The volume documents, and makes an original contribution to, an astonishing period in twentieth-century philosophy—the progress of Arne Naess's ecophilosophy from its inception to the present. It includes Naess's most crucial polemics with leading thinkers, drawn from sources as diverse as scholarly articles, correspondence, TV interviews and unpublished exchanges. The book testifies to the skeptical and self-correcting aspects of Naess's vision, which has deepened and broadened to include third world and feminist perspectives. Philosophical Dialogues is an essential addition to the (...) literature on environmental philosophy. (shrink)

The present article takes a glance at some aspects of the contemporary crisis of morality in Western civilization with particular reference to the writings of Sir Julian Huxley, more especially to his book Religion without Revelation. There is a flash-back to the Victorian background that prepared the way for evolutionism as the doctrine of inevitable progress, sometimes called “evolutionary humanism”. An instance of evolutionary humanism in operation is to be seen in Dewey-ism, a movement that is currently suspect because it (...) appears to lie at the root of disturbing factors in the American educational system and to be connected with increased delinquency, unhappy homes and broken marriages, and the general brittle atmosphere sensed by observant viewers of the social life in North America outside the Catholic and fundamentalist communities. (shrink)

This paper argues that inertia is an inherent principle and that inertia and Newton’s First Law are in this way natural in the Aristotelian sense. Indeed, many difficulties concerning inertia and the First Law of Motion may be resolved by understanding them through an Aristotelian conception of nature. The paper proceeds by examining the characteristic activities of inertia, the Aristotelian idea of nature, various accounts of inertia as force and as inert, and the manner in which an Aristotelian conception of (...) nature improves on these accounts. It concludes that the unsuccessful attempts by physicists to find an extrinsic origin of inertia, though they may eventually lead to new discoveries, support the view that inertia is an inherent principle of nature. Newton himself understood the principle of inertia through an eclectic but largely nonAristotelian conception of nature and matter and by the problematic notion of a vis inertiae. However, Newton’s general philosophy of nature should be distinguished from the more specific content of the First Law and of inertia itself. A general Aristotelian conception of nature can resolve many of Newton’s difficulties. Thus, inertia and the First Law of Motion are reasonably regarded as natural in the general Aristotelian sense. (shrink)

The present article takes a glance at some aspects of the contemporary crisis of morality in Western civilization with particular reference to the writings of Sir Julian Huxley, more especially to his book Religion without Revelation. There is a flash-back to the Victorian background that prepared the way for evolutionism as the doctrine of inevitable progress, sometimes called “evolutionary humanism”. An instance of evolutionary humanism in operation is to be seen in Dewey-ism, a movement that is currently suspect because it (...) appears to lie at the root of disturbing factors in the American educational system and to be connected with increased delinquency, unhappy homes and broken marriages, and the general brittle atmosphere sensed by observant viewers of the social life in North America outside the Catholic and fundamentalist communities. (shrink)

Is automation a glimpse of the future of humanity? Last year the question was gone into at meetings of the Catholic Association of French Thinkers. Persons with experience of automation in industry and scientific research were the main contributors, and the present volume gives the text of the papers and discussions.

The Bampton Lectures are named after John Bampton, their founder, a Canon of Salisbury who died a little over two centuries ago and left £120 per annum to the University of Oxford as endowment of eight “divinity-lecture-sermons” to be delivered each year “to confirm and establish the Christian Faith, and to confute all heretics and schismatics.” No person was to preach the sermons unless he had at least a Master’s Degree of Oxford or Cambridge. It is one of the ironies (...) of history that the lectures are now given by heretics. But what heretic could be more agreeable to members of the true Church than Dr. Mascall, the Bampton Lecturer for 1956? The discourses were never meant to be popular addresses, but have always been valuable and learned expositions of Christian teaching. Without any shadow of doubt the high standard of the past is maintained in the present volume. (shrink)

The experiments described in this publication had their start during the Second World War under the direction of Professor Sir Frederick Bartlett at Cambridge. The immediate aim was to compare the various tests that had been devised at one time or another to help in selecting people for such night tasks as required keen night vision. The work gradually turned into a laboratory investigation for studying the outstanding traits of the key tests. When the war came to an end, the (...) research was continued because it was seen to have importance for the theory of human vision in general. In the post-war investigations, special attention was paid to the way in which quantum properties of light might be related to excitation of the retina. (shrink)

Thoughtful people who look at the world scene and see civilization in danger of collapse or extinction, are not without hope that by taking thought they may discover remedies. The trouble has been brilliantly diagnosed by Alexis Carrel in his best-selling publication, Man the Unknown, a book that is both scientific and wise. Silva Mello, in the volume before us, tackles the same question, but the flavour is quite different. His book pulsates with feeling and love of humanity, as well (...) as great sincerity, but the approach to problems is intuitive rather than analytical. The English version is based on the fourth Portuguese edition, the book having achieved high popularity in Latin America. (shrink)

It is generally recognised that Western civilization is faced with a double threat to its survival, communism from without and disintegration from within. The latter had its beginnings in the Renaissance and the Reformation, both of which had disruptive effects of a size that is now being more or less clearly seen. We also see that there is urgent need to offset the consequences of these movements, and as rapidly as possible. To-day the accent is on co-operation between the diverse (...) elements of Western culture, and a good deal of thought is being given to devising ways and means of bringing the estranged components together, and re-establishing a unity akin to that which formerly existed in Christendom. (shrink)

Professor Bridgman is a physicist of distinction who has contributed to the philosophy of physics. Dissatisfied with the traditional obscurities and irrationalities of certain branches of his subject, he evolved for himself a logic of modern physics, and focussed his attention on that aspect of scientific method which he called “operational”. His name has been associated with “operational research” and “operational definition” ever since. The present volume, a second and enlarged edition, is a collection of non-technical writings that illustrate what (...) the operational point of view can lead to. The papers are of varying length, some of them quite slight, and the quality is likewise variable. It seems to me the book would improve with pruning, and editing. Besides some irksome mannerisms, there are crudities of style that one would wish to see removed. (shrink)