Starting from the 13th century, the question of defining theology as a science gained prominence within a new epistemological reflection on the discipline. It has been hypothesized that the availability of new translations of Aristotelian works significantly contributed to the growing interest among theologians in the theory of science. One of the most prominent intellectuals who recognized the necessity of defining theology as a science and outlining its boundaries and investigative methods in relation to other disciplines, was Albert the Great (...) (d. 1280). Numerous studies have been dedicated to exploring Albert’s treatment of this subject since the 1930s. However, little to no attention has been given to the role played by Arabic sources, particularly the works of Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, d. 1037), the philosopher and polymath of Persian origin, in shaping Albert’s own definition of theology as a science. This contribution concentrates on the analysis of a section of the Summa Theologiae (Treatise I, quaestio V, chapter 3), with particular emphasis on the ‘translation’ of the logical-argumentative method from its domain of application in scientific and philosophical research to the branch of theology dedicated to safeguarding Christian doctrine against the criticisms and the attacks of heretics. The aim is to analyze how Albert accomplished this translation of the method of inquiry by drawing parallels between the defence of the principles of philosophical inquiry, which is a primary concern of metaphysics, and the defence of the articles of faith in theology. It is by reconciling sources from both the Christian and the Arabo-Islamic traditions that Albert claims the use of a form of dialectic argumentation within theology. (shrink)

On the philosophy of Śaṅkarācārya; papers presented at National Seminar on Ādi Śaṅkarācārya, organized by Sahitya Akademi in collaboration with the Department of Sanskrit, Pondicherry University in 1989.

It is always possible to construct a real function f, given random quantities X and Y with continuous distribution functions F and G, respectively, in such a way that f(X) and f(Y), also random quantities, have both the same distribution function, say H. This result of De Finetti introduces an alternative way to somehow describe the `opinion' of a group of experts about a continuous random quantity by the construction of Fields of coincidence of opinions (FCO). A Field of coincidence (...) of opinions is a finite union of intervals where the opinions of the experts coincide with respect to that quantity of interest. We speculate on (dis)advantages of Fields of Opinion compared to usual `probability' measures of a group and on their relation with a continuous version of the well-known Allais' paradox. (shrink)

Монография отражает лингвистический поворот в философии XX века. Особое внимание уделяется невербальным формам коммуникации, предлагается техника анализа таких медиумов, как образы и звуки, тело, лицо, жилище, еда и другие. Для специалистов.

Articles on life and philosophy of Śaṅkarācārya.

It is always possible to construct a real function φ, given random quantities X and Y with continuous distribution functions F and G, respectively, in such a way that φ(X) and φ(Y), also random quantities, have both the same distribution function, say H. This result of De Finetti introduces an alternative way to somehow describe the `opinion' of a group of experts about a continuous random quantity by the construction of Fields of coincidence of opinions (FCO). A Field of coincidence (...) of opinions is a finite union of intervals where the opinions of the experts coincide with respect to that quantity of interest. We speculate on (dis)advantages of Fields of Opinion compared to usual `probability' measures of a group and on their relation with a continuous version of the well-known Allais' paradox. (shrink)

This article considers the state of human beings in a post-postmodern conditions and focuses on obversion as one version of posthuman reality in polyversion, which is lusciousness. Obversion is regarded as a logical and at the same time dynamic figure of dis-identity and non-presence. Trying to find out if a real human being is written leads one to consider the relationship of real and written reality and the possibility of posthuman writing. Posthuman writing becomes apparent in tracks, traces, scars and (...) vestiges such an @ as a signifier of becoming t@iled. The vestiges of a human being are being investigated through the appeal to an actual post-postmodern conceptions such as speculative realism, speculative posthumanism, dark ecology, etc. In the post-postmodern context concepts such as trut/h, faith and kindness as a counterweight to the excessive postmodern quotation and theorization are being examined. Thus, a human being as a post-postscript is becoming a preface at the same time. This article explores such crucial postmodern issues as iterability, signature and others in a contingent context, in which an immanence of living itself becomes a writing in the postdigitality, post-Internet and post-media extent in relation to the realization of the disaster of technical or even mechanical as human. This research realizes on a showcase of post-postmodern architecture as an immanent spatiotemporal contingency, en-vironment of a human being. It shows how a minimalistic style in post-postmodern ethics and aesthetics correlates with obversive rocking in contrast to binary opposition logic. Thus, it realizes a movement from human to posthuman as scriptor, writing a postscript, and beyond to post-posthuman as postscriptor, writing a post-postscript as a human being, writing itself in its contingent immanence. (shrink)

In an essential way I make use of Frege’s and Vasilev’s ideas. N. A. Vasilev distinguished two levels in a logic. The abstract logic depends on gnoeologic assumptions while the empirical part of logic depends on ontological ones. Vasilev did not change the external logic but he did change the internal one. His system can be viewed as a non-standard syllogistics based on classical propositional logic . Vasilev’s ideas become plain if we discern cleary acts of predication and acts of (...) assertion, the relation of mental contents with the way things are. The second sourse of the idea seems to Frege’s differentation of mental process and assertion, statement . As a symbol of assertion for Frege serves a vertical stroke |. A horizontal stroke following it is correlated with holding a proposition, it makes the sign determined everywhere. In the string of signs the one following the vertical stroke does not express a proposition, it describes a possible state of affairs. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 111 One fascinating item is the author's extensive account of the most violent and extended controversy in the history of aesthetics---the veneration of images and the disputes between the Iconoclasts and the Iconophiles. This sometimes physical battle raged for over 100 years! The Byzantine society, obviously, took art seriously. Tatarkiewicz' great labor is an object lesson in historiography and bibliographic technique. At one and the same time (...) it demonstrates how much of value remains to be discovered by careful adherence to the detail of scholarship, while it also displays how much fruitful scholarship depends upon a brilliant and profoundly informed mind. Such a work, in short, could only have descended from a fully mature scholar. Publication of these volumes underscores the continuing need for publication of significant translations waiting to be made. When can we return to those conditions which make possible this kind of international scholarly achievement? The Humanities Press is now offering these two volumes for $10.00. ALLAN SHIELDS Cali/ornia State University, San Diego Tempo, Coscienza e Essere nella filosofia di Aristotele. By Luigi Ruggiu. (Brescia: Paideia Editrice, 1970. Pp. xxviii+662. L. 6,000.) Ruggiu gives us here a careful and extended account of Aristotle's view of time with special attention to the necessary connections that obtain between time and consciousness, and time and beilag. Ruggiu is also interested in saying something about the origins of later Western conceptions of time and what he calls the nihilistic tendency which runs through them. The reader who (wishing to follow Ruggiu in this 690 page enterprise) begins by trying to get a sense of the architectonic of the essay, is immediately advised to skip E. Severino's somewhat misleading preface. In his own very useful Introduction, Ruggiu rightly notes that Aristotle's review of the aporia in the notion of time found that his predecessors had tended to assimilate (or reduce) time to non-being. But Ruggiu neglects to emphasize something that would have been very helpful at this stage, and which is altogether required, for the understanding of Aristotle's view of time. This is, that Aristotle himself assimilates time, not to non-being but to change and motion. It is also fundamental to Aristotle's philosophy of time, just as it is to his philosophy as a whole, that it acknowledges the primacy of change in the realm of the conditional. Let it be emphasized, then, that generation or change in Aristotle are not from nothing into something, or from something into nothing but from one thing into another. Ruggiu is trying to recover the sense of being in Aristotle which transcends the oppositions between idealism and naturalism, subjectivism and objectivism, and which is the matrix of Aristotle's sense of, and doctrine about, time. He finds that from Plotinos to the present, the prevailing interpretation of Aristotle's conception of time has been a spatial one in which, for instance, temporal succession has been reduced to spatial co-existence. Plotinos, of course, accepted the distinction found in Aristotle between the eternal sort of being which is outside of time and the being which is in time. But in trying to deduce temporal being from eternal being Plotinos is found guilty, by Ruggiu, both of equivocating between radically opposed senses of being and of developing his notion of time on the basis of the denial of time (quite like some modern mathematical philosophers of physics). Others have been equally mistaken in approaching Aristotle with the belief that consciousness is the basis of time. But the substrate of time, in Aristotle, is change, not conscious being. According to Ruggiu time in Aristotle is more than just a mode of being whose essence consists in succes- I 12 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY sion, for the reason that time conditions the very way in which we conceptualize being. The relations between being, time, and consciousness are, so to say, intrafoundational. Existing things or processes can, of course, be thought of as not existing; so, there is a sense or mode (namely, possibility) in Aristotle in which things disappear. Ruggiu (p. 411) understands Aristotle to mean by "the possible" that which does not now exist... (shrink)

Gregory Savich Skovoroda (1724-1794) belongs both to the Russian and Ukrainian philosophy. His philosophical doctrine was only revivified at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, which was caused by the affinity of the philosophical searches of the Silver Age (beginning of the 1890s-1922) with the religious and philosophical doctrine by Gregory Skovoroda. In the history of philosophy, Gregory Skovoroda can be considered «boundary figure» marking transition from the Middle Ages to the culture of the Modernity. The article deals with the (...) thinker’s ethical doctrine, particularly, with two interpretations of nature: essential and voluntary. Moralizing was the main aim and content of the most works by Gregory Skovoroda. Practical philosophy by Gregory Skovoroda immediately sides with his understanding of nature. Volition, wish (desire), affinity, true man are its basic categories. The main aim of Skovoroda’s moralizing is to show the way to the happy life. The essential topic of the Skovoroda’s creative work are concentrated in his ethics: ontology, or doctrine of three worlds (microcosm, macrocosm, symbolic world – the Bible), exegetical method of cognition and symbolism, doctrine of nature and category of affinity, the principle of self-cognition and doctrine of the «true man», doctrine of heart and anthropology, eudemonism and problem of reality of the evil and the good in the world. According to the canons of the symbolism Skovoroda criticizes material, corporeal side of the world and gives preference to its spiritual meaning. Nevertheless, Skovoroda remains a religious thinker in his practical philosophy; he meditates per religious canons. For the 18th century Gregory Skovoroda’s doctrine had been as archaic as it became relevant at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. (shrink)

In the last five years, the Italian political system registered its most important crisis. All parties, existing since the second world war, disappeared or were greatly transformed. The main purpose of this article is to analyse the deepest causes of the first Italian republic's collapse, following some specific interpretations of ltalian political observers.L. Ricolfi bases his theory on the emergence of "Lega" and the return of laïque culture in Italy. The old christian democratic and communist parties will suffer the most (...) from these changes.A. Sofri emphasizes the identity of northern regionalism between the "Lega" and the "Pool of Milan". A real opposition emerges between the judges of Milan and the politicians of Rome.S. Romano and M.L. Salvadori prefer the historical approach: for them, the events of1990-1994 are very similar to what happened in 1922-1926and in 1943-1945. The absence of a pacific alternative and the "ideological war" among political forces produce the effect that every change in Italian politics implies an end of regime.L. Ornaghi and V.B. Parsi deal with the "values" of citizens which, very often, do not correspond to the values of old politicians. For them, a democracy for the political parties -as structured in the last 45 years- must give priority to a democracy for the citizens. (shrink)

I argue against the Doctrine of Double Effect’s explanation of the moral difference between terror bombing and strategic bombing. I show that the standard thought-experiment of Terror Bomber and Strategic Bomber which dominates this debate is underdetermined in three crucial respects: (1) the non-psychological worlds of Terror Bomber and Strategic Bomber; (2) the psychologies of Terror Bomber and Strategic Bomber; and (3) the structure of the thought-experiment, especially in relation to its similarity with the Trolley Problem. (1) If the two (...) worlds are not identical, then it may be these differences between the two worlds and not the Doctrine of Double Effect to explain the moral difference; (2a) if Terror Bomber and Strategic Bomber have the same causal beliefs, then why does Terror Bomber set out to kill the children? It may then be this unwarranted and immoral choice and not the Doctrine of Double Effect that explains the moral difference; (2b) if the two have different causal beliefs, then we can’t rule out the counterfactual that, had Strategic Bomber had the same beliefs as Terror Bomber, she would have also acted as Terror Bomber did. Finally, (3) the Strategic Bomber scenario could also be constructed so as to be structurally equivalent to the Fat Man scenario in the Trolley Problem: but then the Doctrine of Double Effect would give different answers to two symmetrical cases. (shrink)

Kant scholars have rarely addressed the centuries-old tradition of casuistry and the concept of conscience in Kant’s writings. This book offers a detailed exploration of the period from Pascal’s Provincial Letters to Kant’s critique of probabilism and discusses his proposal of a (new) casuistry as part of an moral education. *** -/- Die Debatte um Kasuistik und Probabilismus zählt zu den wichtigsten Themen der Moraltheologie und Moralphilosophie der frühen Neuzeit. In der enormen Verbreitung der Literatur über die Gewissensfälle (casus conscientiae) (...) und in der großen Resonanz der Lehre von den wahrscheinlichen Meinungen (opiniones probabiles) in der ersten Hälfte des 17. Jahrhunderts findet sich ein wirkungsmächtiges Modell für die Analyse des moralischen Handelns, in welchem Universalität des Gebots und Kontingenz der Handlung, Notwendigkeit der Norm und individuelle Freiheit miteinander versöhnt werden. Dennoch erregt dieses Modell heftige Kritik, die in Pascals berühmtem Angriff in den Briefen in die Provinz (1656–1657) gipfelt. So beginnt für die Kasuistik und den Probabilismus eine lange Krise, welche die Entstehung der modernen Moralphilosophie und den Siegeszug des kantischen Paradigmas ankündigt. Die Krise von Kasuistik und Probabilismus fällt zusammen mit einer einsetzenden rigoristischen Reaktion der christlichen Moraltheologie sowohl katholischer als auch protestantischer Prägung,welche die moralischen und spekulativen Folgen eines Rückgriffs auf Gewissensfälle und wahrscheinliche Meinungen als inakzeptabel ablehnt. Die Ablehnung geht aber weiter und dringt bis in den Kern der philosophischen Reflexion vor: Die rigoristische Reaktion gegen Kasuistik und Probabilismus entzündet sich im moralphilosophischen Denken Kants als Folge seiner umfassenden kritischen Revision der Grundbegriffe der Moralphilosophie sowie insbesondere seiner Neubestimmung des Verhältnisses von Gewissen und praktischem Urteil. Dem Grundsatz des Probabilismus setzt Kant das Kriterium der moralischen Gewißheit („quod dubitas, ne feceris!“) entgegen, das er als „Postulat des Gewissens“ bezeichnet (RGV 6:185.23–186.9).Und die Kasuistik wird als eine „Critic der Handlungen nach Sophistic“ abgestempelt, als eine „Uebung, um nach der Sophistic das Gewissen zu hintergehen oder es zu chicaniren, insofern man es in Irrthum zu setzen denkt“ (V-MS/Vigil 27:620.2–5). Dennoch weist Kant den kasuistischen Fragen eine herausragende Stellung in der Tugendlehre zu und legt der Kasuistik im Rahmen der ethischen Methodenlehre, also im Hinblick auf pädagogische Anwendungen, letztlich eine positive Funktion bei. Vermutlich ist Kants Angriff auf Kasuistik und Probabilismus durch den Einfluss Pascals philosophisch vermittelt. Kants Verhältnis zu Pascal und, allgemeiner, zu dem historischen Hintergrund, welchem dieser angehört, sind gleichwohl noch erstaunlich wenig erforscht: Trotz der wiederholten (stillschweigenden oder sogar ausdrücklichen) Hinweise an wichtigen Stellen in Kants Schriften richtet die Kant-Forschung ihre Aufmerksamkeit nur selten auf die Jahrhunderte währende Tradition der Kasuistik und den Begriff des Gewissens, der in ihrem Rahmen ausgearbeitet wird. Aus dieser langen Geschichte wird in diesem Band insbesondere der Zeitraum „von Pascal bis Kant“ eingehend untersucht, d.h. der noch wenig erkundete Zeitabschnitt von der beißenden Polemik von Pascals Briefe in die Provinz bis zu Kants eigener Kritik des Probabilismus und seinem Entwurf einer (neuen) Kasuistik als Teil der ethischen Methodenlehre. (shrink)

It becomes increasingly difficult to keep up with studies of Schelling, or more generally of the history of German Idealism, without being conversant with the rapidly growing Italian literature in this field. This book appears twenty-five years after that of Horst Furrmans, and ten years after that of Walter Schulz—the two major studies to date of Schelling's later philosophy. Although Bausola's study does not display the depth and extent of scholarly penetration to be found in Furrmans or Schulz, neither does (...) it display their pretention. It does not claim to be the ultimate interpretation. Its avowed aim is to treat one major theme in the later Schelling: that of relationship between metaphysics and revelation. Yet it also points to a rather novel interpretation, or at least a sketch, of the relationship of the middle Schelling to the writings preceding the Bruno. For the non-specialist, this book is a valuable introduction, offering a clear and well written account of the great themes of Schelling's late philosophy. Included is a competent review of the relevant secondary sources and a bibliographical notice of publications after 1953, the closing date of Schneeberger's standard Schelling bibliography.—M. J. V. (shrink)

_Abstract_: The question posed in the title serves as a springboard to examine the interdisciplinary nature of cognitive science and the role philosophy should play. I will argue that philosophy has a clearly defined role to play over and above the contributions made by philosophies specific to the various disciplines engaged in cognitive science. I also point out that by engaging with cognitive science – an endeavor defined by a clear scientific goal – philosophy itself will have to change in (...) ways that are bound to affect the future of philosophizing. In the first part of this paper, I play devil’s advocate, arguing that philosophy should not be amongst the disciplines engaged in cognitive science. In the second part, I discuss how the relationship between philosophy and psychology has been changed by their common participation in cognitive science: psychology is now admittedly philosophical and philosophy has become naturalized. In the third part, I suggest that philosophy is better equipped than psychology to handle the thorny question of representation in cognitive science. In the fourth part and conclusion, I argue that cognitive science will influence both the theory and practice of philosophy: the futures of cognitive science and philosophy are tied together. _Keywords_: Philosophy; Cognitive Science; Cognitive Psychology; Naturalism; Epistemology _Quale filosofia – se una ce ne vuole – per la scienza cognitiva?_ _Riassunto_: L’interrogativo posto nel titolo funge da punto di partenza per analizzare la natura interdisciplinare della scienza cognitiva e il ruolo che la filosofia dovrebbe avere al suo interno. Sosterrò che alla filosofia spetti un ruolo ben definito, al di là dei contributi forniti dai particolari indirizzi filosofici coinvolti nella scienza cognitiva. Sottolineerò anche che, confrontandosi con la scienza cognitiva – un ambito caratterizzato da un chiaro obiettivo scientifico – la filosofia stessa dovrà cambiare, assumendo modalità che influenzeranno il futuro del filosofare. Nella prima parte di questo articolo metterò le vesti dell’avvocato del diavolo, sostenendo come la filosofia non dovrebbe essere tra le discipline coinvolte nella scienza cognitiva. Nella seconda parte discuterò come il rapporto tra filosofia e psicologia sia mutato per effetto della comune partecipazione al progetto della scienza cognitiva: ora la psicologia è apertamente filosofica e la filosofia è filosofia naturalizzata. Nella terza parte mostrerò come la filosofia sia meglio equipaggiata della psicologia per fronteggiare l’ostico problema della rappresentazione nella scienza cognitiva. Nella quarta parte e nelle conclusioni sosterrò che la scienza cognitiva potrà influenzare la teoria e la pratica del filosofare: il futuro della scienza cognitiva e della filosofia sono reciprocamente legati. _Parole chiave_: Filosofia; Scienza cognitiva; Psicologia cognitiva; Naturalismo; Epistemologia. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Empire Writes Back, With A VengeanceDenis DuttonOne of the more uplifting aspects of the turn toward theory in recent years has been the growth of postcolonial cultural studies. Postcolonial studies are in actuality constituted by counterdiscoursive, decolonizing practices which acknowledge the recognition of minority discourses, deconstructing hegemonic texts and imperialist metanarratives, opposing unduly overprivileging Western canonical paradigms of “literature,” and—well, you know what I mean. As Benita Parry (...) so lucidly explains, “The labor of producing a counter-discourse displacing imperialism’s dominative system of knowledge rests with those engaged in developing a critique from outside its cultural hegemony.” And what an awesome labor it is. The noted postcolonial theorist Georg M. Gugelberger sums things up by saying (I’m not inventing this) “postcolonialism can be conceptualized as the last bulwark against an encroaching total capitalism.”But what of the struggling masses of oppressed peoples whose interests and cultural sensitivities are so caringly looked after by practitioners of postcolonial studies? How do they feel about the fact that the only thing standing between them and “total capitalism” is resistance being mounted in a comparative literature department in Idaho, or someplace? This is a question seldom asked, let alone answered. Fortunately, new light has been thrown on the matter with the arrival of a booklet at this journal. Indian History from Above and Below, by Rukun Advani, is published by Ram Advani, probably a member of the family, in Lucknow. It is dedicated to “all Bengali intellectuals and those whose dollar salaries rise in proportion with obscurity and jargon.” Advani notes in his preface that although Bengali intellectuals talk torrents in their native tongue, when they [End Page 198] disseminate their thoughts abroad, they translate into a “clogged, colonial, unfluid flow,” with footnotes such as: “Derrida; ibid.; see my recent essay on the modes and moods of Foucault in JPS, III.iii, 3–333; on Lacan, see Lacan, On Lacan; Barthes, how many times a day do you have one in summer; idem., do you really?; differentiated peasantry; undifferentiated peasantry; for a feminist, though partially anthropologized, hermeneutic-critical discourse on the post-colonial subversive dimensions of the undifferentiated middle peasant in Midnapore district in June 1959, see the provocative controversy between Ranajit da and Amiya da in Gayatri di, ed., Gendered, Gendered, O Most Gendered: Epistemology and the Male Menopause in Bengal between June 1959 and July 1959 (Oxford University Press, forty years later).”The first of the booklet’s two essays, “Indian History from Below: a Swiftian Consideration,” discusses a neglected but “important arena of subaltern existence, namely the history of belching, wind-breaking and defecation.” Just to name these three functions posits “a bourgeois hierarchy of disgust with what Marx, in one of his most decisively Derridesque reflections, termed ‘The Asiatic Commode of Production.’” Beginning with the Foucauldian notion of “the peasant’s overdetermined relative autonomy from the olfactory,” Advani describes “the Barthesian notion of the impossibility of critical transcendence by the historian into either the symbiotic acculturation of the pastness, and indeed the presentness, of the present-subject, or indeed the even greater epistemological and hermeneutic problems posed by attempting a recreation of the ontological presuppositions of the peasant.” Much of this is elaborated in the classic essay by Professor Lavatri Lavatory Spewhack, “The Post-Colonial Lavatory and Its Radical Implications for Nomenclaturing Among Gendered and Subalternized Third World Expatriate-Marxist-Feminists in the First and Second Worlds: A Derivative Discourse Decoded.”The debt that Rukun Advani owes to Professor Spewhack is clear from the sheer number of his references to books and articles by her. These include, on the subject of toileting, Master Disgusted, Native Disgusting: a Perspective on Peasants from 250,000 Dollars per Annum, “On the Symbolic Hegemony of Subsection Numbers in a Gendered and Subalternized Post-Colonial Context: A Derivative Discourse Decoded” (in The Phenomenology of Praxis and the Praxis of Phenomenology in a Postmodern Residential Colony), “The Violence of Steam and the Episteme of Violence: Foucault’s Views on Hot Air Balloons” (in Obscurata), and even parts of her autobiography: The Larger than Life of Lavatri Lavatory [End Page 199] Spewhack (chapter titled “My Collected Phonecalls and Faxes”). While some... (shrink)

In Paris, metropolis of xix century, Benjamin traces the new paradigm of modernity: the modern theatrical dimension corresponds to the artistic innovations and to the reproduction of aesthetical requests. Entfremdung and Neutralisierung are the main characters of the Ästhetisierung and they are one with the distraction as principle of reception and the conformism as principle of valuation. This is the context of the aura’s decline. The Adorno’s critical essay on the radio (1963) analyses the transformation of works of art in (...) cultural gifts and, in particular, the loss of autonomy of the musical work of art in the radio listening. The Adorno’s remarks recognize the historical character of aura and a new possibility that it can re-emerge in a new historical dimension of the music. (shrink)

The reader of Joseph Navickas’s recent book will be disappointed if he expects the author to keep the promise made in the note on the back cover: “The book combines a textual analysis with a new constructive interpretation of the Phenomenology.” And the note goes on to say, “The complete working out of the notion of subjectivity requires a re-examination of the phenomenological transitions and a re-investigation of some allegedly insignificant achievements of the subject.” In point of fact there is (...) nothing particularly new in Navickas’s interpretation. His book actually repeats certain misunderstandings which one would think were the stock of older text-books. And as for the promised “textual analysis”, it consists mostly in a textual exposition of uneven quality. Some sections of Parts IV and V are lucid and accurate. Others, notably the sections of Part II, are woefully cursory, and often misleading. For instance, the theme of the “inverted world” is treated in these words. (shrink)