in order to be understood and relived by contemporary man. The author defends this view with passion. Following in the footsteps of Dewart and delving into the history of Catholicism, Moretti states that the Catholic dogma of the Trinity is incomprehensible because Catholics think of "person" in the Socratic or Aristotelian sense of self-awareness instead of in the very modern terms of self-creation and experience. "NeU'idea che oggi ci facciamo della personalith, questo non ~ pill vero. Quello era un modo di concepire la persona; oggi non possiamo comprendere tale concetto indipendente deU'esperienza che ne facciamo" (p. 34). The old Christian truth of "person" should lose the Greek dress in order to acquire a modern one. The same can be said of the dualism between body and soul. In St. Augustine, under the influence of Plato, this dualism is a dualism between matter and soul, between good and evil tendencies. But with Moretti this old dualism has lost its meaning and it must be reinterpreted in a new or modem way: the traditional dualism between body and soul is the dualism between the aspirations of man's soul and the limits of his human existence. Occasionally, Professor Moretti seems to suffer from a certain historical disability that makes his themes, such as demythologization and the dualism between body and soul, loom through the history of Christianity and Hellenization in elephantine size, while other BOOK REVIEWS 125 important themes do not appear at all. This is understandable in a man who is deeply engaged with his subject, a subject on which he sheds a great deal of light. Therefore, I recommend the book very highly. AN~LO A. DE GENNARO Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles God and Reason: A Historical Approach to Philosophical Theology. By Ed. L. Miller. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1972. Pp. 244. $3.75) God and Reason is a clearly written, historically accurate introduction...