A prosaic and unimaginative introductory textbook. The author claims that his aim is "not to introduce the student to the various philosophies but to introduce him to the kind of thinking from which philosophy comes." The very patness of his presentation, however, discourages original philosophical thinking.--D. P. B.

Directed to the non-philosopher, this is an attempt to sketch briefly a public philosophy for contemporary America. It attacks the "enfeebling naturalism" of Dewey and espouses the right of suffrage as the most fundamental right of man.--D. P. B.

This collection of Professor S. Sastri's work indicates the depth of his contribution to Indian philosophy. The reader will find his development of Bradley's Idealism in the light of the Advaita tradition to be of special philosophic interest.--D. P. B.

Essays by E. B. Allaire, May Brodbeck, Reinhart Grossmann, Herbert Hochberg and Robert G. Turnbull, most of which have already appeared since 1959. Half of the essays argue answers of a realist type to contemporary statements of traditional ontological problems. The second half of the volume studies the ontological "systems" of Ockhom, Berkeley, Frege, Moore, Wittgenstein, Quine and Dewey from a realistic standpoint. Three previously unpublished essays are included: "Particulars and Time", "Common Names", and "The 'Tractatus': Nominalistic or Realistic?". An (...) excellent beginning for a promising series.--D. P. B. (shrink)

The author sees Parsifal as setting the essential problem for the present age. From a study of the grail myths, Spieler attempts to point the way to a synoptic view of experience. Basic to the project is his view that everything is a product of the logos which permeates all of reality. It is by virtue of the logical law, as the causal nexus of experience, that a reconciliation of fragmented experience is seen to be possible. A carefully documented and (...) interesting study.--D. P. B. (shrink)

An introductory text which deals with several of the basic problems of semantical and logical analysis. Most of the discussion is devoted to problems of usage, rules, inference, and validity. A rather cumbersome symbolism results from the author's explicit attempt to treat these problems with the formal tools of elementary symbolic logic.--D. P. B.

A brief statement of medieval linguistic analysis as found chiefly in the works of Thomas Aquinas. A thin survey of contemporary analysis is offered in order to contrast the purported acceptance of analysis as the end of philosophy with Thomas' use of analysis as method. Unfortunately, most of the constructive work in language analysis during the past ten years is not considered. The brevity of the text precludes persuasive treatment; yet the book succeeds in its expressed purpose of sketching some (...) chief differences between the medieval and contemporary approaches in the hope that the confrontation of these currents will bring to the fore the analytic work of Aquinas himself.--D. P. B. (shrink)

A new and idiomatic translation of the most important questions in the Summa Theologica pertaining to the nature of the human soul and human knowledge.--D. P. B.

Southern examines three phases in the development of the western view of Islam from 650 to 1570. In an historical study of these phases he traces the gradual emergence of a critical spirit of inquiry regarding Islam. The author argues that "... medieval scholars and men of affairs came up against problems with which, in a different context, we are familiar."--D. P. B.