The seven contributors present the reader with a set of perspectives on the subsequent histories of the central ideas of these great thinkers. The essays focus on the ways in which these ideas were caught up in social movements and had been taken up by others who used them to support programs for radical historical changes, thereby subjecting them to distortions and perversions. The whole book reflects the feeling that history itself has purged away the dross which lay within the (...) original ideas, and that what now remains is either pure gold or later perversions illicitly smuggled in under the cover of various "isms."--K. P. F. (shrink)

This provocative, if sketchy, essay develops the theme that, although thought and reality are ultimately distinct, both are elements of one and the same reality--"a communion of living and interacting forces." The presentation recognizes a dialectical character to reality, in the form of opposing thrusts and tendencies, and a plurality of foci of demands to be met, all operating through and partially constituting history. It fails, however, to explicate the movement in the dialectic of reality and to explore the possibility (...) and value of dialectic as a cognitive process.--K. P. F. (shrink)

Religion has to do with one's total response to the universe. Mature religion involves a healthy skepticism, a sense of humor, and a respect for persons, accepting only internal gods, and basing itself on the rational processes of scientific thinking. Intertwining with this statement is an attempted analysis of the nature and sources of "immature," "heard" religion, presented in a dogmatic manner--K. P. F.

Four essays of interest to the philosopher of science. The collection includes three short essays by L. P. Coonen, D. M. Lilly and C. DeKoninck. In the major essay, "Evolution: Scientific and Philosophical Dimensions," R. J. Nogar first presents a detailed analysis of the current status of the concept of evolution, showing that its meaning varies greatly from discipline to discipline. He argues that in view of the great stability of organic species, the consideration of evolutionary processes exclusively as space-time (...) distributions in inadequate, and needs supplementing by a concept of "nature," to explicate the relation between generator and generated, and the facts of heredity.--K. P. F. (shrink)

The relations between physical science and technology, and their implications for culture, are investigated. Van Melsen argues that physical science merely extends, though in an abstract manner, man's ordinary methods of gaining knowledge about the world, that science and technology require one another, and that while science and technology threaten to overcome man's control of them, they also offer a great opportunity and stimulus to man's further self-realization.--K. P. F.

This volume includes the Sigma XI-RESA National Lectures, 1961; the Sigma XI-Phi Beta Kappa Lecture, 1961; the RESA Proctor Prize Lecture, 1960; and a special Sigma XI Diamond Jubilee presidential article. The latter three are non-technical articles on such topics as trends in and growth of science in this decade, and the interrelations of science and government. The other articles discuss recent experimental and theoretical results in such areas as climatology, magnetic interaction of atomic nuclei, the effects of solar disturbances (...) on terrestrial magnetism, human genetics and evolution, the biophysics of chemoreceptors, astrophysics and cosmogony, and the physics of the plasma state of matter.--K. P. F. (shrink)

Designed to acquaint students who already possess some knowledge of Thomism with modern, non-Thomistic systems of philosophy, this textbook examines the ways in which various modern philosophers have dealt with the problems of the nature and limits of knowledge and presents for comparison the Thomistic solutions to these problems. There are brief selections from the writings of major proponents of the positions considered. The interpretive expositions attempt to be sympathetic and, in view of the amount of abridgement and simplification required (...) by the nature of the text, involve few unhappy omissions or distortions.--K. P. F. (shrink)

This collection of essays, presented to William Humbert Kane, O.P., founder of the Albertus Magnus Lyceum, has as its principle of unification the notion that the metaphysics and philosophy of nature of Aristotle, Albertus Magnus, and Thomas Aquinas relate directly and importantly--and more than historically--to modern science in all of its aspects. The general reader will probably find that several of the articles illumine for him aspects of the Aristotelian philosophy as much as they do aspects of modern science.--K. P. (...) F. (shrink)

While it is primarily a detailed, technical treatise on the principles of the technology of automata, this book does contain some philosophically interesting material. In Part II, devoted to the theoretical construction of robots with consciousness but which exhibit no behavior, Culbertson advances and develops the idea that we can analyze perceptual consciousness in terms of the four dimensional "world-lines" of the transmissions of impulses along neurons, or rather in terms of interconnecting networks of such world lines. In Part III, (...) he argues that consciousness, defined in physical terms, cannot cause behavior. He presents, as an alternative, a doctrine of "historical causation" in which whole extended time periods in the past affect the present—K. P. F. (shrink)

This edition is apparently a facsimile reproduction of Andrew Motte's translation of 1729, but no acknowledgment is given. It contains a brief biographical introduction by Alfred Del Vecchio. It omits Newton's prefaces and that of Cotes to the second edition, the latter being of value to those interested in the conflict between Newton's views and those of Descartes. Neither index nor table of contents are provided. In short, a not very helpful edition.—K. P. F.

As part of an attempt to reconcile Indian philosophy and Western science, the author here maintains that the methods and theories of contemporary science support idealism rather than materialism. He holds that the world is a primal, undifferentiated field of energy, itself indeterminate and inexpressible, which man conceptually distinguishes in ways determined by "the genetic habit of the race."--K. P. F.

A reasonably competent introduction to the philosophy, logic and methodology of science for the interested layman.—K. P. F.

An introduction, in a somewhat humorous vein, to philosophy for the layman. The book, a series of brief dialogues between the author and a clothing salesman, deals with certain traditional questions in philosophy, concluding with, as most important, the questions of the existence and nature of God.--K. P. F.

Illustrates Aristotle's use of a vast number of terms by quoting, for each term, from one to almost forty passages ranging from a brief sentence to a paragraph. References to the loci of the passages in the Bekker edition are given. The book also includes an introduction of 162 pp. by Theodore E. James, consisting of brief summaries of Aristotle's works.--K. P. F.

This second volume in a series of Source Books in Asian Philosophy contains selections and in several cases complete works, from the writings of Chinese philosophers from Confucian humanism to contemporary communism. Chan maintains a balance between modern, medieval, and ancient thinkers as well as between Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. Chan has prefaced each of the 44 chapters with a brief introduction discussing the historical background and relative influence of a school, and has interspersed interpretive comments throughout the texts. Also (...) included are chronological tables of dynasties and philosophers, an appendix on translating Chinese philosophical terms, and a glossary of Chinese characters.--K. P. F. (shrink)

The seven contributors present the reader with a set of perspectives on the subsequent histories of the central ideas of these great thinkers. The essays focus on the ways in which these ideas were caught up in social movements and had been taken up by others who used them to support programs for radical historical changes, thereby subjecting them to distortions and perversions. The whole book reflects the feeling that history itself has purged away the dross which lay within the (...) original ideas, and that what now remains is either pure gold or later perversions illicitly smuggled in under the cover of various "isms."--K. P. F. (shrink)

An attempt to come to grips with the problem of how we acquire new concepts or how we develop new theories. Mr. Schon builds his theory on the basis of the idea that we do deal with new situations, or with old situations in new ways, and that we can do so only in terms of "old" theories—concepts which apply literally to other situations. He argues that we do so by "displacing" such concepts, using them as metaphors or projective models (...) for the new situation. This displacement both yields new concepts and conserves old assumptions uncritically. Mr. Schon devotes much attention to the role and nature of the metaphorical use of concepts, yet he fails to develop an explicit theory of their literal use.—K. P. F. (shrink)

In this essay, a Jewish thinker argues that the world as depicted by science forms a single system: each part is related to all because all are related to a single knower; this single system constitutes a whole which has priority over its parts because it conditions or delimits their behavior. This totality is the unchanging source of all processes, all making actual what had been merely possible. This totality Kohn attempts to define as God, and, taking it for granted (...) that science depicts the universe as undergoing continuous evolution on the whole and within its parts, he attempts to show how such evolution reveals, in the human perspective, that God is creativity. He distinguishes three "levels of being" produced in the course of the cosmic evolution--inorganic matter, sensitivity, conscience--but denies that the arising of any one of these phases involves the super-addition of something new to the preceding ones. He argues that this notion of God answers all religious requirements, and concludes with a warning and a plea regarding the possibility of future evolution in the light of man's ability to exercise conscious control over events.--K. P. F. (shrink)

A clearly written and uncomplicated text, suitable for use with elementary and high school students as well as in college classes. It presents, in thorough detail, the techniques for making deductions, testing for validity, etc., in the logic of sentences and of universal quantification. The exposition rests upon the basic notion of inference according to rules; some fourteen rules of inference are presented and explained. Truth values and truth tables are discussed as means for determining important properties of inferences, e.g., (...) testing for validity of the inference, consistency of the premisses, etc. These techniques are then applied in formulating a simple mathematical system, a set of axioms for addition. The system is then used to illustrate the deduction of theorems with universal quantification.—K. P. F. (shrink)

This provocative, if sketchy, essay develops the theme that, although thought and reality are ultimately distinct, both are elements of one and the same reality--"a communion of living and interacting forces." The presentation recognizes a dialectical character to reality, in the form of opposing thrusts and tendencies, and a plurality of foci of demands to be met, all operating through and partially constituting history. It fails, however, to explicate the movement in the dialectic of reality and to explore the possibility (...) and value of dialectic as a cognitive process.--K. P. F. (shrink)

The nine essays in this collection attempt to define the relationships between classical or scholastic logic and modern symbolic logic, and to apply the formal tools of logistic in the attempt to solve some of the problems with which the older logic had grappled. The first four chapters argue that there is no basic divergence between modern logistic and the classical logic; indeed, the formal parts of these chapters develop a proposed formal system of the categorical syllogism which can be (...) interpreted as a special case of the class calculus. The final five chapters deal with a variety of logico-philosophical problems, including the paradox of the "liar," the logical analysis of existence, and, somewhat informally, the problem of universals. I. M. Bochénski is the author of five of the articles.--K. P. F. (shrink)

Though its title suggests a mere orderly exposition of philosophical theses, this book actually presents a series of arguments in step by step development for a frankly Thomistic system of metaphysics. Starting with an acceptance of the "critical attitude" in philosophy, Peters argues that we can find the epistemological ground of "the science of what transcends experience" in our experience of the "to be" of finite beings. He then proceeds to develop the traditional topics of Thomistic metaphysics. In large measure, (...) the arguments advance dialectically by critical consideration of various anti-metaphysical positions. Some of the major premisses of crucial arguments could be questioned by non-Thomists, but the challenges made are provocative.—K. P. F. (shrink)

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Nature quality in relation to farming is a complex field. It involves different traditions and interests, different views of what nature is, and different ways of valuing nature. Furthermore there is a general lack of empirical data on many aspects of nature quality in the farmed landscape. In this paper we discuss nature quality from the perspective of organic farming, which has its own values and goals in relation to nature – the Ecologist View of Nature. This is in contrast (...) to the Culturist View characteristic of much conventional agriculture and the Naturalist View characteristic of the traditional biological approach to nature quality. This threefold distinction forms a framework for exploration of nature quality criteria in the farmed landscape. The traditional work on nature quality has mainly focused on biological interests based on a Naturalist View of Nature. In this paper we will explore how criteria for nature quality based on the Ecologist View can be developed and thereby feed into the ongoing discussion of the development of the organic farming practices. We suggest additional criteria for nature quality based on an Ecologist View of Nature: biodiversity, habitat diversity, extent and structure, functional integrity of habitats and agro-ecosystems, landscape integrity, accessibility, and experientiality. The larger set of Naturalist and Ecologist criteria can provide a wider and more balanced basis for developing nature quality indicators that are relevant in the farmed landscapes. This broader approach to nature quality is also expected to benefit the general societal discussions and decisions on farming and nature. (shrink)

The subtitle of this text intended for philosophy students’ 2nd course in logic is in no way misleading. It is a lucid introduction to the philosophic activities of uncovering metaphysical presuppositions of logical techniques and altering logical techniques, and hence assessments of deductive validity, to conform to metaphysical presuppositions. They do not, though, assume that techniques for assessing deductive validity are or should be wholly dependent upon metaphysical presuppositions. They write on p. 213 in their section on intensional discourse: "And (...) logic wherever possible ought not to wait upon philosophy, for logic wherever possible ought to be neutral between different philosophical analyses." In their investigations of metaphysical presuppositions and logical techniques, they consider primarily the consequences of existential presuppositions about the use of singular terms, viz., individual variables, individual names, and definite descriptions. They favor freeing use of singular terms from existential presuppositions. The consideration of allowing non-referring names and definite descriptions makes their text one of the first, if not the first, for teaching Free Logic. The gist of Free Logic is not to allow existential generalization of Fb to unless there is an auxiliary premise asserting the existence of b, because use of the name b has been freed from the presupposition that it names something. It is suitable that these authors have a text on Free Logic since Lambert is the major figure in its origin while van Fraassen has established some of the most significant results about Free Logic systems. They go on to consider alternative logical rules to those of Russell for dealing with nonreferring definite descriptions. These alternatives to standard logic are philosophically motivated. They are not simply dumped upon students as rules for symbol manipulation. For instance, on pp. 152-157 they give a succinct analysis of the Russell-Meinong debate when they agree with Meinong that one can talk of the thing that is such and such without accepting that there is such a thing. The treatment of singular terms leads them to discussions of topics such as: What is it for a logic to be extensional and is Free Logic extensional?, the substitution interpretation of quantifiers, and the notion of presupposition. (shrink)