Journal of the History of Philosophy

BOOK REVIEWS 137 stimulating. Lucas shows the affinities between process thinkers and the major pragmatists if we bracket the issue of pragmatic method, which is not particularly a process feature. The career of realism in reaction to idealism is sketched as it moves through critical realism to what A. E. Murphy calls 'objective relativism', which he finds in Whitehead. The varieties of idealism and "English" Hegelianism (i.e., those British and American philosophers strongly influenced by Hegel) are stressed, for it is among the variety that process themes can be found. McTaggart and F. H. Bradley, often taken to define English Hegelianism, were hardly process thinkers. The evolutionary cosmologists (from Lamarck to Alexander, Bergson, Teilhard de Chardin and others) bear in many ways the closest affinities with Whitehead, yet it is a very striking fact that Whitehead had very little to say about evolution, except in the short book, The Function of Reason (1929). I suspect there are two good reasons for this: (l) Whitehead was interested not so much in process as in the metaphysical (and unchanging) principles of process. These principles Could not evolve, because whatever evolves would be of subordinate, contingent importance. (2) His most distinctive characteristics are derived from a metaphysical generalization from experience , known only first-hand in human experience, and not from any induction and extrapolation from the findings of the natural and biological sciences. In his concluding comments Lucas finds a "heuristic fallacy" in process metaphysics . Since natural science finds it useful to reason as if there were purpose in biological expanation, process thinkers have extrapolated this into a role for purpose in the entire cosmos. This "heuristic fallacy" does not apply to Whitehead, because he does not extrapolate from evolutionary theory. Empirical science, insofar as it is based on the purely objective factors of our experience, considers only that which is past. There is no purpose in the past, according to Whitehead's principles, because present purposes have been satisfied. This does not mean, however, that purpose is not part of immediate, present experience. It certainly is of our experience, and this element can be metaphysically generalized. In sum, this is a fine guide to the literature surrounding "process rationalism," Lucas's name for process philosophy taken narrowly. I find this unfortunate, for this slights Whitehead's intention to be both rationalistic and empirical. It also excludes those who consider themselves process empiricists. Bernard Meland is included under other categories, but Bernard Loomer and William Dean are missing. To classify them as purely theologians draws the line much too narrowly. LEWIS S. FORD Old Dominion University David Bloor. Wittgenstein: A Social Theory of Knowledge. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983. Pp. xi + 2a3. $25.00. Bloor's intention in this book is to give a sociological and naturalistic reading of the later philosophy of Wittgenstein. He offers this reading in part to link Wittgenstein's 138 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY or PHILOSOPHY 24:1 JANUARY ~986 work to the sociology of knowledge but also to show how Wittgenstein constructed what might be called a social theory of knowledge. The scope of Bloor's approach is broad and his study of social theory wideranging . He examines controversies over mental acts and images in the experience of understanding; he develops an ethnological account of mathematics and logic; he appraises the political motivations and social significance of idealism as opposed to materialism; and, finally, he affords a critique of Habermas's ideal speech situation. He characterizes Habermas's vision as a social form of fragmentation and alienation and juxtaposes to this the ideal of a traditional and authoritarian society, which he claims has informed Wittgenstein's thinking. The picture of Wittgenstein that is drawn is thus one of a basically conservative thinker. The breadth of scope makes this an absorbing book and Bloor's simple and clear style makes for ease and accessibilty in reading. Philosophical controversies are always set in the context of specific examples, such as the imageless thought controversy between Wundt and the Wtirzburg group, the argument between Malcolm and Putnam over the meaning of "dreaming," and the Belnap-Anderson and BradleyBosanquet debates over the Lewis theorem in Lewis's system of...