The concept of philosophy as a philosophical problem.--Critical idealism as a philosophy of culture.--Descartes, Leibniz, and Vico.--Hegel's theory of the State.--The philosophy of history.--Language and art I.--Language and art II.--The educational value of art.--Philosophy and politics.--Judaism and the modern political myths.--The technique of our modern political myths.--Reflections on the concept of group and the theory of perception.

In Anglo-Saxon philosophy of science there is strong conviction that idealist philosophy of science on the the one hand and serious science and philosophy of science on the other do not go well together. In this paper I argue that this sweeping dismissal of the idealist tradition may have been too hasty. They may be some valuable insights for which it is striving. A promising case in question is provided by Ernst Cassirer’s Neo-Kantian „Critical Idealism“ that he put (...) forward in the first decades of the past century, or so I’d like to argue. (shrink)

In the first third of this century Cassirer was one of the leading, most influential philosophers of the German-speaking world. He was the respected opponent of such giants as Husserl, Russell, Schlick, Heidegger or Carnap who left their mark on the philosophical landscape until this very day. One might recall his discussion with Schlick on the philosophical relevance of Einstein’s relativity theory in the first decade of this century. Carnap reported to have received essential ideas for the Logical Construction of (...) the World from Cassirer and other neo-Kantians; or, to recall a more spectacular event concerning Cassirer’s philosophy, one might mention the famous “Davos disputation” with Heidegger in 1929 which seems to have been a major philosophical event for the audience. (shrink)

Sebastian Luft - Hermann Cohen's Critical Idealism - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:4 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.4 668-670 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Sebastian Luft Marquette University Reinier Munk, editor. Hermann Cohen's Critical Idealism. Amsterdam Studies in Jewish Thought 10. Dordrecht: Springer, 2005. Pp. v + 434. Cloth, $229.00. This anthology, the first of its kind in English, is devoted to a much-needed reassessment of Hermann Cohen's philosophy. Cohen (...) was one of the founders of the so-called Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism and came to be, with the development of his own philosophical system following his Kant interpretation, one of the most original thinkers in Germany during his lifetime. Moreover, his charismatic personality inspired other philosophers, such as Natorp and Cassirer in Marburg as well as the.. (shrink)

To commemorate the centenary of Ernst Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic Forms this essay focuses on how Cassirer in the development of a distinctive philosophical method analyzed the newest development within philosophy and science. Discussing Einstein's theory of relativity and Russell's formal logic Cassirer found tools to expand the critique of reason into a critique of culture. The course of argumentation is as follows. At the outset Cassirer's outline of the idea of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms in the (...) 1920 book Einstein's Theory of Relativity is presented as a reaction to the increasing distance between theoretical physics and ordinary experience. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms can be read as an answer to an inner methodological demand within critical idealism. I encircle this motif in Cassirer's comment that Plato's idealism, understood as the dianoia of thought, is reiterated in Kant's transcendental philosophy and Herman Cohen's reception of Kant. This leads to a discussion of how Cassirer breaks away from Cohen by the positive reception of Russell's symbolic logic. Finally, I present the theory of functional concepts developed by Cassirer (1910) in the book Substance and Function as a prerequisite for the conception of a plural but systematic philosophy of symbolic forms. (shrink)

"In his Phenomenology of Cognition, Cassirer provides a comprehensive and systematic account of the dynamic process involved in the whole of human culture as it progresses from the world of myth and its feeling of social belonging to the highest abstractions of mathematics, logic and theoretical physics. Cassirer engages with the most sophisticated and cutting-edge work in fields ranging from ethnology to classics, egyptology and assyriology to ethology, brain science and psychology to logic, mathematics and theoretical physics. His command of (...) philosophy, literature, and the arts is superb. Echoing his work on Kant, Cassirer begins ThePhilosophy of Symbolic Formswith the problem posed by the meaning of being for philosophy since Plato. But Cassirer also shows that this problem gains new significance with Kant and with the development of modern culture. Cassirer weaves his conception of the development of knowledge into a broadly Kantian and German idealist dynamic-historical conception of significance and of experience that refuses to accept a fundamental opposition between literary, philosophical and scientific culture. In consequence of his great vision grounded in careful reflection and argument, Cassirer's systematic conception of the Copernican cosmopolitan-cosmological revolution is still philosophically and scientifically unmatched in contemporary philosophy on both sides of the Atlantic and of the Pacific." - Pierre Keller, Professor of Philosophy, University of California, Riverside, USA. This new translation makes Cassirer's seminal work available to a new generation of scholars. Each volume includes an introduction by Steve Lofts, a foreword by Peter Gordon, a glossary of key terms, and an index. Steve Lofts is Professor of Philosophy at King's University College, Canada. He is the translator of Cassirer's The Logic of the Cultural Sciences and The Warburg Years : Essays on Language, Art, Myth, and Technology. (shrink)

“Here is the first Kant-biography in English since Paulsen’s and Cassirer’s only full-scale study of Kant’s philosophy. On a very deep level, all of Cassirer’s philosophy was based on Kant’s, and accordingly this book is Cassirer’s explicit coming to terms with his own historical origins. It sensitively integrates interesting facts about Kant’s life with an appreciation and critique of his works. Its value is enhanced by Stephen Körner’s Introduction, which places Cassirer’s Kant-interpretation in its historical and contemporary context.”—Lewis White Beck (...) “The first English translation (well done by James Haden) of a 60-year-old classic intellectual biography. Those readers who know Kant only through the first _Critique_ will find their understanding of that work deepened and illuminated by a long explication of the pre-critical writings, but perhaps the most distinctive contribution is Cassirer’s argument that the later _Critiques_, and especially the _Critique of Judgment_, must be understood not as merely applying the principles of the first to other areas but as subsuming the latter into a larger and more comprehensive framework.”—Frederick J. Crown, _The Key Reporter_ “_Kant’s Life and Thought_ is that rare achievement: a lucid and highly readable account of the life and work of one of the world’s profoundest thinkers. Now for the first time available in an admirable English translation, the book introduces the reader to two of the finest minds in the history of philosophy.”—Ashley Montagu. (shrink)

Recent work on the philosophy of Hermann Cohen (1848-1914), founder of the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism, has appeared in three distinct circles in the English-speaking philosophical context. Cohen re-interpreted Kant's a priori to take scientific developments into account. Michael Friedman acknowledges that the later development of this view by Cohen's intellectual heir Ernst Cassirer influenced Friedman's work on the dynamic a priori, especially in the history and philosophy of science. Owing to Cohen's links to Franz Rosenzweig, scholars have begun to (...) investigate Cohen's philosophy with reference to Derrida, Benjamin, Habermas, and Levinas and the philosophy of responsibility. And there is increasing interest in analyzing Cohen's influence on Deleuze and Badiou, particularly in the areas of ethics and aesthetics. (shrink)

Most scholars regard Ernst Cassirer as a thinker in the Marburg Neo-Kantian tradition whose writings take him from its concern with the analysis of the logical foundations of science to problems in intellectual history, theory of language, and culture. The critical work on his thought has reflected and supported this view. There is a second image of Cassirer which is shared by the large number of students and general readers who have come to his thought through two works that (...) appeared at the end of his life—An Essay on Man and the Myth of the State. These works have gone through numerous printings and have appeared in editions in most major Western and Oriental languages. These readers have found in Cassirer not primarily an epistemologist and historian of thought but a philosopher of humanity, an interpreter of the fragmentation of contemporary cultural life and the nature of the political world. These two sides shown by Cassirer’s thought are not exactly opposed, but also they are not joined. (shrink)

The main thesis of this paper is that Pap’s The Functional A Priori of Physical Theory (Pap 1946, henceforth FAP) and Cassirer’s Determinism and Indeterminism in Modern Physics (Cassirer 1937, henceforth DI) may be conceived as two kindred accounts of a late Neo-Kantian philosophy of science. They elucidate and clarify each other mutually by elaborating conceptual possibilities and pointing out affinities of neo-Kantian ideas with other currents of 20th century’s philosophy of science, namely, pragmatism, conventionalism, and logical empiricism. Taking into (...) account these facts, it seems not too far fetched to conjecture that under more favorable circumstances Pap could have served as a mediator between the “analytic” and “continental” tradition thereby overcoming the dogmatic dualism of these two philosophical currents that has characterized philosophy in the second half the 20th century. (shrink)

The article analyses systematically and historically the specific idea of transcendentalism developed in the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism. The unique line of the Marburg’s School interpretation of Kant’s critical philosophy consists in contrasting critical and dogmatic understandings of basic philosophical concepts. This line is characteristic of the Marburg School idealism, and it perfectly grasps Ernst Cassirer’s peculiar understanding of philosophy—as “the critique of knowledge.” The main thesis of this paper is the following one: the critical method (...) understood as the method of searching for fundamental principles and conditions of possibility of objectiveness is a basic tool of analysis and investigations carried out by Cassirer. (shrink)

This paper pursues the double task of presenting Cassirer’s Philosophy of Symbolic Forms as a systematic critique of culture and assessing this systematic approach with regards to the question of reason vs. relativism. First, it reconstructs the development of his theory to its mature presentation in his Philosophy of Symbolic Forms. Cassirer here presents a critique of culture as fulfilling Kant’s critical work by insisting on the plurality of reason as spirit, manifesting itself in symbolic forms. In the second (...) part, the consequences of this approach will be drawn by considering the systematics Cassirer intended with this theory. As can be reconstructed from his metaphilosophical reflections, the strength of Cassirer’s philosophy is that it accounts for the plurality of rational-spiritual activity while at the same time not succumbing to a relativism. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms steers a middle course between a rational fundamentalism and a postmodern relativism. (shrink)

The notion of idealization has received considerable attention in contemporary philosophy of science but less in philosophy of mathematics. An exception was the ‘critical idealism’ of the neo-Kantian philosopher Ernst Cassirer. According to Cassirer the methodology of idealization plays a central role for mathematics and empirical science. In this paper it is argued that Cassirer's contributions in this area still deserve to be taken into account in the current debates in philosophy of mathematics. For extremely useful criticisms (...) on earlier versions I am grateful to B.P. Larvor and another anonymous journal referee. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

In this essay Ernst Cassirer addresses two currents of the philosophical reflection about man and culture that emerged at the end of the 18th century. Th e naturalistic one, conceives of man and culture as an outcome of the processes that takes place beyond the reach of human will and consciousness. Among such naturalistically oriented philosophies Cassirer includes Hegel’s idealism, Taine’s positivism and Spengler’s psychologism. All of them imply a characteristic kind of historical fatalism. In opposition to such a (...) deterministic vision of human development stands a philosophy that emphasizes the importance of individual decision and responsibility for the course of history. Cassirer names it “humanistic” as it places man in the very middle of its research. The initiators of this tradition were Johann Gottfried Herder and Wilhelm von Humboldt, foremost representatives of the German romantic movement. The philosopher who took up their humanistic thought and elevated it to the importance of a distinct knowledge was Wilhelm Dilthey. While bearing in mind who is the real creator of culture all these thinkers pay special attention to the question of man’s responsibility for culture as well as for himself. The problem of human responsibility that totally escaped the attention of naturalistically oriented philosophers is somehow a distinguishing characteristic of all humanistic philosophies of culture. (shrink)

ECN 7 enthält Texte über Mythos, Sprache und Kunst, die Cassirer als zentrale symbolische Formen darstellt. Diese Texte sind entweder im direkten Zusammenhang mit der 'Kulturwissenschaftlichen Bibliothek Warburg', bzw. dem Warburg Institute, entstanden oder greifen in den amerikanischen Jahren Probleme auf, zu deren Behandlung Cassirer durch seine Kontakte zu der Bibliothek angeregt wurde. Der systematische Vortrag "Critical Idealism as a Philosophy of Culture" faßt seine Ansichten über das Verhältnis zwischen Philosophie und Kulturwissenschaften zusammen. Inhalt: Begriffs- und Klassenbildung im (...) mythischen und religiösen Denken. Vortrag, Religionswissenschaftliche Gesellschaft, Hamburg, 14.7.1921 / Critical Idealism as a Philosophy of Culture / Language and Art [Für einen Vortrag am 23.3.1942 bei Bryn Mawr College und am 23.4.1942 bei Cornell University] / Language, Myth, Art" / The Educational Value of Art. 10.03.1943 / Beilage: [Materialien zu "Language and Art"]. (shrink)

Vorlesungen und Vorträge zu Kant -- Kant's moral theory -- The fundamental principles of Kantian philosophy -- Introduction to Kant's critical philosophy -- The philosophy of Kant -- Kant's theory of causality -- Beilagen -- [Dankesrede] -- Some remarks on Kant's philosophy of history -- Anhang.

This paper compares Cohen’s Logic of Pure Knowledge and Cassirer’s Substance and Function in order to evaluate how in these works Cohen and Cassirer go beyond the limits established by Kantian philosophy. In his Logic, Cohen seeks to ground in pure thought all the elements which Kant distinguishes in empirical intuition: its matter (sensation) as well as its form (time and space). In this way, Cohen tries to provide an account of knowledge without appealing to any receptivity. In accordance with (...) Cohen’s project of reformulating the Kantian theory of sensibility, Cassirer undertakes in Substance and Function the task of developing an alternative doctrine of pure and empirical manifolds. But whereas Cohen analyzes the laws of pure thought, Cassirer aims to highlight the functional character of concepts in the development of modern mathematics and physics. I will discuss these two different approaches to the problems raised by Kantian philosophy and I will argue that Cassirer went further than Cohen in the project of critical idealism. (shrink)

There is a traditional view concerning the relation between mind and matter, knower and known. It posits a bifurcation between the two, maintaining, as Ryle puts it, that mind and matter are two distinct orders of existence. This traditional view comes, in large part, from Descartes. James rejects the traditional view, arguing instead for a close relationship between thought and object. His argument contains two components. The first stresses the close functional relationship between thought and object in our everyday experience. (...) James argues here that true thoughts do or can lead us to their objects, culminating in prosperous interaction with them. The second part of James's argument holds that in pure experience--the original flow of data within which all distinctions are to be made--there is no distinction yet made between mind and matter, knower and known. These distinctions arise only later as conceptual tools for bringing organization to the original presentations. Any given element of pure experience is categorized twice, once as an element of the physical world, and a second time as an element of the perceiver's own mental history. The conclusion, then, is that James: shows that thought and object work together in a close functional relationship in ordinary experience; and argues that they arise from one homogeneous pure experience. ;A number of criticisms were directed against James's view, including: Lovejoy's, arguing that the incompatibilities of thought and object preclude the possibility of their arising from one homogeneous source; Russell's and Perry's, arguing that James's theory is unable to extricate itself from idealism; Miller's and Bode's, arguing that James's view contradicts one of his own important tenets in The Principles of Psychology; and an argument that James is unable to account for the agency by means of which pure experience gets organized. ;James can reply plausibly to all of these criticisms including the difficult issue of the self. On this question a consistent understanding of James's basic assumptions is required. ;Finally, James's viewpoint offers an interesting critical perspective on certain contemporary theories of mind-brain identity. (shrink)

Book description: This outstanding collection of specially commissioned chapters examines German idealism from several angles and assesses the renewed interest in the subject from a wide range of fields. Including discussions of the key representatives of German idealism such as Kant, Fichte and Hegel, it is structured in clear sections dealing with: * metaphysics * the legacy of Hegel’s philosophy * Brandom and Hegel * recognition and agency * autonomy and nature * the philosophy of German romanticism. Amongst (...) other important topics, German Idealism: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives addresses the debates surrounding the metaphysical and epistemological legacy of German idealism; its importance for understanding recent debates in moral and political thought; its appropriation in recent theories of language and the relationship between mind and world; and how German idealism affected subsequent movements such as romanticism, pragmatism, and critical theory. (shrink)

Léon Brunschvicg's contribution to philosophical thought in fin-de-siècle France receives full explication in the first English-language study on his work. Arguing that Brunschvicg is crucial to understanding the philosophical schools which took root in 20th-century France, Pietro Terzi locates Brunschvicg alongside his contemporary Henri Bergson, as well as the range of thinkers he taught and influenced, including Lévinas, Merleau-Ponty, de Beauvoir, and Sartre. Brunschvicg's deep engagement with debates concerning spiritualism and rationalism, neo-Kantian philosophy, and the role of mathematics in philosophy (...) made him the perfect supervisor for a whole host of nascent philosophical ideas which were forming in the work of his students. Terzi outlines Brunchvicg's defence of neo-Kantian judgement, historical analysis and the inextricability of the natural and humanist sciences to any rigorous system of philosophy, with wide-ranging implications for contemporary scholarship. (shrink)

This article reassesses Weber's position on the influence of Confucianism on China's failure to develop the modern form of capitalism by focusing on the conception of wealth among the merchants in the Ming and Qing dynasties. It starts with a review of the criticisms directed towards Weber's theses, including his claim about an affinity between Calvinism and the spirit of capitalism, and his assertion about the lack of moral tensions in Confucianism. We argue that despite the flaws in his analyses, (...) Weber's position that ideas matter is still relevant. The main shortcoming of his argument about the link between the Confucian value system and the failure of China to develop a modern form of capitalism is that he overlooked a critical element in this value system. This was the idea, widely shared among the merchants in late imperial China, of the desirability of disposing of one's wealth. This had the effect of discouraging the accumulation of capital in a period of incipent capitalism. While this idea was intrinsic to the Confucian intellectual tradition, it was also reinforced by the vulnerable position of the merchants under the omnipotent structure of state political power during the Ming dynasty. This shows that while ideas were crucial in preventing China from developing modern capitalism, they did not operate in isolation from the socio-political context as a historical force. (shrink)

Léon Brunschvicg's contribution to philosophical thought in fin-de-siècle France receives full explication in the first English-language study on his work. Arguing that Brunschvicg is crucial to understanding the philosophical schools which took root in 20th-century France, Pietro Terzi locates Brunschvicg alongside his contemporary Henri Bergson, as well as the range of thinkers he taught and influenced, including Lévinas, Merleau-Ponty, de Beauvoir, and Sartre. Brunschvicg's deep engagement with debates concerning spiritualism and rationalism, neo-Kantian philosophy, and the role of mathematics in philosophy (...) made him the perfect supervisor for a whole host of nascent philosophical ideas which were forming in the work of his students. Terzi outlines Brunchvicg's defence of neo-Kantian judgement, historical analysis and the inextricability of the natural and humanist sciences to any rigorous system of philosophy, with wide-ranging implications for contemporary scholarship. (shrink)

Sally Sedgwick presents a fresh account of Hegel's critique of Kant's theoretical philosophy. She argues that Hegel offers a compelling critique of and alternative to the conception of cognition that Kant defended in his 'Critical' period, and explores Hegel's claim to derive from Kantian doctrines clues to a superior form of idealism.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XX, Number 2, November 1994, pp. 261-287 Collingwood's Understanding of Hume S. K. WERTZ What was David Hume's reception in the British idealistic tradition? In this paper, I shall contribute a short chapter on this question by examining Hume's place in R. G. Collingwood's thought.1 Such an examination has been lacking in the literature, so what follows is a comprehensive study of Collingwood's use of Hume (...) throughout all of R.G.'s writings. I shall mainly focus on two main, unrelated discussions of Hume: first is the theory of the imagination which primarily occurs in The Principles of Art, and second is the set of relations between human nature and human history which is principally found in The Idea of History. These sections will be followed by a section on minor discussions and omissions and a conclusion. It is a common misconception that Collingwood (1889-1943) has little to offer Hume scholarship, and I wish to amend that here. Actually, Collingwood has good insights into the nature of the imagination and its role in human understanding, besides instructive thoughts on Hume on human nature and history, even though his discussion of the latter is flawed. This essay serves both historical and philosophical purposes. It is to sample Hume's place in early twentieth century British idealism at a time when he began to emerge as an important philosophical figure worthy of careful study. (By "idealism," I mean the philosophical movement which takes ideas to be an irreducible part of the world and whose program is opposed to both materialism and realism.) So Collingwood's portrait is historically interesting. But over and above this, it carries significant philosophical amendments, S. K. Wertz is at the Department of Philosophy, Texas Christian University, Box 30781, Fort Worth, TX 76129 USA. e-mail: [email protected] 262 S. K. Wertz criticisms, and suggestions about Hume's thought and the eighteenth century intellectual climate. Collingwood has mostly been studied as a philosopher of history or as an aesthetician, but not in toto from the perspective of one of the historical figures to whom he is deeply indebted. Such a view affords a portrait of Hume that is instructive and rewarding. The comparison of Hume and Collingwood lead us to finer appreciation of both philosophers. Let us first look at Collingwood's positive contribution. Imagination Collingwood begins his analysis by declaring his intentions: I shall...try to show that there are such things, to be with what Hume (whose account of them I shall take as my starting-point) called 'ideas' as distinct from 'impressions'. I shall try to show that there is a special activity of mind correlative to them, and that this is what we generally call imagination, as distinct from sensation on the one hand and intellect on the other. (PA 170-71, emphasis added) Why would Collingwood start with Hume's distinction between impressions and ideas? Undoubtedly, this means that Collingwood is willing to accept the validity of the distinction and to build on it. Isn't this a strange place for an idealist to begin? Not really. When we look at British philosophy at the turn of this century, we find idealists preoccupied with the distinction,2 so it is not extraordinary to find Collingwood utilizing it to some extent. Like most Oxford students of the time, Collingwood read Locke, Berkeley, and Hume in his undergraduate program. Consequently we find them in the problems he addresses. "It was Hume who first perceived the [Lockean] problem [of confusing sensation with imagination]," Collingwood attributes, "and tried to solve it by distinguishing ideas from impressions" (PA 200). In detail: He [Hume] was right when he laid it down that the immediate concern of thought is not with impressions but with ideas; that it is ideas, not impressions, that are associated with one another and thus built up into the fabric of knowledge; and that ideas, though 'derived' from impressions, are not mere relics of them like an after-taste of onions or an after-image of the sun (as Lockeans like Condillac supposed), but something different in kind: different, if not in what he... (shrink)

Se establece un diálogo hermenéutico entre las concurrencias y bifurcaciones del idealismo simbólico de Cassirer y el racionalismo alado de Bachelard en tres momentos. Primero, a partir de indicios bio-bibliográficos se construye el contexto de significación vital donde se anclan sus respectivas ideas; segundo, se establecen entre ellos paralelismos fundamentales, y, tercero, se ofrecen ejemplos de la terminología bachelardiana, cercana a la hermenéutica simbólica contemporánea. Con ello se expande la comprensión de los análisis de Cassirer acerca del pensamiento indirecto e (...) interpretativo hacia las relaciones del hombre y la cultura, así como al papel del símbolo en el tránsito de la naturaleza a la cultura. The article establishes a hermeneutical dialogue between the convergences and divergences of Cassirer's symbolic idealism and Bachelard's winged rationalism. First, on the basis of bio-bibliographical evidence, it reconstructs the context of vital signification in which the authors' respective ideas are rooted; secondly, it identifies the fundamental parallelisms between them; and, finally, it provides examples of Bachelardian terminology that resembles that of contemporary symbolic hermeneutics. This results in a broader understanding Cassirer's analyses of indirect and interpretive thought regarding the relations between man and culture, as well as of the role of the symbol in the shift form nature to culture. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophical discourse has deeply problematized the possibility of absolute existence. Hegel’s Foundation Free Metaphysics demonstrates that by reading Hegel’s Doctrine of the Concept in his Science of Logic as a form of Absolute Dialetheism, Hegel’s logic of the concept can account for the possibility of absolute existence. Through a close examination of Hegel’s concept of self-referential universality in his Science of Logic, Moss demonstrates how Hegel’s concept of singularity is designed to solve a host of metaphysical and epistemic paradoxes (...) central to this problematic. He illustrates how Hegel’s revolutionary account of universality, particularity, and singularity offers solutions to six problems that have plagued the history of Western philosophy: the problem of nihilism, the problem of instantiation, the problem of the missing difference, the problem of absolute empiricism, the problem of onto-theology, and the third man regress. Moss shows that Hegel’s affirmation and development of a revised ontological argument for God’s existence is designed to establish the necessity of absolute existence. By adopting a metaphysical reading of Richard Dien Winfield’s foundation free epistemology, Moss critically engages dominant readings and contemporary debates in Hegel scholarship. Hegel’s Foundation Free Metaphysics will appeal to scholars interested in Hegel, German Idealism, 19th- and 20th-century European philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, and contemporary European thought. (shrink)

To the bulk of the British reading public ‘contemporary French philosophy’ would seem to be interchangeable with ‘the works of M. Bergson.’ And it can scarcely be otherwise when, as an erudite correspondent of Le Temps relates, Paris now prints in a week one million books—as many as were printed annually in the reign of the Roi Soleil. For the proportion of these devoted to philosophy is not small. One voracious reader and professor of philosophy in Switzerland, Monsieur J. Benrubi (...) , has withstood for thirty years the annual avalanche of philosophical books, read steadily on, abstracted and collated his gleanings. In him we have a most competent guide. Familiar with every rivulet and path, and with the historic formation of the country, he now reveals to us the whole panorama. His encyclopaedic enterprise, 1 treating some hundred and sixty authors, is neither a chronicle nor a classification, except in a secondary way. It aims principally at tracing cross-currents in recent philosophies so as to discover their internal connexions, and thence in what direction present French thought is heading. M. Benrubi's scrupulousness in seeing nobody is left out tends perhapsto overcrowding, and his emphasis on that which coheres may somewhat overshadow that which divides. And it may be inevitable, too, with a field of figures so vast, that the accounts of some should be insufficiently detailed. But the total effect is substantial, and his volumes are invaluable to whomever would appreciate whence and whither French thought is proceeding. There are three threads to guide us through the labyrinth. The distinct though still interacting tendencies are described as ‘empirical and scientific positivism,’ ‘epistemological and critical idealism,’ and ‘metaphysical and spiritual positivism.’ Each rests on certain characteristics manifested with varying explicitness in the thought of its many representatives. I indicate summarily and quite inadequately some points of M. Benrubi's conclusions. (shrink)

To the bulk of the British reading public ‘contemporary French philosophy’ would seem to be interchangeable with ‘the works of M. Bergson.’ And it can scarcely be otherwise when, as an erudite correspondent of Le Temps relates, Paris now prints in a week one million books—as many as were printed annually in the reign of the Roi Soleil. For the proportion of these devoted to philosophy is not small. One voracious reader and professor of philosophy in Switzerland, Monsieur J. Benrubi, (...) has withstood for thirty years the annual avalanche of philosophical books, read steadily on, abstracted and collated his gleanings. In him we have a most competent guide. Familiar with every rivulet and path, and with the historic formation of the country, he now reveals to us the whole panorama. His encyclopaedic enterprise, 1 treating some hundred and sixty authors, is neither a chronicle nor a classification, except in a secondary way. It aims principally at tracing cross-currents in recent philosophies so as to discover their internal connexions, and thence in what direction present French thought is heading. M. Benrubi's scrupulousness in seeing nobody is left out tends perhapsto overcrowding, and his emphasis on that which coheres may somewhat overshadow that which divides. And it may be inevitable, too, with a field of figures so vast, that the accounts of some should be insufficiently detailed. But the total effect is substantial, and his volumes are invaluable to whomever would appreciate whence and whither French thought is proceeding. There are three threads to guide us through the labyrinth. The distinct though still interacting tendencies are described as ‘empirical and scientific positivism,’ ‘epistemological and critical idealism,’ and ‘metaphysical and spiritual positivism.’ Each rests on certain characteristics manifested with varying explicitness in the thought of its many representatives. I indicate summarily and quite inadequately some points of M. Benrubi's conclusions. (shrink)

To the bulk of the British reading public ‘contemporary French philosophy’ would seem to be interchangeable with ‘the works of M. Bergson.’ And it can scarcely be otherwise when, as an erudite correspondent of Le Temps relates, Paris now prints in a week one million books—as many as were printed annually in the reign of the Roi Soleil. For the proportion of these devoted to philosophy is not small. One voracious reader and professor of philosophy in Switzerland, Monsieur J. Benrubi (...) , has withstood for thirty years the annual avalanche of philosophical books, read steadily on, abstracted and collated his gleanings. In him we have a most competent guide. Familiar with every rivulet and path, and with the historic formation of the country, he now reveals to us the whole panorama. His encyclopaedic enterprise, 1 treating some hundred and sixty authors, is neither a chronicle nor a classification, except in a secondary way. It aims principally at tracing cross-currents in recent philosophies so as to discover their internal connexions, and thence in what direction present French thought is heading. M. Benrubi's scrupulousness in seeing nobody is left out tends perhapsto overcrowding, and his emphasis on that which coheres may somewhat overshadow that which divides. And it may be inevitable, too, with a field of figures so vast, that the accounts of some should be insufficiently detailed. But the total effect is substantial, and his volumes are invaluable to whomever would appreciate whence and whither French thought is proceeding. There are three threads to guide us through the labyrinth. The distinct though still interacting tendencies are described as ‘empirical and scientific positivism,’ ‘epistemological and critical idealism,’ and ‘metaphysical and spiritual positivism.’ Each rests on certain characteristics manifested with varying explicitness in the thought of its many representatives. I indicate summarily and quite inadequately some points of M. Benrubi's conclusions. (shrink)

Can philosophy offer reasonable grounds for the existence of a God possessing genuine religious significance and not proposed simply as the solution to a purely intellectual philosophical problem? Certainly many contemporary thinkers have insisted that no genuine religion could be based upon metaphysics. In this book, however, T. L. S. Sprigge examines sympathetically the most notable metaphysical systems of the last four centuries which purport to put religion on a rational footing and, after a thorough examination of their claims, considers (...) what kind of religious outlook they might support and how they actually affected the lives of their proponents. The thinkers studied include Spinoza, Hegel, T. H. Green, Bernard Bosanquet, Josiah Royce, A. N. Whitehead, and Charles Hartshorne, concluding with an exposition of the author's own viewpoint and a general discussion on the relation between metaphysics and religion. There is also a chapter on Kierkegaard as the most important critic of metaphysical religion. (shrink)

The growing number of universities today makes it relevant to consider again the idea of the university. Consulting the classics of the discussion, I argue that we must retain the idealist notions of knowledge, science and truth professed by Newman in his argument for liberal education, although he neglects the possible corruption of the university faculty. The problem of corruption is recognized by Jaspers, criticizing all idealist notions and leaving science and scholarship to rely only on existential commitment. The problem (...) for both classics, however, is that they conceive of academic freedom in an all-too individualist way. Instead, I argue that the idea of the academic republic should be taken seriously, i.e., that a contemporary idea of the university must include suggestions for university government comprising institutional checks and balances. Only such a constitutional notion of academic freedom may counter neo-liberal reification of higher education, science, and scholarship. (shrink)

Preparation for the Study of Theories of Law: Non-Universality of Law, Irreconcilable Epistemologies, Ideological Incipience; Theories in Metaphysical-Rational Epistemology: Divine and Prophetic Theories; Natural Law: Early Hindu, Chinese, Greek, Roman, and Modern; Theories in Idealist Epistemology; Theories in Empiricist Epistemology; Positivist: Early Hindu, Chinese, Later Bentham, Austin, Kelsen, Hart; Historical Von Savigny, Maine, Marx and Engels; Sociological Jhering, Ehrlich, Duguit, Jurisprudence of Interests, Free Law; Psychological Petrazycki; American Realist; Philosophical Framework; Expressions; Scandinavian Realist; Phenomenological; The Critical Legal Studies and (...) its Offshoots: Critical Legal Studies, Feminist Jurisprudence, Critical Race Theory; Legal Polycentricity. (shrink)

1. Naturalism Naturalism, it has been said, is the distinctive development in philosophy over the last thirty years. There has been a naturalistic turn away from the a priori methods of traditional philosophy to a conception of philosophy as continuous with natural science. The doctrine has been extensively discussed and has won considerable following in the USA. This is, on the whole, not true of Britain and continental Europe, where the pragmatist tradition never took root, and the temptations of scientism (...) in philosophy were less alluring. Contemporary American naturalism originates in the writings of Quine, the metaphysician of twentieth-century science. With extraordinary panache, he painted a largescale picture of human nature, of language and of the web of belief. I believe that in almost every major respect, it is, like the picture painted by Descartes, the great metaphysician of seventeenth-century science, mistaken. But it evidently appeals to the spirit of the times. So it is worthy of critical examination and careful refutation. I shall argue that the naturalistic turn is a cul-de-sac – a turn that is to be passed by if we are to keep to the highroad of good sense. Naturalism, like so many of Quine’s doctrines, was propounded in response to Carnap. As Quine understood matters, Carnap had been persuaded by Russell’s Our Knowledge of the External World that it is the task of philosophy to demonstrate that our knowledge of the external world is a logical construction out of, and hence can be reduced to, elementary experiences. Quine rejected the reductionism of Carnap’s Logischer Aufbau, and found the idealist basis uncongenial to his own dogmatic realist behaviourism, inspired by Watson and later reinforced by Skinner. The rejection of reductionism and ‘unregenerate realism’, Quine averred, were the sources of his naturalism (FME 72). What exactly was this? We can distinguish in Quine between three different but inter-related programmes for future philosophy: epistemological, ontological and philosophical naturalism. Naturalized epistemology is to displace traditional epistemology, transforming the investigation into ‘an enterprise within natural science’ (NNK 68) – a psychological enterprise of investigating how the ‘input’ of radiation, etc., impinging on the nerve endings of human beings can ‘ultimately’ result in an ‘output’ of our theoretical descriptions of the external world.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:460 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY accurate understanding of the mind of Aristotle. Nifo's shift on the question of Aristotle and immortality thus represents a noteworthy chapter in the history of Renaissance Aristotelianism.6x EDWAKDP. MAHONEY Duke University 6x I should like to thank the United States Government for a Fulbright fellowship during 1962-1963; the National Foundation for the Humanities for a fellowship during 1968-1969; and the Duke UniversityResearch Council for grants (...) for microfilms. BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WRITINGS OF JACOB LOEWENBERG Compiled by Edwin S. Budge It is hoped that all of Professor Loewenberg's published writings, exclusive of his many book reviews, are listed herein. His unpublished doctoral dissertation, "The Genesis of Hegel's Dialectical Method" (1911), is available on loan from Harvard University, although the "gist" of this, as Dr. Loewenberg has indicated, may be found in the introduction to the first item cited in the bibliography. Dr. Loewenberg, it might be added, also translated a short work by Gilbert Chinard, France for the Soldier (Berkeley: University of California, 1918), and quite likely was consulted by his wife Kate in the course of her translation of Emile Meyerson's Identity and Reality (New York: Macmillan Company, 1930; reprinted by Dover, 1962, and Peter Smith, 1963). Jacob Loewenberg's personal papers are in the possession of his daughter, Mrs. Jeannot Nyles, of Berkeley, California. 1912 1916 BIBLIOGRAPHYOF THE WRITINGSOF JACOBLOEWENBERG "Vorwort," pp. v-vi; "Einleitung: 'Die jugendlichen Denkversuche Hegels'," pp. vii-xxii; in Hegels Entwiir/e zur Enzyklopiidie und Propiideutik nach den Handschri/ten der Harvard-Universitiit. Mit einer Handschri[tprobe. By Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Herausgegeben yon Dr. J. Ltwenberg. Leipzig: Verlag von Felix Meiner, I912. xxiv, 59 pp. (Hegel-Archiv. Herausgegeben von Georg Lasson. Band I, Heft 1.) "Interpretation as a Self-Representative Process," The Philosophical Review, Vol. XXV, No. 3 (May, 1916), 420-423. "Mysticism and Idealism," University o/ California Chronicle, Vol. XVIII, No. 1 (January, 1916), 72-91. "An address before the Philosophical Union of the University of California, December 10, 1915." 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 461 "The Spirit of Hegel's Philosophy," University of California Chronicle, Vol. XVIII, No. 3 (July, 1916), 373-393. "The Teachings of Royce," The California Alumni Fortnightly, Vol. IX, No. 14 (September 30, 1916), 216-217. "Classic and Romantic Trends in Plato," The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. X, No. 3 (July, 1917), 215-236. "An address before the Philosophical Union of the University of California, February 23, 1917." "Josiah Royce: Interpreter of American Problems," University of California Chronicle, Vol. XIX, No. 1 (January, 1917), 39-47. "The Prophetic Songs of Swinburne," University of California Chronicle, Vol. XX, No. 10anuary, 1918), 106-115. "Preface," pp. vii-xii in Lectures on Modern Idealism. By Josiah Royce. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1919. Pp. 259. (Semicentennial Publications of the University of California, 1868-1918.) "Ethics and the War," Mills Quarterly, Vol. I, No. 4 0anuary, 1919), 6-9. "An address delivered at Mills College, October 18, 1918." "Multiplicity and the Social Order," The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. XII, No. 2 (April, 1919), 137-164. "President Wilson's Americanism," University of California Chronicle, Vol. XXI, No. 1 (January, 1919), 1-15. "Introduction," pp. 3-37 in Fugitive Essays; with an Introduction by Dr. J. Loewenberg. By Josiah Royce. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1920. Pp. 429. (Semicentennial Publications of the University of California, 1868-1918.) "Philosophy and Humanism," University of California Chronicle, Vol. XXIH, No. 3 (July, 1921), 298-318. "Read before the Kosmos Club of the University of California, April 4, 1921." "The Apotheosis of Mind in Modern Idealism," The Philosophical Reviewj Vol. XXXI, No. 3 (May, 1922), 215-236. "A fragment of a larger essay." "The Idea of Mutability in Literature," University of California Chronicle, Vol. XXIV, No. 2 (April, 1922), 129-151. "The Metaphysics of Critical Realism," pp. 167-194 in Issues and Tendencies in Contemporary Philosophy. Edited by George P. Adams and J. Loewenberg. 462 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Berkeley: University of California, 1923, Pp. 224. (University of California Publieations in Philosophy, VoL IV.) Read before the Philosophical Union of the University of California, March 30, 1923. "'The Metaphysics of Modern Scepticism," The Philosophical... (shrink)

Two themes, both from Husserl's later work, criss-cross in this Cologne dissertation: the move from objective science to the life-world, and the problem of the history of philosophy as a subject in Husserl's thought. The two themes are related, since the modern phenomenon of science, as that which has lost its roots in ordinary experience, is a phenomenon peculiar to the present historical condition of men and not a permanent human problem. According to Janssen, Husserl claims that philosophy has never (...) understood its own sense, and that the history of philosophy has always been an "empty intending" of what it is supposed to achieve; in phenomenology the intention is fulfilled, and its history comes to an end. Now a new sort of development, the clarification of what is already achieved, can be started. This understanding of history is neither deterministic nor random, Janssen says, but it is teleological; it allows science to be accepted as a meaningful achievement of man, and yet prevents science from suffocating freedom and discovery, as an outright idealist reading of history might force it to do. This understanding even demands--and makes possible--a special kind of critical responsibility in the scientist. Underlying this appreciation of history is Husserl's conviction that life is essentially a desire for truth. Philosophy reaches its definitive state by recovering the whole of human experience, especially by overcoming the abstract conception of experience which the objective sciences, and modern philosophy, have taken for the whole; it does this by recognizing and studying the Lebenswelt. Janssen develops these ideas clearly and persuasively.--R. S. (shrink)

Many thinkers have said that a God whose existence is argued for metaphysically would have no religious significance even if he existed. This book examines the God or Absolute which emerges in various metaphysical systems and asks whether he, she, or it could figure in any genuinely religious outlook. The systems studied are those of Spinoza, Hegel, T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley (very briefly), Bernard Bosanquet, Josiah Royce, A. N. Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne. There is also a chapter on Kierkegaard (...) as the most important critic of metaphysical religion (especially Hegelian Christianity). The book ends with a statement of a form of absolute or pantheistic idealism espoused by the author and an indication of what religious significance it may have. (shrink)

The main purpose of this book is to offer a comparative evaluation of the early works of Marx and Lukács, "these two most important texts of 'unorthodox' Marxism". Feenberg refers here to the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts on the one hand, and History and Class Consciousness on the other. At a somewhat more general level, Feenberg writes in defense of, or more accurately in preparation for a new stage in, the philosophy of praxis. To proceed directly to his conclusion, Feenberg's (...) analyses culminate in the recommendation of a synthesis between Marx's concept of the internal relation between subject and object, or their participatory identity, and Lukács' mediation-theory of rationality, according to which reification is an intrinsic element at the dialectical level of reason, which is thus a mediation of nature on the one hand, and the subject-object relation on the other. In less complex terms, Feenberg recommends the development, from elements of Marxist and Lukácsian doctrines, of a "non-creationist concept of practice", i.e., one in which nature is not created by man, a concept that is also not pure objectivism, i.e., that prevents a complete identity of subject and object. Feenberg thus perceives the central problem in the early Marx and Lukács as one that links them more intimately with Absolute Idealism than his own analysis makes explicit. The "fundamental flaw in the philosophies of practice of Marx and Lukács" is, to put it as briefly and clearly as possible, that in these doctrines, man is still a creator-god. (shrink)

Essay on Transcendental Philosophy presents the first English translation of Salomon Maimon's principal work, originally published in Berlin in 1790. In this book, Maimon seeks to further the revolution in philosophy wrought by Kant's Critique of Pure Reason by establishing a new foundation for transcendental philosophy in the idea of difference. Kant judged Maimon to be his most profound critic, and the Essay went on to have a decisive influence on the course of post-Kantian German Idealism. A more recent (...) admirer was Gilles Deleuze who drew on Maimon's Essay in constructing his own philosophy of difference. This long-overdue translation makes Maimon's brilliant analysis and criticism of Kant's philosophy accessible to an English readership for the first time. The text includes a comprehensive introduction, a glossary, translators' notes, a bibliography of writings on Maimon and an index. It also includes translations of correspondence between Maimon and Kant and a letter Maimon wrote to a Berlin journal clarifying the philosophical position of the essay, all of which bring the book's context alive for the modern reader. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Controversy Between Schelling and Jacobi LEWIS S. FORD SCHELLING, ALONGWITH FICHTE, has suffered the fate of being labelled one of tIegel's predecessors. Richard Kroner provides the classic expression of this viewpoint in his monumental study, Von Kant bis Hegel, which examines Schelling's thought primarily for its contribution to Hegel's final synthesis.I In English we have Josiah Royce's sympathetic and lively account of Schelling's early romantic exuberance, regarded as (...) a transitional stage in the development of German idealism. 2 But this emphasis on the early ScheUing has led to an unfortunate neglect of his work subsequent to the break with Hegel in 1807. Schelling's romanticism, so ably documented by E. D. Hirsch, Jr., 3 can only be regarded as one phase in the total sweep of his thought, for, after the break with Hegel, Schelling produced at least three major works: the essay •ber das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit,4 wrestling with the problem of evil and human freedom, the fragmentary Weltalter, 5 which in scope and dialectical intricacy should be compared with Hegel's Logic, and the Philosophie der Mythologie und Offenbarung, 6 furnishing a fundamental critique of the whole dialectical enterprise. Save for the essay on human freedom, however, none of these works were published during his lifetinm, as Schelling withdrew from the public eye after his controversies with Hegel and Jacobi. Thus the publishing histories of Schelling and Hegel are exactly reverse. Schelling rushed into print his early speculative gropings, while Hegel suppressed his/making the Ph~nomenologic des Geistes his first major publication. Then while Hegel's Logic and Encyclopedia were being publicly acclaimed, Schelling remained silent. This accident of history is largely responsible for the illusion that Schelling is the older of the two x (Tiibingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1921-24),2 vols. 2The Spirit of Modern Philosophy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1892), Lecture VI, 164-189. Wordsworth and ScheUing, A Typological Study of Romanticism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960),Yale Studies in English, Vol. CXLV. 4Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph yon Sehelling, Philosophische Untersuchungen i~berdas Wesen der menschlichen Freyheit und die damit zusaramenhdngenden Gegenstdnde, 1809. Reprinted in the Sdmmtliche Werke, Erste Abtheilung, VII. Band (Stuttgart und Augsburg: J. G. Cotta, 1856), 331-416. English translation by James Gutmann: Of Human Freedom (Chicago: Open Court, 1936). 5Three fragmentary versions of the Weltalter have been published. The Urfassungen of 1811 and 1813were edited by Manfrcd SehrSter and published as a separate Naehlassband to the M~nchener Jubildumsausgabe of the collected works: Die Weltalter, Fragmente (Munich: Biederstein, Leibniz, 1946). A later version is published in S.W. I: 8, pp. 195-344,which has been translated by Frederick de Wolfe Bolman, Jr. : The Ages of the World (NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1942). 6Philosophie der Mythologie is published in S.W. II: 1-2; Philosophie der Offenbarung in S.W. II: 3-4. These essays were first collected and published by Herman Nohl in Hegels theologische Jugendschriften (Tiibingen: 1907).T. M. Knox translated them into English, with an introduction by Richard Kroner: GeorgWilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Early Theological Writings (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948). [75] 76 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY thinkers (actually he was five years Hegel's junior), who retired from the philosophical scene after making his contribution to the Hegelian synthesis. Paul Tillich's doctoral dissertations s and Ernst Cassirer's studies in post-Kantian thought 9 made serious inroads on this conception, yet the iIInsion persisted. Their insistence on the importance of the later Schelling has been brilliantly sustained by two recent studies: Horst Fuhrmans's Schellings Philosophie der Weltalter1~and Walter Schulz's Die Vollendung des deutschen Idealismus in der Spdtphilosophie Schellings, ~ and we may hope that the conventional estimate of Schelling will be drastically revised. Fuhrmans has demonstrated that the split between the early and the later Schelling must be placed in the year 1806 when he came in contact with Franz yon Bander in Munich, who encouraged him to delve deeper into the theological and cosmological ramifications of Jacob Boehme's thought. TM The reorientation this caused is apparent in the essay on human freedom, published in 1809, but it was not fully exploited until the... (shrink)

Through a series of brief but specific internal critiques of Spinoza's system, Sullivan seeks to show that Spinoza tried to be both a supernaturalist and a naturalist, an idealist and a realist.--L. S. F.

Kant claims that the faculty of judgment and the Critique of Judgment are necessary for the completion of the critical system. He states that judgment has a special role to play within the critical system. This view is reiterated by commentators such as Vleeschauwer who says that the third Critique “truly brings to completion the whole Critical philosophy” and Macmillan who calls the third Critique “the ‘crowning phase’ of Critical Philosophy.”.

Critical Idealism in the Eyes of Kant's Contemporaries BRIGITTE SASSEN THE IDEALISM DEBATES between Kant and his contemporaries were protracted and vehement. Interestingly, all parties in the debates -- Kant's critics, defend- ers, and Kant himself -- began with basically the same conception of idealism as a position that is either skeptical with regard to the inde- pendent existence of the external world , or that denies the existence of ma- terial substance outright .' Positions quickly (...) diverge, however, when it comes to transcendental idealism. Kant's crit- ics argued consistently that transcendental idealism reduces to material idealism. Kant rejected these arguments, insisting, in turn, that transcendental idealism is the only escape from material idealism. 2 Nonetheless, he was influenced by these criticisms. He repeatedly returns to the differentiation between transcendental and material idealism in the years following 17 81,3 and he casts these differences ' This is a paraphrase of the definition that appears in the introductory paragraph of the B- Refutation . Kant's contemporaries might not have bothered to make the differentiation between skeptical and dogmatic idealism, but they certainly agreed with the general terms in which Kant describes idealism. His definition is closely echoed by.. (shrink)

John Findlay's eminently readable book should be a valuable addition to the library of anyone who reads Kant as a protopositivist, a Marburg-type epistemologist, as having been primarily concerned to dialogue with David Hume, or as significant merely as the precursor of absolute idealism. Taking Kant seriously in his own right, Findlay presents an overview of the Critical corpus which seeks to demonstrate the continuity of Kant's metaphysical commitment, his insistence on the "thinkable continuity between the phenomenal and (...) the noumenal, and the necessity of the latter to the understanding of the former". Kant's philosophic concerns are shown to come out of the metaphysical tradition of Leibniz and Wolff and always presume a rational world order within which the possibilities of finite human knowledge and of morality are to be grounded. (shrink)

These readings in the philosophy of education are designed to allow issues to emerge and to allow students to see how they arise, how they can be dealt with, and how a philosophy of education might be built. Of course no gathering of disparate works can deliver on that kind of editorial promise. However, this company of contributors is distinguished, and most of their entries provocative and interesting. The first section is designed to show what is special about our age (...) and what must be taken into account in order to think critically about modern issues in education. In this section Talcott Parsons, Cassirer, Melvin Seeman, Wm. H. Whyte, Marcuse, Jung, Sartre, and D. Bell talk about specialization, alienation, organization man, one-dimensional man, anxiety about values, and the knowledge explosion. This is the most "with-it" section and paints a fair portrait of our times. The last three sections are more conventional and more philosophical. There is a section on methodology which finds D. J. O'Conner, Dewey, and Whitehead discussing the nature of philosophy and which closes with Buber's opening pages from I and Thou. The last two sections have contributions by Plato, St. Augustine, Locke, Kant, Hegel, Dewey, Polanyi, and Maritain among others. These sections deal with questions of learning and with some "isms". All the sections have critical bibliographies which are enlightened, useful, and up-to-date. There is a glossary of technical terms. On the whole this is a strong anthology. Each of the four sections is sufficiently unified to provide a helpful context for the readings within it.--S. O. H. (shrink)

The philosophical faculty of the Jesuit Berchmanskolleg in Pullach has long since made its mark in the publishing world, and the new series of philosophical studies from Father Lotz and his associates, of which these two volumes are an auspicious beginning, shows every sign of living up to the high standard we have come to expect. Volume I is a collection of five essays: a comparison between the Thomistic and Kantian theory of knowledge, by Fr. de Vries; the transcendental method (...) in Kant and in Scholasticism, by Fr. Lotz; the Absolute in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft, by Fr. Brugger; formalism in Kant’s ethics, by Dr. Schmucker; and the relationship between Kant and Heidegger, by Fr. Coreth. It concludes with a particularly useful bibliography of scholastic literature on Kant between 1920 and 1955, compiled by Fr. Brugger. After Jansen, Maréchal is the scholastic writer with most published studies on Kant to his credit, and it is not surprising that his influence should make itself felt in the present volume. His monumental Le point de départ de la métaphysique marked a definite turning–point in the scholastic attitude towards Kant, and one has only to read this collection of studies to realise how the atmosphere has changed in the course of the last fifty years. Fr. de Vries devotes almost two–thirds of his essay to what St. Thomas and Kant hold in common with regard to the discursive nature of human understanding, the structure of the sense–image and its relation to the intellectual concept, though he also brings out the fundamental difference between the two on the questions of self–consciousness, natural theology and the reality of the external world. Not only does he show a healthy respect for the many grains of truth in the philosophy of Kant, but he insists that Thomists have much to learn from the German philosopher on the question of strict, critical method. Scholastics of the traditional school were satisfied with what Fr. Lotz describes as the “objective method” and rejected the “subjective” as smacking of subjectivism or idealism. In the longest essay of the five, Fr. Lotz compares the Kantian and Scholastic methods. Kant himself described his Kritik der reinen Vernunft as a “treatise on method rather than a scientific system”, and in the course of the book he condemns the objective approach as dogmatic and uncritical, leaving only the subjective method, which rules out any possibility of metaphysics. Fr. Lotz rightly asserts that even the most modern scholastic cannot dispense with the objective method, but he maintains that it demands to be completed by the subjective. Many scholastics will agree with him on the usefulness of the latter, and indeed an amount of research has been done in this field in recent decades. But how many will agree when he says that scholastic objectivism includes the subjective or transcendental method as the only way, or the only basis on which objectivism can stand? Maréchal’s influence is evident in his treatment of the faculties of the soul. But, however one may quibble at individual points in the book, it nevertheless remains a very valuable contribution to the scholastic literature on Kant. (shrink)