This paper studies in detail about the early years of José Gaos (1900- 1969) and his education in philosophy and literature. Therefore, we know that their studies (academic or not) were not purely “philosophical” in 1915. Literature and philosophy played in Gaos an equally important role. The first real encounter with philosophy happens before he comes to Valencia in 1915; but in this year Gaos also receives a strong education, in aesthetic and literary, through press and philosophical journals, and especially (...) within the group formed with Max Aub, José Medina Echeverría and his brother Carlos Gaos. (shrink)

This introductory textbook is a combination of text and anthology, and also includes student exercises. It intends to be analytic in its approach, and the readings as well as the text are almost exclusively confined to recent analytic concerns. As its point of departure the author takes Broad's distinction between speculative and critical philosophy, with critical philosophy identified with analysis. As illustrative of the use of this distinction it is suggested that science has increasingly eliminated questions about "life and the (...) universe" from appropriate speculation. Consequently philosophy is to aid in the coordination of scientific conclusions into a "balanced world-perspective," but philosophy does not interpret the whole of reality. The charge that all people, after all, have a metaphysical position is recognized but avoided by the claim that no clear analysis of the whole of reality is available, and by the proposal that no criteria are available to distinguish a better speculative theory from a less valid one. Critical philosophy is to analyze the assumptions of science, religion and ethics, not in order to develop a speculative system but to clarify how these assumptions function. Critical philosophy studies ideas about the world, more properly, the logical relation of such ideas, and not the world itself. The objectivity of such ideas lies in the agreement about rules for the use of such ideas. Having clarified the function of philosophy, interpretations are offered of meaning, truth, logic and explanation. By now one should not be confused, for it is the first requirement of the philosopher to be clear as to what he is doing. However, one may fear that even analytically inclined beginning students might have preferred a more analytic and thereby more clarified approach to the fundamental distinction between speculation and analysis upon which basis the entire book is projected.--H. A. D. (shrink)

This volume, included in the recently established Library of Philosophy and Religion, devotes its primary attention to recent discussion within analytic philosophy concerning the challenge which determinism offers to the concept of freedom and, thereby, to Christian theism. Although the author does not argue that determinism has been established, he does conclude that it is an empirical proposal and may well represent the situation. He is prepared to fall back upon a libertarianism if necessary, but considers determinism at face value (...) in order to confront the most serious opposition to his proposed compatibilism. There may be a sufficient condition for all acts, which would be, thereby, a determinism. Young’s problem is to establish a compatibilism so that even if a sufficient condition for all acts does hold, man is still free and responsible, and a Christian theism could be preserved. He proceeds to analyze four types of sufficient condition: 1) some laws of logic are sufficient for all outcomes; 2) antecedent causal conditions account for all outcomes; 3) God’s infallible knowledge and His eternal nature are the sufficient conditions for whatever happens; 4) an omnipotent deity is the sufficient condition of all outcomes. Young then attempts to establish that a doctrine of freedom and responsibility is compatible with each of these conditions and, thereby, Christian theism is, to that extent, secured. He offers a very careful analysis of each alternative, considering the strongest claims of recent analysts, and still finds a doctrine of responsible freedom viable, analysed in terms of ability and power to act. In the course of his analysis he gives more attention than the skeptic usually offers to the content of the skeptic’s world, and what would be involved in its analysis of freedom, action, responsibility, and evil. The skeptic’s world offers more theoretical problems than the skeptic’s neglect of his own positive position and his confining of analysis to a critical role has usually acknowledged. Although one might not have expected it to arise in such quarters, it is now well established that analytic philosophy offers a well developed and complex elaboration of natural theology and philosophy of religion, and in the revival of natural theology in analytic circles this book deserves careful attention.—H.A.D. (shrink)

The first volume from the work of the Séminaire d’Etudes Phénoméologiques et Herméneutiques as a section of the Centre d’Histoire des Sciences et des Doctrines, this book is one of the latest statements in the continuing dialogue between analytic philosophy and phenomenology. In this instance there is the unique advantage of a very recent and careful statement of the results of the research of European thinkers offering a careful look at contemporary Anglo-Saxon philosophy. The first part of the volume is (...) an extended essay by Ricoeur concerning the language of action. Ricoeur, very familiar with Anglo-Saxon philosophy, is one of the most versatile thinkers to involve himself in the conversation between these two great philosophical traditions. He concentrates upon the contribution made by the insights of ordinary language philosophy to phenomenology, as well as the basic divergence between them. He deals especially with the difference between intersubjective interaction and the more scientific description of action as a part of the description of nature, while continuing his well known analysis of motives and causes. In this section he extends special attention to Anscombe, R. Taylor, C. Taylor, J. L. Austin, Strawson, Feinberg, Kenny, and von Wright. He also sets ordinary language philosophy in relationship to Husserl, thus giving special attention to the role of intentionality. (shrink)

Estudio sobre el alcance de la concepción del pensamiento hispanoamericano en José Gaos, en su obra de los años 40. A History of Latin American Philosophy (s. XVI- XIX): / José Gaos (1900-1969).

Estudio sobre diferentes aspectos, desde la E. Moderna a la Contemporánea, en el pensamiento de J. Gaos en sus textos de los años 40.

In this careful and fresh analysis of the relationships between facts, words and beliefs, the author attempts to clarify how images and words relate to the world so as to establish beliefs and support knowledge. The reader is first presented with the ontological background of the analysis, including the status of sense-data, the nature of universals and our experience of them, and the epistemological status of the world. Sprigge then turns to a discussion of semiotic background including pragmatic and semantic (...) meaning, and the nature of reference. After supplying these foundations, the heart of the book concentrates upon the act of believing with attention focused upon the idea of the image, and the distinction drawn between imagism, imagist-activism, and imagist-mentalism, the latter of which he supports. He also defends phenomenalism against the criticisms of Austin, while developing as well a doctrine of intentionality rooted in Findlay’s interpretation of Meinong. He offers an extensive critique of behaviorism leading to his imagist-mentalism position, while his analysis of belief takes serious issue with Russell. (shrink)

This is a very readable survey of recent analytic philosophy of religion, concerned primarily with problems of religious language and meaning. Consequently, philosophy of religion is seen as an aspect of epistemology. The book should serve very well as an introduction to philosophy of religion as engaged in by analytic thinkers, especially in regard to their analysis of Christian thought. A major virtue of the book is that it extends beyond the positivist’s concern with verification in order to survey much (...) of the discussion of religious language offered more recently. It is suggested that the positivistic crisis is now history, and consequently religious discourse deserves and is receiving the careful attention it requires without being subject to the many a priori biases which infected positivistic interpretation of such language. The author appears unsatisfied with religious language analyzed in a variety of performatory ways, and seeks some hint of objective knowledge. Language analyzed in the context of models appears suggestive. It relates religions language in an appropriate way to recent theories of scientific language, and allows for a fruitful correlation of fact and faith. The emphasis upon models for the interpretation of religious language paves the way for a reinterpretation of the doctrine of analogy while such analogy, at least for the believer, escapes the danger of an infinite analogical regress.—H. A. D. (shrink)

Jaspers’s autobiography presents reflection upon the career and work of one of Germany’s leading existential philosophers. He describes briefly his early life and offers reflection upon his study and work in psychiatry. One can readily find the seeds of his later philosophical reflections evident in his General Psychopathology. Jaspers also presents illuminating discussion of his academic career, his political reflections, and comments upon the relationship of his philosophical analysis to his theological orientation. He offers extended discussion of each of his (...) major philosophical books, with insight into the origin and intentions of each volume. In addition, he presents valuable comments upon the philosophical climate of Germany against which he succeeded in reacting with vigor. Special attention is given to Rickert and E. Mayer. His rather detailed description of his relationship with Heidegger is especially illuminating. Although both of these thinkers played a leading role in the development and elaboration of German existentialism, there has been little direct and explicit consideration of the works of one by the other, or comments upon their "Being-With." Jaspers tells of his early and friendly relationship with Heidegger, their long working conversations, how their thought wandered down different pathways, and his reaction to Heidegger’s involvement in the rise of National Socialism. He also writes of his reaction to Heidegger’s Being and Time, of his unfulfilled intention to write seriously upon this work, and of how divorced his own thought was from Heidegger’s way, so that it did not even affect his own philosophical development. He describes the gradual cooling of the early friendship, and the eventual cessation of the long conversations and visits. All of the above offers a more intimate glimpse into the intersubjectivity of two of Europe’s leading thinkers, as seen by one of the participants, than has been readily available to the Western public to date. Perhaps someday there will be a publication of whatever Jaspers-Heidegger correspondence remains extant.—H.A.D. (shrink)

The first of a promised trilogy, to be followed by studies of Logic and the Theologians, and Philosophy and the Theologians. Professor Holmer is a superb iconoclast, and the idols he loves to smash are metaphysics, theories, big ideas, ideologies, philosophies, and philosophical theologies. The book is very subtle in analyzing the logic of religious language, which language succeeds very well without philosophical interpretations attempting to state or restate its "meaning." The essay is a careful blending of Kierkegaardian motifs with (...) the linguistic methodologies of the later Wittgenstein. There are few books as successful in elaborating the nuances of the Biblical language unencumbered by theories attempting to reinterpret this language. The tendency to reinterpret and translate in order to provide "the meaning" is the constant, unsuccessful, and unnecessary, temptation of the age. Such attempts inevitably conclude by offering another language and another meaning, and seriously distorting, if not losing, the meaning of the original. No such philosophical translation is necessary if one will but heed the logic and grammar of the original language, which has its own inner structure, message, and meaning, deserving of careful attention, and quite sufficient to keep bright young minds busy. Holmer loves the profundity of simplicity, and would call all who are tempted by abstractions and metaphysics, which are surely the core of the devil’s grammar, to return to the simplicity of the original with its own unique depth and challenge. The "old old story" need not be made "new," nor does it require philosophical explanation. The performatory utterances of the Hebrew children and their Christian offspring are sufficient if one will but study their logic. In the Western world’s attempt to wed Jerusalem and Athens, Holmer will remain in Jerusalem, requiring little from Athens. While needing no philosophy or metaphysics, he nevertheless seems to offer a very intricate philosophy of language, meaning, fact, explanation, reason, concepts, and knowledge, traveling upon this Wittgensteinian way as if no serious challenge had been offered to this anti-philosophical philosophy, and to the anti-metaphysical polemic contained therein; and as if these proposals themselves did not border on the edge of their own metaphysical ideology and vision regarding words and thoughts. One hopes that the promised sequels will deal more directly with the suggestion that all metaphysics be eliminated, for it simply will not do to replace one ideology with another in the name of not having any at all. In spite of this nagging problem, the book is worthwhile.—H.A.D. (shrink)

This anthology of previously published essays brings together some of the best scholars in the growing dialogue between two manifestations of man's existence, the literary and the religious. This is not simply a discussion of how theologians influenced literature, or how literature influenced theology, but treats the variety of approaches to the relationship as well as the impact of each manifestation upon the other. Attention is given to the humanizing function of both in a period when humanizing, even among the (...) educated, is long overdue. Special attention is given to the various and ambiguous ways in which literature and religion deal with man's ultimate perplexities. That they do is clear, but how they differ in doing so is far from clear. Hence one notes the religious character of the literary creative process, the development of literary models of theological criticism, the revelatory function of poetry, and the evaluative function of literature. Insight is offered the philosopher regarding literature as the extension of conviction, the logic of literary expression, and the development of a logic of the possible. The growing dialogue between religion and literature evidenced in this volume as already quite mature leads to regret that one might seek in vain for comparable maturity in the parallel dialogue between literature and philosophy.--H. A. D. (shrink)

This collection of essays is presented in memory of Ronald Gregor Smith of The University of Glasgow, the well known translator of Martin Buber. Smith’s constant concern with the problems of secularization made the subject of the memorial volume most appropriate. The wide respect for Professor Smith’s thought, his visiting appointments in both Europe and the United States, and the fact that Scotland has long served as a theological bridge between European and Anglo-Saxon interests accounts for essays by S. M. (...) Ogden, W. McKane, H. Wardlaw, I. Nicol, D. Templeton, A. D. Galloway, H. Gollwitzer, and E. Bethge as well as the editor. A dynamic view of history as the avenue for speaking of God in a secular age is the common theme. Although the essays concentrate on theological concerns with secularization, Nicol and Templeton make extensive use of Collingwood’s philosophy of history as an approach to problems of history and transcendence. (shrink)

This is an anthology in which all but one of the essays have been previously published. Western religious thought has made use of, or appropriated, or remained in dialogue with every major philosophical development from Platonism to Marxism. One of the latest versions of such appropriation, discovered as many would think in a most unlikely place, is the appropriation of analytic philosophy. A new natural theology is abroad in the land, and this volume attempts quite successfully to capture its current (...) state. If Flew and MacIntyre offered the first version of this dialogue and found analytic philosophy detrimental to western theism, this volume recognizes that more recent analytic philosophy has offered a second version and discovered analytic methodology as supportive of theistic philosophical persuasions. Essays by Ross, Rowe, Swinburne and Horsburgh consider the contribution of modal logic. Other essays by Alston, Bennett, and Hick, discuss the divine nature. Language and religion is developed by Ross, Pike, Plantinga, Rowe, Kenny, Mavrodes, Savage, and Donnelly. Miracle language is investigated by Holland and Dietl, while Gill discusses verification, and Chisholm the self. Although one may regret that some writers, Geach or Phillips, for example, are not included, it is time to recognize that natural theology has revived in our day by means of analytic philosophy, and this collection is an early and very successful reminder, as well as functioning as a good text for courses in the latest in philosophical theology on the Anglo-Saxon scene.—H. A. D. (shrink)

This is a rich and rewarding book although its richness will be easily overlooked. It is in fact one of the first efforts to return American theology to one of its classical traditions, a theology of religious experience, not in the manner of scientism but religious experience in the manner of everyday human orientation. A review of this book may easily leave the impression of sentimental piety and lack of realism. Nothing could be further from the truth. The book is (...) anti-sentimental, post-secular theology, and post-existential. It is a new treatise on religious affection. What for many are abstract or empty theological categories are here given a direct and immediate meaning in everyday experience even in the midst of technological society. Modern man, identified as radial man in a radial world, lives in the presence of power with the problem of appropriating this power. To analyze this situation and in addition to more familiar thinkers, the author draws on often neglected sources which nevertheless have a living influence in his history—Edwards, Schleiermacher, Bunyan, Coleridge, and the New England Divine David Brainard. Conscious of the secularization of our day, but not in the tradition of "Death of God" theology, he isolates and analyzes the immediate and meaningful character of religious experience even in secular society. There also one seeks orientation to the powers which impinge upon one providing the central feature of religion. Faith is distinguished from both rationalism and voluntarism while returning to the Edwardian concept of "religious affection" as a total personal response to these powers. As power makes its impact upon us experientially in suffering, believing finds its place as a "form of valuing with self-restraint," and as "admiring with humility." Believing in God involves the self being diminished and enlarged, both fear and gladness, the experiential center of justification by grace through faith. The author offers thereby an elaboration of Kantian categories which provides conditions of experience. Those who expect an experiential approach to religion to be more scientific will be disappointed, and those who wish greater exactness will find the categories too metaphorical, but those who read with any religious sympathy and sensitivity will find not only a rewarding analysis of human experience but also a new direction in American theology. Even sensitive readers, however, will remain troubled by the possibility of interpreting the same experiences with nonreligious categories. That alternative is hardly discussed, the debate with purely secular categories is seldom joined, and the resolution of such an option seems to remain with the basic orientation of the reader, which is what religious faith or affection is all about. Those who have any interest in the possibility of a religious orientation to the powers in the midst of which we move daily should read this book.—H. A. D. (shrink)

A leading psychologist at the Menninger Foundation analyzes the current cultural situation where deep unbelief alienates itself from classical belief. He recognizes that unbelief is not just a simple negation of belief but is itself pluralistic, and the varieties of unbelief have now become the attitudes of masses of modern men. The author makes extensive use of recent philosophical reflection. He is also well aware of how social policy may tend to replace what had once been religious goals and institutions, (...) and how secular institutions may become the vehicle of sacred values. Both belief and unbelief are understood as aspects of man’s pursuit of happiness, although the classical philosophical considerations of this happiness principle are never debated. The psychological foundations of the book lie in psychoanalytic object relations theory suggesting an isomorphism between personal relations and the relations between the self and reality. Overbeliefs, [[sic]] whether secular or religious, are analyzed as a function of such object relations. With this in mind the author treats, for both believers and unbelievers, problems of dependency and autonomy, mystery, options, Providence, and fantasy and reality. The analysis and suggestions will be helpful to the lay audience but will not seem especially new to trained philosophers. Strangely enough, the author himself seems to remain in the position between belief and unbelief. He understands each side sufficiently well so as not to reveal decision for either but offers instead a strong philosophically supported plea for tolerance. It is even stranger, in a book concentrating upon the alienation from belief, that so much analysis is given to the nature, content, and psychology of belief. Unfortunately, what one misses the most is what is most needed and desired in a more secular culture; a profound and penetrating analysis of the psychology or psychologies of the unbeliever. Just how the sincere secular man’s psychological character operates to affirm unbelief, involving the psychological analysis of his character so that we may understand his attitude toward anxiety, despair, suicide, hope, self-respect, concern and care, the psychology of tolerance, mortality and death, meaning and meaninglessness surely deserve the same depth and care of analysis that hundreds of years in the psychology of belief has offered, but this, one does not find. One can only hope that out of his extensive clinical experience the author will further reveal the deep ambiguities and psychological character of the sincere unbeliever and his internal struggle with the good, the true, and the beautiful. In such an analysis the profound struggle of unbelief with any classical theories of man’s natural inclination towards belief, clarifying precisely what is being denied, and how one negates it and lives with this negation psychologically, would form a fascinating adventure into the psychological processes of contemporary secular man.—H.A.D. (shrink)

The author, a member of the faculty in philosophy at Visva-Bharati University, produced this volume under appointment as Visiting Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, after having studied in England. These four essays are concerned with recent analytic thought, concentrating upon the problem of identity and the experiments of reflection which have appeared in modern British philosophy, such as Strawson’s world of nothing but sound. Chandra’s central concern is to analyse the relationship between identity and continuity, and to (...) show that these concepts are not identical. Thus the book is an extended essay in conceptual clarification and logical geography. Saying that a is identical with b is not to say that a is continuous with b. All of this is undertaken because the author finds this inappropriate identification pervasive in contemporary philosophy, and the source of considerable logical confusion, especially in the consideration of personal identity. As an underlying theme attention is also focused upon the relevance of this issue to the debate concerning philosophical skepticism. Strawson’s sound world is seen as an attempt to refute the skeptic, which attempt fails because of Strawson’s failure to distinguish between identity and continuity. With the failure of Strawson’s attack upon the skeptic, and perhaps the phenomenalist as well, his defense of material bodies is thereby undermined. In addition to Strawson, Chandra studies Price, Ryle, Hick, and the very recent work on personal identity by Parfit. The author concludes that identity is consistent with discontinuous existence. He also offers an analysis of after-images, including not only visual after-images but after-images of taste as well. A further underlying theme is the use of science in such thought experiments, for they are frequently presented as if they were of a scientific character, thus exaggerating scientific capabilities. However, the nature of the relationship between philosophy and science is hardly clarified, and the nature of scientific limits remains vague throughout the book. Chandra has isolated a unique feature of contemporary analytic philosophy for consideration, for few others have so concentrated upon this strange feature of thought experiment which pervades British philosophy, nor the identification of identity and continuity. The book would have been improved tremendously, however, if the author had only indicated much more clearly than he does the philosophical conclusions which he wishes to draw from his reflections. These constantly remain uncertain and ambiguous.—H.A.D. (shrink)