Written in 1949 and recently expanded for its third edition, this volume ranks, along with Löwith's book on Heidegger, as one of the two or three definitive studies of Existenzphilosophie in print. Müller shows how Heidegger's Seinsdenken really fulfills some of the perennial aims and resolves some of the deepest paradoxes of traditional philosophizing, and is not the radical departure it seems to be. This is a most refreshing and readable work, and it is unfortunate for American students that it (...) has not been translated.—T. E. V. (shrink)
This book argues that The question, What is religion? is a religious question, that cannot be answered by philosophy. In method, the book is part theological, part philosophical, and part historical, with no clear differentiation between them. It is an interesting specimen of the little-known philosophical school of "presuppositionalism," which has been influenced by recent Dutch Calvinist theologians, including Dooyeweerd.—T. E. V.
This is the first of the St. Thomas More lecture series given at Yale, and is written by one of the most noted Catholic intellectual historians. Presented to a general student audience, it traces in fluent style, with allusions in as well as outside of philosophy proper, the gradual decline of the dimension of the divine as a contemporary historical reality. Father Murray concludes that the "Death of God" in our times has brought theology back from preoccupation with correct articulations (...) to the fundamental problem of the "presence" of God in human life as it was understood in Biblical and patristic times.—T. E. V. (shrink)
A generous and articulate work, written for students beginning a study of philosophy, as well as for the general public. Its author, Professor at Northampton College of Advanced Technology in London, argues that "the impulse to philosophize springs from human perplexities and these are illuminated by the tradition of philosophy." The book is reminiscent of John MacMurray in content, though in style it is warmer and less polemical.—T. E. V.
A systematic, capable, Catholic theory of history, combining historical analysis with constructive argumentation. The author is particularly sensitive to divergent trends in current Catholic and Protestant interpretations, including those of Rahner and Tillich. Though its philosophical content is minimal, the book should be of interest to students seeking a religious perspective on history.—T. E. V.
This book is a lucid and readable account of Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, James, and Santayana, not only as contributors to present-day secularism, but as precursors of religious liberalism. Beck traces the theme of "secularism and human values" through these thinkers, though difficulties arise from the fact that they represent a radical divergence of philosophic interests, and in any case would hardly have recognized, much less defended, the particular variety of secularism and religious liberalism that has arisen in recent times, (...) and with which the author associates them.—T. E. V. (shrink)
The introductory revised essay, "Horses of Wrath: Recent Critical Lessons," followed by nine reprinted essays, pits the Christian Rationalist, Wimsatt, an aroused Horse of Instruction, against the Tigers of Wrath, Blakean Myth critics led by Northrop Frye. Their battleground is the relation of poetry to life: what for the Blakeans is the fearful symmetry of poetry as the apocalypse of life is for Wimsatt the hateful siege of contraries, both an anarchy of life and a confusion of poetic limits. Wimsatt (...) supports the classical and Christian notion that harmony comes "in spite of" the conflict of good and evil, not "because of" that conflict, as the Blakeans would claim. For Wimsatt, poetry's unique kind of cognition is the analogous perspective it establishes toward contraries, namely the perspective of drama and metaphor in which is created a mock substance of the human condition. But after Wimsatt's analysis, we are left with a dualism which can be itself a hateful contrary: the more poetry performs its perspective function, the more it destroys its subject matter. It is also to the credit of Wimsatt's theoretic hesitancy that he will not let us forget these contraries.—E. S. T. (shrink)
An elementary textbook in Thomistic metaphysics. Pedagogical aids include summaries, review questions, and a list of translations of the works of Aquinas.--E. T.
An examination of the social functions of eschatological beliefs in primitive societies, based mainly upon a study of the Tikopia, both pagan and Christian. --E. T.
Brodtkorb's "phenomenological reading" discusses the conceptually resistant realities, "World," "Body," "Others," and "Time," as they are interpreted in Moby Dick, and are focused by Melville in the inscrutable meaning of the white whale. "Mediation" is the key to interpretation, and, thus, the hero of the novel is Ishmael, who understands that the whale's meaning is constituted anew by each perceiver; Ishmael's mental life is a succession of attitudes—a series of "incantations"—which matches existence as process. From this phenomenological point of view, (...) Ahab's rigid interpretation of the whale as an allegory of divine malevolence is doomed, since allegory is a static mediated category, untrue to process. Yet this processional epistemology is itself in doubt if, as Brodtkorb admits, the uncertainty of the inscrutable is itself in question; and this doubt allows for the potential correctness of even Ahab's reductive allegorization. Thus, while Brodtkorb's phenomenology is a very sensitive instrument for indicating the shifting meanings of Melville's world, the final relation of potentially correct and incantatory concepts to this world is weakly conceived, due to the weakness of the instrument itself.—E. S. T. (shrink)
A thorough and careful report on the variety and extent of offenses prosecuted by the Puritan churches from colonial times into the nineteenth century, with some asides on civil cases, such as the Salem witch trials. The text is lively with verbatim testimony. A large bibliography frankly notes the various reasons why some records are "unavailable."--E. T.
Contains a variety of short pieces, some published for the first time, whose main interest is biographical and historical. Included are Berkeley's sermons, a series of essays against free-thinking, travel journals, and two pieces on America.--E. T.
A new edition of a work first published in 1926, in which Fr. Summers recounts the nature and the historical activities of the witch, "devotee of a loathly and obscene creed." One cannot doubt either the author's sincerity or his scholarship, evidenced by thorough documentation and a bibliography of 30 pages. A Forword by Felix Morrow compares the author's position with the more skeptical views of M. A. Murray.--E. T.
A thorough and careful report on the variety and extent of offenses prosecuted by the Puritan churches from colonial times into the nineteenth century, with some asides on civil cases, such as the Salem witch trials. The text is lively with verbatim testimony. A large bibliography frankly notes the various reasons why some records are "unavailable."--E. T.
Process philosophy is said by some to be the future of American philosophy. This collection of essays, ranging from studies of Whitehead to Camus and Sir Muhammad Iqbal, extends the discussion far beyond the boundaries of North America. Several of the essays are of a more systematic character. Donald Hanks analyzes the category of process as a pre-conceptual principle used to organize experience into an intelligible pattern. Andrew Reck provides an analysis of the meaning and justification of what he considers (...) to be the ten ideas or categories requisite for a system of process philosophy. Charles Schmidtke argues that process philosophy faces a fundamental decision regarding whether the character of reality as process is given as an ultimate datum or whether process philosophy structures reality in accordance with the characteristic of creative becoming. Other essays in the volume are concerned with the concept of process in the work of a variety of philosophers, some of whom are less directly in the process tradition. Ramona Cormier analyzes the relationship of the process of experience to its unchanging aspect in connection with Camus’ concern for the meaningfulness of life and the limitations of rational inquiry. Bertrand P. Helm provides a study of James’ concept of time and Patrick S. Madigan a study of the concept of space in Leibniz and Whitehead. Whitehead’s understanding of the interaction of things provides the basis for R. Kirby Godsey’s study of the categories of substance and relation in Whitehead, and Robert C. Whittemore provides an introduction to the process philosophy of Sir Muhammad Iqbal, the little known poet-philosopher and sometime student of James Ward. James Leroy Smith’s article on Whitehead and Marx is a critical comparison of their political philosophies.—E.T.L. (shrink)
Six critical essays in various areas of the broad field covered by the title. Included are a discussion of intensional and extensional procedures for analyzing meanings with special attention to remarks of Quine, a consideration of different conceptions of probability, and a comparison of the pragmatism of Peirce, James, and Dewey.--E.T.
Material from Epictetus' Discourses and maxims, arranged into 116 brief, readable chapters. The translation is that of T. W. Higginson, made in 1865.--E. T.
A master of intelligible rhetoric, Fr. Smith argues vigorously that Truth can be most accurately expressed by "the good use of good knowledge." --E. T.
An attempt to introduce readers "at the eleventh grade level" to some leading principles and practitioners of philosophy in America. This undertaking, admittedly difficult, meets with varying success. The book's most satisfactory part consists of essays by various contributors describing the different fields of philosophy; the rest outlines briefly the philosophical doctrines most influential in American thought, and sketches the lives of a wide assortment of American "philosophers," from Jonathan Edwards to Franklin D. Roosevelt, with a one- or two-paragraph selection (...) from the works of each.--E. T. (shrink)
Offers the logical tyro a varied diet, from Aristotle to Lewis Carroll, including the "neglected" forms of argument as well as examples from the logic of classes and relations. To avoid translation among systems, the examples are all in "English." Copious explanatory footnotes and references recommend it to the self-taught.--E. T.
A representative collection of this lively encyclopedist's writings, mainly fiction, selected and introduced by the translators. Included are D'Alembert's Dream and Supplement to Bougainville's "Voyage" in dialogue form, and an essay on "encyclopédie" from that monumental work. --E. T.
In addition to four papers on various aspects of the teaching of philosophy, this volume includes historical studies and a discussion of aesthetics.--E. T.
Brodtkorb's "phenomenological reading" discusses the conceptually resistant realities, "World," "Body," "Others," and "Time," as they are interpreted in Moby Dick, and are focused by Melville in the inscrutable meaning of the white whale. "Mediation" is the key to interpretation, and, thus, the hero of the novel is Ishmael, who understands that the whale's meaning is constituted anew by each perceiver; Ishmael's mental life is a succession of attitudes—a series of "incantations"—which matches existence as process. From this phenomenological point of view, (...) Ahab's rigid interpretation of the whale as an allegory of divine malevolence is doomed, since allegory is a static mediated category, untrue to process. Yet this processional epistemology is itself in doubt if, as Brodtkorb admits, the uncertainty of the inscrutable is itself in question; and this doubt allows for the potential correctness of even Ahab's reductive allegorization. Thus, while Brodtkorb's phenomenology is a very sensitive instrument for indicating the shifting meanings of Melville's world, the final relation of potentially correct and incantatory concepts to this world is weakly conceived, due to the weakness of the instrument itself.—E. S. T. (shrink)
Presents the Sanskrit text, together with an English translation by Gnoli, of the tenth century treatises by Abhinavagupta. The text, called the most recent "creative stimulus" to the study of aesthetics in India, is in the form of a commentary on the fourth- or fifth-century work attributed to Bharata, concerned with instructions for the production of drama. As the translator's introduction states, this early manuscript has been a unique source in the development of Indian aesthetic thought.--E. T.
This interesting approach to literary analysis comprises articles by writers in philosophy, literature, and the classics. Authors treated include Shaw, Shakespeare, Plato, Ibsen, and Browning; among those faced with dilemmas are Faust, Billy Budd, Hamlet, and Job.--E. T.
The author has organized Maritain's writings on man into three categories, man as 1) rational, 2) free, and 3) social, with appropriate quotations and running commentary. The French selections are not translated. Includes an intellectual biography of Maritain, with particular attention to the influence of Bergson.--E. T.
Harper appeals to philosophy, literature, psychiatry and theology from Augustine to R. D. Laing to present what he calls a coherent picture of the major existential themes found in interior experience. This is not a book in existential philosophy in the usual sense. Indeed Harper argues that academic philosophers have failed to adequately treat interior experience. Interior experience, he says, is largely emotional and does not yield easily to analysis and conceptualization. Harper’s style is exploratory and suggestive, even lyrical at (...) points, as he interprets human experience in accordance with the themes: existence, insecurity, the void, self-isolation and presence. Human existence is, according to Harper, what I make it to be. Yet it is also characterized by insecurity or anxiousness, a sense of estrangement rather than fulfillment and reconciliation. The experience of contemporary man is characterized not only by insecurity but also by a sense of emotional and spiritual disability. God is absent and man experiences reality as indifferent and himself as alone and isolated in a void. Man is not, however, without hope for there is in existentialism and in personal experience the parallel theme of presence, being open to reality as grace, which gives hope of acceptance and love, satisfying the whole man. Harper’s study is scattered with references to Augustine, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Camus, Sartre and others. But these references are controlled from Harper’s own perspective, the result of his meditations on his own and other reports of interior experience. In the Afterword, Harper makes this perspective and his view of the nature of philosophy more clear.—E. T. L. (shrink)
Reprints the only English translation of Rousseau's development of the Projet pour rendre la paix perpétuelle en Europe by l'Abbé de Saint-Pierre. The introduction, written for this edition, provides an illuminating comparison of the two thinkers. Fragments of the essay on "The State of War" are also included.--E. T.
Presents, for the student in social and political philosophy, a number of ethical theories, in an attempt to show their relevance for judging social policies. Included are essays on "Science and Values" and "General Social Ends," as well as appropriate readings in the history of the subject.--E. T.
An interpretation of Santayana's philosophy, organized around his preoccupation with art and aesthetics. Thorough and well-documented, the book offers an appreciation as well as a clear statement of Santayana's achievement.--E. T.
A revised, one-volume edition of Gandhi's account of his life and work up to 1921. The illuminating detail, the humility and humor of the author in contrast with the great events he shaped, combine to make an unforgettable book.--E. T.
Subtitled "Thoughts on the Application of the Principles of 'Natural Selection' and 'Inheritance' to Political Society," this book first appeared in 1867, but still offers insight into social psychology and the nature of civilization. The biographical introduction is by Hans Kohn.--E. T.
The introductory revised essay, "Horses of Wrath: Recent Critical Lessons," followed by nine reprinted essays, pits the Christian Rationalist, Wimsatt, an aroused Horse of Instruction, against the Tigers of Wrath, Blakean Myth critics led by Northrop Frye. Their battleground is the relation of poetry to life: what for the Blakeans is the fearful symmetry of poetry as the apocalypse of life is for Wimsatt the hateful siege of contraries, both an anarchy of life and a confusion of poetic limits. Wimsatt (...) supports the classical and Christian notion that harmony comes "in spite of" the conflict of good and evil, not "because of" that conflict, as the Blakeans would claim. For Wimsatt, poetry's unique kind of cognition is the analogous perspective it establishes toward contraries, namely the perspective of drama and metaphor in which is created a mock substance of the human condition. But after Wimsatt's analysis, we are left with a dualism which can be itself a hateful contrary: the more poetry performs its perspective function, the more it destroys its subject matter. It is also to the credit of Wimsatt's theoretic hesitancy that he will not let us forget these contraries.—E. S. T. (shrink)
Completed in 1927 and published now in full for the first time, this work may be regarded as the last in a trilogy of biblical studies, of which the first two are: Der vorchristliche Jesus, and Ecce Deus. To the interpretation of the Gospel story as a racial allegory, contained in these earlier books, Smith now adds a plausibly argued account of the figure of Jesus as an idealized Jewish self-portrait. Included as appendix is "The Chronology of the Early Gnostic (...) Sects", an ordered presentation of the evidence in Hippolytus.--E. T. (shrink)
An examination of the social functions of eschatological beliefs in primitive societies, based mainly upon a study of the Tikopia, both pagan and Christian. --E. T.
A thorough and careful report on the variety and extent of offenses prosecuted by the Puritan churches from colonial times into the nineteenth century, with some asides on civil cases, such as the Salem witch trials. The text is lively with verbatim testimony. A large bibliography frankly notes the various reasons why some records are "unavailable."--E. T.
A collection of short popular essays, primarily moral, in a vivid and often rather angry style. Includes thoughts on evolution, law and society, and a final chapter of epigrams.--E. T.
The description of a program for self-improvement, designed to realize the individual's potential and combat normalizing pressures. Complete with exercises, directions for group work, and an intriguing, if baffling, vocabulary.--E. T.
Acknowledging his indebtedness to Tillich, Bultmann, and Bonhoeffer, Dr. Smith reviews the changes in man's estimate of his own relation to history and Christianity, and describes a "new man" who can find God through other people and the community they comprise.--E. T.
The author, a Brazilian physician and psychiatrist, draws on his wide experience to present a description of the behavior and motivations of man in his private, social, and political environment. Touching upon all important aspects of human experience, the work is unified by the common impress of a powerful, distinctive mind.--E. T.
