In this paper it is argued that we have three dispositions, each of which is very laudable in itself: a preference for the positive, constructive and creative aspects of human endeavours; a desire to be open‐minded and tolerant concerning ideas and beliefs; and an admiration of profundity. I have suggested that these dispositions can, if exaggerated or employed uncritically, seduce us into intellectual positions that are very dubious. These arguments are applied to some of the debates within the philosophy of (...) nursing. (shrink)

The Hermopolis letters showcase the personal concerns of those writing Aramaic letters in the era of Persian Egypt. One individual named Nabuša is particularly interesting because of his familial correspondence and emotional tone. This study will examine what can be known about this writer and his complaints about an unwanted tunic and a snakebite. There have been several notable disagreements about the Aramaic translation of Nabuša’s concerns, whose discussion will help heighten our understanding of his passion.

The Heythrop Journal, Volume 63, Issue 2, Page 301-314, March 2022.

The physical environment leads to a thermal sensation that is perceived and appraised by occupants. The present study focuses on the relationship between sensation and evaluation. We asked 166 people to recall a thermal event from their recent past. They were then asked how they evaluated this experience in terms of 10 different emotions (frustrated, resigned, dislike, indifferent, angry, anxious, liking, joyful, regretful, proud). We tested whether four psychological factors (appraisal dimensions) could be used to predict the ensuing emotions, as (...) well as comfort, acceptability, and sensation. The four dimensions were: the Conduciveness of the event, who/what caused the event (Causality), who had control (Agency), and whether the event was expected (Expectations). These dimensions, except for Expectations, were good predictors of the reported emotions. Expectations, however, predicted the reported thermal sensation, its acceptability, and ensuing comfort. The more expected an event was, the more uncomfortable a person felt, and the less likely they reported a neutral thermal sensation. Together, these results support an embodied view of how subjective appraisals affect thermal experience. Overall, we show that appraisal dimensions mediate occupants' evaluation of their thermal sensation, which suggests an additional method for understanding psychological adaption. (shrink)

Burrowing mammals are ubiquitous on farms in South Africa and can hinder agricultural practices. This study explored farmer perspectives of these species, and specifically the factors that influence these perspectives. Forty-four farmers responded to a questionnaire that assessed their ecological knowledge of, tolerance towards and lethal management of burrowing mammals that occur on their farms. The results from generalised linear models showed that neither farmer age, nor level of education are accurate predictors of ecological knowledge, overall tolerance towards burrowers, or (...) their lethal management. Knowledge of burrowing mammals showed a significant relationship with tolerance, with more knowledgeable individuals displaying higher levels of tolerance. However, a farmer’s overall tolerance towards burrowing species did not affect the number of species managed. Our results also suggest that different values are attached to different species when it comes to lethal management. Thus, farmers commonly controlled the numbers of the problem rodent species, Highveld gerbil (Gerbilliscus brantsii) and Cape ground squirrel (Xerus inauris), but were less likely to manage black-backed jackal (Canis mesomelas) and warthog (Phacochoerus africanus), even when experiencing these as problematic. We suggest that the larger, more charismatic species possibly evoke more sympathy from farmers. Agro-ecosystems are likely to become increasingly important for conservation in the future, and we encourage continued studies on the environmental attitudes and approaches of agricultural practitioners as a means to understanding the current status and future trends in ecologically sustainable agriculture. (shrink)

This paper first argues that we can bring out a tension between the following three popular doctrines: (i) the canonical reduction of metaphysical modality to essence, due to Fine, (ii) contingentism, which says that possibly something could have failed to be something, and (iii) the doctrine that metaphysical modality obeys the modal logic S5. After presenting two such arguments (one from the theorems of S4 and another from the theorems of B), I turn to exploring various conclusions we might draw (...) in light of these results, and argue that none comes cost free. In the course of laying out possible responses to my arguments, we'll have a chance to evaluate various doctrines about the interplay between contingency and essence, as well as develop some alternative reductions of metaphysical modality to essence. I don't decisively come down in favor of one response over the others, though I say some things that point towards the conclusion that essence has no role to play in reducing metaphysical modality. (shrink)

Background independence begins life as an informal property that a physical theory might have, often glossed as 'doesn't posit a fixed spacetime background'. Interest in trying to offer a precise account of background independence has been sparked by the pronouncements of several theorists working on quantum gravity that background independence embodies in some sense an essential discovery of the General Theory of Relativity, and a feature we should strive to carry forward to future physical theories. This paper has two goals. (...) The first is to investigate what a world must be like in order to be truly described by a background independent theory given extant accounts of background independence. The second is to argue that there are no non-empirical reasons to be more confident in theories that satisfy extant accounts of background independence than in theories that don't. The paper concludes by drawing a general moral about a way in which focussing primarily on mathematical formulations of our physical theories can adversely affect debates in the metaphysics of physics. (shrink)

In Pragmatism’s Evolution, Trevor Pearce demonstrates that the philosophical tradition of pragmatism owes an enormous debt to specific biological debates in the late 1800s, especially those concerning the role of the environment in development and evolution. Many are familiar with John Dewey’s 1909 assertion that evolutionary ideas overturned two thousand years of philosophy—but what exactly happened in the fifty years prior to Dewey’s claim? What form did evolutionary ideas take? When and how were they received by American philosophers? Although (...) the various thinkers associated with pragmatism—from Charles Sanders Peirce to Jane Addams and beyond—were towering figures in American intellectual life, few realize the full extent of their engagement with the life sciences. In his analysis, Pearce focuses on a series of debates in biology from 1860 to 1910—from the instincts of honeybees to the inheritance of acquired characteristics—in which the pragmatists were active participants. If we want to understand the pragmatists and their influence, Pearce argues, we need to understand the relationship between pragmatism and biology. (shrink)

Games and simulations--from quantitative modeling to immersive, experiential scenarios--as methods for engagement within futures studies have a substantial history. In recent years, there has been a surge of projects using a wide array of tools. As practitioners and researchers have gravitated toward more playful approaches, there is a need to review and evaluate such approaches. This chapter provides an introduction to gaming and simulations as anticipatory processes. Offering a snapshot of contemporary projects from around the world, this chapter utilizes a (...) range of voices and perspectives on gaming and simulations to explore how such tools and methods use the future. (shrink)

A B S T R A C T Detailed examination of audio recordings of business-to-business `field-sales' encounters are used to report one way in which salespeople elicit verbal expressions of affiliation from their prospective customers — by reciprocating second assessments which affiliate with, trade off and build on prospects' own assessments. This article outlines the prototypical features of these junctures of assessment-affiliation and describes how salespeople can mobilize such assessments to build extended sequences of `rapport' that take the form of (...) adjacent and mutual expressions of substantive verbal affiliation. Consideration is also given to explicating both the interactional basis of these sequences as well as the socially obligating influence such affiliation and rapport can have on sales outcomes. (shrink)

In response to woozley's paper in "philosophical quarterly" 22 (1972), 303-17, This article argues: (a) that plato's penology in the laws is radically 'reformative'. (b) that his overriding concern is not with blame or guilt or moral responsibility, But with an exact diagnosis and then 'cure' of the criminal's 'unjust' state of mind. (c) that he uses 'hekousios' and 'akousios' in effect in the sense 'prompted by injustice in the soul of the agent' and 'not thus prompted' respectively. (d) that (...) accordingly laws 866a5-867c2, On killing in anger as midway between 'hekousios' and 'akousios' homicide, Should be read not in woozley's manner, As a tentative extension of the area of diminished responsibility, But as a grading of four possible states of mind in a killer: (1) no intention to kill; (2) a brief intention to kill; (3) a long-Standing intention to kill; (4) a full intention to kill, Inspired not by anger but by full 'injustice'--Greed, Lust, Envy etc. (e) finally that on this analysis, Certain terminological distinctions of modern english, Employed by woozley in an attempt to elucidate the passage, Are irrelevant. (edited). (shrink)

At the beginning of Book 5 Plato catalogues the ways in which men ‘dishonour’ ([Greek text] 727 c 3) their souls, and at 728 ab sums up by saying that any man who does not practise what the lawgiver describes as noble and good is treating his soul dishonourably. He goes on to say that hardly anyone takes account of [Greek text] (728 b 2), which is to cut oneself off from good men and be completely assimilated to the bad (...) [Greek text]. We the n read. (shrink)

For forty years, beginning with the publication of the first modern English translation of the Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Stillman Drake was the most original and productive scholar of Galileo's scientific work of our age. During that time, he published sixteen books on Galileo, including translations of almost all the major writings, and Galileo at Work, the most comprehensive study of Galileo's life and works ever written. His collection Discoveries and Opinions on Galileohas remained in print since (...) its appearance in 1957 and has become the most widely read of all books on Galileo. In addition to his books, Drake published about 130 papers, of which nearly 100 are on Galileo and the rest on related aspects of the history and philosophy of science. This three-volume collection includes eighty of those papers. Drake's papers are an essential supplement to his translations and other books because it was in his papers that he wrote his most detailed technical studies of Galileo's scientific work. There is hardly a subject in Galileo's science that is not considered. Perhaps the most important is the series on mechanics and motion, in which Drake analysed Galileo's manuscript notes recording the experiments by which he discovered and confirmed the law of the acceleration of falling bodies. There are also papers on the notes in which Galileo recorded his discovery of Jupiter's satellites and on other aspects of Galileo's astronomy, including his defence of the Copernican theory. Other papers consider Galileo's life and scientific work in general, exploring what Drake calls the 'scientific personality' of Galileo along with his scientific method and philosophy of science. In addition to the papers on Galileo, there are a number of papers on medieval and early modern science, principally on mechanics, and on the philosophers A.B. Johnson and J.B. Stallo, both of whom influenced Drake's own philosophy of science. (shrink)

In their 2010 book, Biology’s First Law, D. McShea and R. Brandon present a principle that they call ‘‘ZFEL,’’ the zero force evolutionary law. ZFEL says (roughly) that when there are no evolutionary forces acting on a population, the population’s complexity (i.e., how diverse its member organisms are) will increase. Here we develop criticisms of ZFEL and describe a different law of evolution; it says that diversity and complexity do not change when there are no evolutionary causes.

I am grateful to Richard Allen, Angela Curran and Trevor Ponech for their interesting objections to and questions about the claims defended in my book. I first discuss Ponech, who raises the most general issue, concerning my account of what cinema is; next, respond to Curran, who examines my basic claim about the importance of medium-specific considerations; and then reply to Allen, who addresses the more specific question of the role of identification in eliciting emotions in cinema.

Uṣūl al-Dīn. By Tibghūrīn b.!īsā al-Malshūṭī. Edited by 'Amr Khalifa Ennami and translated into English by Trevor Le Gassick. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2020. Pp. 115, 102. $82.80, €68.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Pragmatism's Evolution: Organism and Environment in American Philosophy by Trevor PearceAlexander KleinTrevor Pearce. Pragmatism's Evolution: Organism and Environment in American Philosophy. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2020. Pp. 384. Paperback, $35.00.Pragmatist pioneers were young lions in the days of Darwin. Evolutionary-biological thinking infused this philosophical movement from the start. And yet the last time a major monograph appeared on classic pragmatism and evolutionary biology—Philip Wiener's Evolution (...) and the Founders of Pragmatism (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1949)—the author could personally thank Ralph Barton Perry, William James's junior colleague and eventual biographer. John Dewey himself wrote the foreword.Almost seventy-five years later, we have Trevor Pearce's painstakingly researched Pragmatism's Evolution. The author has graduate training in both biology and philosophy and is a former student of William Wimsatt and Robert Richards's (343). The book offers an intricate portrait of how debates about evolutionary biology informed the thinking of a loose-knit group of pragmatists between the years 1860 and 1910. While a remarkable variety of figures are discussed, ten pragmatists command the most attention: Chauncey Wright, C. S. Peirce, Francis Ellingwood Abbot, John Fiske, William James, Josiah Royce, John Dewey, Jane Addams, G. H. Mead, and W. E. B. Du Bois (18). Call them "the American Ten."Without downplaying Darwin, an overarching theme is the special significance of Herbert Spencer. Despite many specific disagreements with him (see e.g. 74, 207–8, 253–54, 281), the American Ten all accepted something more fundamental from Spencer: an intellectual framework that explains mind and morality in terms of functional relationships between organism and environment.After an introduction outlining what Pearce identifies as four chronological "cohorts" of pragmatists (more on this concept below), he examines the 1860s and 1870s reception of Darwin (chapter 1) and Spencer (chapter 2), showing how senior pragmatists like Wright, Peirce, and James defended evolution during this period. In chapter 2, we meet the Metaphysical Club's arch Spencerian, John Fiske, and we get a reading of James's critique of Spencer's psychology and sociology. Chapter 3 gives a highly detailed, reference-work-like portrait of the second cohort's training in evolutionary biology during the 1880s—chiefly Royce, Dewey, Addams, Mead, and Du Bois. In chapter 4, we learn that in the 1880s and 1890s, idealists like Edward Caird, Samuel Alexander, David George Ritchie, and Josiah Royce all co-opted ideas from evolutionary biology, which they apparently thought compatible with Hegelian dialectics. Chapter 5 shows that central planks of Peirce's metaphysics and Dewey's ethics are responsive to an 1890s dispute over the causes of the biological variation upon which selection acts (the so-called "factors" debate). The final two chapters show how pragmatist ethics (chapter 6) and epistemology (chapter 7) were infused with substantive ideas about evolution and about scientific experiment more generally.The depth and use of historical scholarship on offer here are both remarkable. On depth, Pearce draws from nineteen special collections and archives housed at institutions from California to Manchester, UK. The reference list (published on Pearce's website) runs [End Page 160] to 118 pages and was apparently too long for inclusion in the book. Archival research and lengthy bibliographies are to be expected in today's history of philosophy. But the sheer range of sources Pearce draws from is, by any measure, impressive.The use to which he puts those sources is provocative. Close reading, and in particular argument reconstruction, is usually the stock in trade for historians of philosophy. Pearce takes a different approach (7), seeking interpretive insight through a kind of philosophical network analysis. The nodes are mainly philosophers, scientists, and social critics. Unlike digital network analyses, Pearce connects his nodes by hand, via a great multiplicity of social, educational, and intellectual relations. We learn who studied evolution where, with whom, and when; what specific texts were assigned in classes taken, in classes taught; who attacked whom, who sided with whom; and so on.The resulting networks are rich, though they can be difficult to track due to their complexity. At its best, the book uses networks to produce genuine insights that... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:570 BOOK REVIEWS like reasonable rule for economic life. This effort is worthy of more attention than is possible here, but let it be noted that it must inevitably suffer the same fate as any ethical calculus: someone must decide for others what is their due and what is not. How much wealth, for example, makes for a concentration [of wealth] that would be " demonstrably detrimental to some (...) people's exercise of their generic rights "? His is ultimately an entitlement or rights ethic, rather than an aitial ethic of goal-purposive fulfillment for the individual, projected outwards for a common good scenario. While his rejection of goal ethics's inability to detail principles for distribution of goods is noteworthy, it does not appear that a tightened version of generic rights theory will come closer to either of Phillips's desiderata: a justification of moral reasoning apart from any theory of nature or a calculus for its application. Desan and Phillips wish to think against the limits of the human situation. For Desan, rising above limitation is a moral task and obligation facing us each, if there is to be a common future. His call is to be World Citizen in a Polis of Nations. Phillips's vision is more concrete, a distribution of benefits to benefit all with well-being and freedom. But this mundane task is no less difficult than Desan's transcendent one. Indeed, according to Augustine, even the Divine Mind must utilize an artifice in dealing with human creation: "He loves each of us as though there were only one of us." Both ethicists have striven to show us how we might think this vision for ourselves, i.e., for each other of us. ]OIIN B. DAVIS, O.P. ' Detroit, Michigan Catholics, Anglicans, and Puritans: Seventeenth-Century Essays. By HUGH TREVOR-ROPER. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988. Pp. xiii + 317. $27.50 (hardbound). Even to list the changes and events which occurred in seventeenth century England is a difficult task: the century spans the period from the death of Queen Elizabeth to the Glorious Revolution and beyond, through the Civil War, the accession and exile (twice) of the Stuarts, the rise of science, the transformation of the theological and religious issues of the English Reformation, to name only the most obvious. To conceive a book, in the form of occasional essays, which not only addresses these changes and events but does so by establishing the connections which were present with European currents at the same time surely tempts fate, even when it does not tempt reviewers. BOOK REVIEWS 571 But Hugh Trevor-Roper is a master, both of the period under survey and of the form of the essay. With one exception, each of these essays began as a lecture or seminar paper, and the pleasantly legible style in which they are written must bear some trace of that origin. The occasional flashes of wit, mixed with rthe fairly non-technical style, make the book a joy to read and a welcome escape from the usually constipated style of scholarly prose. In his Introduction, the essayist clearly sets forth his thesis that English intellectual history does not exist apart from the currents of European intellectual history (a thesis for which Trevor-Roper has already staked a claim). That leads to what may very well be the major problem with these essays: its end is in its beginning. The list of names cited in these essays only partially coincides with the list of names in the index; the former is much longer than the latter. And while the style of the essay welcomes the reader to the period, it also throws up more names and places and events than can be explained or even annotated adequately. This occurs both on a large and on a small scale. The first essay, on "Nicholas Hill, the English Atomist" contains such a vast array of names that at times it becomes the prosopo· graphical equivalent of a telephone book. On a large scale, there is the problem with a definition of Arminianism. No definition, at least no formal definition, is attempted-and this is probably wise. But, particularly in... (shrink)

It is shown that the Kapitza-Dirac effect with atoms, which has been considered to be evidence for their wavelike character, can be interpreted as a scattering of pointlike objects by the periodic laser field.

The confusion of categories in Spinoza's ethics, by E. Albee.--Hegel's criticism of Spinoza, by K. E. Gilbert.--Rationalism in Hume's philosophy, by G. H. Sabine.--Freedom as an ethical postulate: Kant, by R. A. Tsanoff.--Mill and Comte, by N. C. Barr.--The intellectualistic voluntarism of Alfred Fouillée, by A. T. Penney.--Hegelianism and the Vedanta, by E. L. Hinman.--Coherence as organization, by G. W. Cunningham.--Time and the logic of monistic idealism, by J. A. Leighton.--The datum, by W. B. Pillsbury.--The limits of the physical, (...) by G. A. de Laguna.--Is the dualism of mind and matter final? By H. W. Wright.--The revolt against dualism, by A. H. Jones. (shrink)

Dialogues generated over a year of weekly meetings with 8 children at a school in Edinburgh. The author and the children attempted to craft stories reflecting philosophical problems.

This book explores the complex nexus of discourses, principles and practices within which educators mobilise school-based health education. Through an interrogation of the ideas informing particular models and approaches to health education, the authors provide critical insights into the principles and practices underpinning approaches to health education policy, curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. Drawing on extensive literature and research, the book explores and considers what health education can and should do. Chapters examine the extent to which health education, past and present, (...) has attended to the needs and interests of young people in school environments, as well as assess common pedagogical approaches and whether the outcomes tally with expectations. By considering the problems in teaching health education, curriculum making, health education pedagogies and porous classrooms, the book offers a knowledge base from which educators can consider how theories and models can sit together to shape curriculum and influence practice. School Health Education in Changing Times will be of key interest to postgraduate students, researchers and academics in the field of health education. It will also be a valuable resource for teacher educators, current teachers, and those on professional development courses who want to navigate the moral minefield surrounding health education. (shrink)

The first issue of Artificial Intelligence and Law journal was published in 1992. This paper offers some commentaries on papers drawn from the Journal’s third decade. They indicate a major shift within Artificial Intelligence, both generally and in AI and Law: away from symbolic techniques to those based on Machine Learning approaches, especially those based on Natural Language texts rather than feature sets. Eight papers are discussed: two concern the management and use of documents available on the World Wide Web, (...) and six apply machine learning techniques to a variety of legal applications. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Book Reviews Bibliography on Plato's "'Laws, "" 1920-1970: With Additional Citations through May, 1975. By Trevor J. Saunders. (New York: Arno Press, 1976. Pp. i + 60. $15.00) The Penguin Classics translator of the non-Socratic Laws, as Leo Strauss called them, has here compiled in a most usable way a thorough bibliography of books and articles about the Laws or parts of them. The section "Texts, Translations, and (...) Commentaries" properly excludes translations not made directly from the Greek. In previous centuries this would, also properly, have excluded many a famous or popular translation, such as Thomas Taylor's or Victor Cousin's, worked out from the text of M. Ficino's "first edition" in Latin. Given the state of the Greek text and the practice, inaugurated by Ficino, of improving upon the Greek in the translatioias, some notation about the literalness of the translations cited would have been of additional value. Section B, in thirty pages, is the largest and also deliberately the most selective in striving to limit itself to work concerned exclusively or primarily with the Laws. But it cannot avoid including much material about some aspect of Plato in general rather than about the Laws; this is especially true of the subsection, B1, on comprehensive accounts. Section B2, on the text and its tradition, has overwhelmingly more citations about the indirect tradition than about the texts themselves, an interesting indication of the current state of this question. The next subsections, to B12, divide according to subject matter. BI3 lists studies on the influence of the Laws. The last section, in twenty-four pages, is most valuable. It lists, by Stephanus page number, an abundance of discussions of individual passages from Book I through Book XII wherever these discussions, bibliographically speaking, may have occurred. Students of the Laws will be well served by, and most grateful to, Professor Saunders for this bibliography. I can only second the intent of his parting epigraph that sends us back to the study of the Laws themselves. But I must add that more explicitly detailed work appears to be required both on the difficulties the text itself presents to students of Plato (one thinks of A. Boeckh's analyses of the prose in Books I through III) and on those which arise when the Laws is contrasted--from the point of view of design and intellectuality--with those of Plato's works that are comparable, if not in number of pages, at least in scale of conception and monumentality. V. TEJERA SUNY at Stony Brook Science and Philosophy in Aristotle's Biological Works. By Anthony Preus. (Hildesheim and New York: George Olms, 1975. Pp. ix + 404. DM.88) A reciprocal influence between Aristotle's philosophy and biology--if it could be demonstrated through step-by-step criticism and not merely asserted in generalities about functionalism--might help to explain both, and might also itself be philosophically interesting ; for it should clarify Aristotle's concepts of form, essence, universal, and species-concepts which have been mercilessly jumbled in the traditional interpretations. With the failure of Jaegerian developmental analyses, we can hardly now hope for help from detailed chronology. But a general dating of Aristotle's biological interest to the Assos-Mytilene period, when he was already aged forty, is accepted by most people (though not by Jaeger who [463]... (shrink)

This paper argues that trans and genderqueer people affect the gender formation and identity of non-trans people. We explore three instances of this relationship between trans and non-trans genders: an allegiance to inadequate liberal-individualist models of selfhood; tropes through which trans people are made to stand as theoretical objects with which to think about gender broadly; and a narrow focus on gender and evasion of an intersectional understanding of gender formation.

We present one of the first quantitative studies on auditory verbal experiences and auditory verbal agency voices or characters”) in healthy participants across states of consciousness. Tools of quantitative linguistic analysis were used to measure participants’ implicit knowledge of auditory verbal experiences and auditory verbal agencies, displayed in mentation reports from four different states. Analysis was conducted on a total of 569 mentation reports from rapid eye movement sleep, non-REM sleep, sleep onset, and waking. Physiology was controlled with the nightcap (...) sleep–wake mentation monitoring system. Sleep-onset hallucinations, traditionally at the focus of scientific attention on auditory verbal hallucinations, showed the lowest degree of VE and VA, whereas REM sleep showed the highest degrees. Degrees of different linguistic-pragmatic aspects of VE and VA likewise depend on the physiological states. The quantity and pragmatics of VE and VA are a function of the physiologically distinct state of consciousness in which they are conceived. (shrink)

There is a growing interest in how people conceptualise the legal domain for the purpose of legal knowledge systems. In this paper we discuss four such conceptualisations (referred to as ontologies): McCarty's language for legal discourse, Stamper's norma formalism, Valente's functional ontology of law, and the ontology of Van Kralingen and Visser. We present criteria for a comparison of the ontologies and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the ontologies in relation to these criteria. Moreover, we critically review the criteria.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Book Reviews Bibliography on Plato's "'Laws, "" 1920-1970: With Additional Citations through May, 1975. By Trevor J. Saunders. (New York: Arno Press, 1976. Pp. i + 60. $15.00) The Penguin Classics translator of the non-Socratic Laws, as Leo Strauss called them, has here compiled in a most usable way a thorough bibliography of books and articles about the Laws or parts of them. The section "Texts, Translations, and (...) Commentaries" properly excludes translations not made directly from the Greek. In previous centuries this would, also properly, have excluded many a famous or popular translation, such as Thomas Taylor's or Victor Cousin's, worked out from the text of M. Ficino's "first edition" in Latin. Given the state of the Greek text and the practice, inaugurated by Ficino, of improving upon the Greek in the translatioias, some notation about the literalness of the translations cited would have been of additional value. Section B, in thirty pages, is the largest and also deliberately the most selective in striving to limit itself to work concerned exclusively or primarily with the Laws. But it cannot avoid including much material about some aspect of Plato in general rather than about the Laws; this is especially true of the subsection, B1, on comprehensive accounts. Section B2, on the text and its tradition, has overwhelmingly more citations about the indirect tradition than about the texts themselves, an interesting indication of the current state of this question. The next subsections, to B12, divide according to subject matter. BI3 lists studies on the influence of the Laws. The last section, in twenty-four pages, is most valuable. It lists, by Stephanus page number, an abundance of discussions of individual passages from Book I through Book XII wherever these discussions, bibliographically speaking, may have occurred. Students of the Laws will be well served by, and most grateful to, Professor Saunders for this bibliography. I can only second the intent of his parting epigraph that sends us back to the study of the Laws themselves. But I must add that more explicitly detailed work appears to be required both on the difficulties the text itself presents to students of Plato (one thinks of A. Boeckh's analyses of the prose in Books I through III) and on those which arise when the Laws is contrasted--from the point of view of design and intellectuality--with those of Plato's works that are comparable, if not in number of pages, at least in scale of conception and monumentality. V. TEJERA SUNY at Stony Brook Science and Philosophy in Aristotle's Biological Works. By Anthony Preus. (Hildesheim and New York: George Olms, 1975. Pp. ix + 404. DM.88) A reciprocal influence between Aristotle's philosophy and biology--if it could be demonstrated through step-by-step criticism and not merely asserted in generalities about functionalism--might help to explain both, and might also itself be philosophically interesting ; for it should clarify Aristotle's concepts of form, essence, universal, and species-concepts which have been mercilessly jumbled in the traditional interpretations. With the failure of Jaegerian developmental analyses, we can hardly now hope for help from detailed chronology. But a general dating of Aristotle's biological interest to the Assos-Mytilene period, when he was already aged forty, is accepted by most people (though not by Jaeger who [463] 464 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY put it at the end, nor by Ryle who put it at the beginning of Aristotle's career) and is the basis of Anthony Preus's contention in this book. For if Aristotle began serious biology only in middle life we could expect a tension between the antiphenomenal metaphysics of the Academy, which he had just left after twenty years there, and the kind of philosophizing and explaining that might seem demanded by living concrete organisms. Preus sets out to show such a tension, claiming on page 1 that "in P. A. and G. A. sometimes the philosophical position is bent to fit the observed facts, and sometimes the observations are adjusted to fit the philosophical position." The reader may be assured at once that this appalling accusation (which is repeated in the publisher's blurb) is not... (shrink)