By analysis of the connection between the "lower" man and the "higher" man within the human person, I have endeavored to show their "coincidence" in the unfolding of the novum or a good conscience. I have also endeavored to show that it can be aroused by the discovery of "homo absconditus" or of "Deus Absconditus." In this way we become able to approach the Divine. Moreover, in each infrastructure there appears the tendency towards "personalization" by "right" of its reality or (...) existence within the personal human being. (shrink)

By analysis of the connection between the "lower" man and the "higher" man within the human person, I have endeavored to show their "coincidence" in the unfolding of the novum or a good conscience. I have also endeavored to show that it can be aroused by the discovery of "homo absconditus" or of "Deus Absconditus." In this way we become able to approach the Divine. Moreover, in each infrastructure there appears the tendency towards "personalization" by "right" of its reality or (...) existence within the personal human being. (shrink)

By analysis of the connection between the "lower" man and the "higher" man within the human person, I have endeavored to show their "coincidence" in the unfolding of the novum or a good conscience. I have also endeavored to show that it can be aroused by the discovery of "homo absconditus" or of "Deus Absconditus." In this way we become able to approach the Divine. Moreover, in each infrastructure there appears the tendency towards "personalization" by "right" of its reality or (...) existence within the personal human being. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:152 BOOK REVIEWS with Weinrih's theory of formalism which Joseph Raz points out in his essay. One of the most serious of these deficiencies in my opinion is the role that is accorded to the judiciary. Weinrih's theory, as Raz shows, requires that when positive law is in conflict with the " form of law," positive law should he disregarded by the courts, and the courts in these cases (...) not only have the legal right to disregard the statutes of law hut even the moral duty to do so. To give such total discretionary power to the courts is certainly to offer an invitation impossible to re· sist, as the recent judicial history of the United States Supreme Court clearly shows, to autocratic and politically motivated judicial activism. The above remarks, inadequate as they are because of the constraints of space, may offer some indication of the rich diversity of natural law theories currently offering themselves for our consideration. Those interested in natural law theory either within the framework of moral theory, or legal theory, or both, will surely find that a careful reading of this volume will amply reward their efforts. St. John's University Jamaica, New York THOMAS A. FAY Metaphysics: An Outline of the History of Being. By MIECZYSLAW ALBERT KRAPIEC, O.P., translated by Theresa Sandok. New York: Peter Lang, 1991. Pp. 539. $69.95 (cloth). This volume is the second in Lang's Catholic Thought from Lublin series edited by Andrew Woznicki. Krapiec's work is a tour de force of Gilsonian Thomism as it founds metaphyscis upon a judgmental grasp of the act of existence in sensible things. The hook is unrelentingly Krapiec. Though there are abundant historical descriptions, there is a minimum of textual citation. Also, the reader can plainly see that Krapiec is intent upon presenting his understanding of metaphysics ad mentem Thomae. Three main parts comprise the hook. Part One is on the object of metaphysics-being as being (as existing). Part One contains the most crucial pages of the hook, viz., pp. 86-100. There Krapiec explains the attainment of this object. This portion is obviously the heart of the hook, and I will treat it in detail later. Part One also includes a lengthy exposition of the transcendentals. Part Two focuses on the structure of being and elaborates the following : act and potency, substance and accidents, matter and form, essence and existence, and the causes of being. There are two noteworthy points here. First, Krapiec's lengthy inclusion (pp. 313-374) of BOOK REVIEWS 153 matter and form within his metaphysics seems to have metaphysics swallowing up natural philosophy. One's misgivings are not assuaged by Krapiec's presentation of the division of the speculative sciences hack in his General Introduction. There the first degree of abstraction is no longer the home of natural philosophy hut the home of the modern humanistic and natural sciences (p. 28). The second degree harbors mathematics, while the third degree is home not only to metaphysics hut "philosophy" (pp. 28-9). The reader is left wondering what has happened to natural philosophy. I see no exigency' for Krapiec's metaphysics to eclipse natural philosophy. Moreover, for some Thomists, the move will create an unfortunate distraction from the good points of Krapiec's metaphysics. Second, by this reader's count, Krapiec presents no less than nine arguments for the real distinction between essence and existence. These arguments include the following: Aquinas's De Ente et Essentia argument that one can know what a phoenix is without knowing that one exists; the necessary character of existence as an essence vs. contingent realities; the monism of existence as an essence vs. the plurality of beings ; the infinity of existence as an essence vs. finite realities; and the reality of the potency/act distinction applied to essence-as·potency and existence-as-act. I cannot engage this involved topic in the short space of a review. I will say, however, that with Joseph Owens, I fail to see why a conceptual distinction between essence and existence is insufficient to deal with the above facts and problems. Underwriting my skepticism is the understanding that meanings can remain... (shrink)

By proposing the Microcosm and Macrocosm analogy for dialogue between Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology, the authors of this volume are reviving the perennial positioning of the human condition in the play of forces within and without the human being. This theme has run from Plato through the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Modernity, and has been ignored by contemporaries. It now acquires a new pertinence and striking significance due to the scientific discoveries into the "infinitely small" in life, on the (...) one hand, and the prodigious technological discoveries of the "infinitely great" on the other. Both open up undreamt-of prospects for the continuing conquest of cosmic forces. The human person – thrown into turmoil by the new approaches to life and needing to acquire new habits of mind, having lost security of all beliefs – desperately seeks a new clarification of the Human Condition within the unity of everything-there-is, of cosmic forces, and of his destiny. The dialogue between Islamic Philosophy and phenomenology of life can show the way. Papers by: Gholam-Reza A'awani, Mehdi Aminrazavi, Roza Davari Ardakani, Mohammad Azadpur, Gary Backhaus, Marina Banchetti-Robino, William Chittick, Seyed Mostafa Muhaghghegh Damad, Golamhossein Ebrahimi Dinani, Nader El-Bizri, Kathleen Haney, Salahaddin Khalilov, Sayyid Mohammad Khamenei, Mahmoud Khatami, Mieczyslaw Pawel Migon, Nikolay Milkov, Sachiko Murata, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, Daniela Verducci. (shrink)

In speaking of the reasons for the appearance of semantics, certain writers note the following three problems the solution of which demanded semantic analysis: 1) the problem of antinomies; 2) the problem of refining and explaining the basic concepts of formalized logic and mathematics; and 3) the problem of the complete formalization of logic.

This volume is published concurrently with the one reviewed below and together they unite a number of Quine's previously scattered papers into two compact volumes; this volume deals with his more philosophical work while the other is concerned with more purely technical logical studies. The twenty-one essays cover the period 1934-1964 and none have appeared between hard covers before. Several of the articles—"The ways of paradox," "Foundations of mathematics," "On the application of modern logic," and "Necessary truth"—are essentially popular expositions. (...) The others are generally more restricted in both scope and appeal, and deal with the ontology of the sentential calculus, truth by convention, implicit definition, modal logic, and ontological reduction in the sciences. Several articles concern the philosophy of science directly: "On simple theories of a complex world," "Posits and reality," and "The scope and language of science." This fine collection will be of significant help in presenting the work of a distinguished philosopher to a wider audience, as well as providing the professional with a source of discussion.—P. J. M. (shrink)

The current picture of the history of taxonomy incorporates A. J. Cain's claim that Linnaeus strove to apply the logical method of definition taught by medieval followers of Aristotle. Cain's argument does not stand up to critical examination. Contrary to some published statements, there is no evidence that Linnaeus ever studied logic. His use of the words “genus” and “species” ruined the meaning they had in logic, and “essential” meant to him merely “taxonomically useful.” The essentialism story, a narrative that (...) has most pre-Darwinian biologists steeped in the world view of Plato and Aristotle, is ill-founded and improbable. (shrink)

One of the key behavioral effects of attractiveness is increased visual attention to attractive people. This effect is often explained in terms of evolutionary adaptations, such as attractiveness being an indicator of good health. Other factors could influence this effect. In the present study, we explored the modulating role of sexual orientation on the effects of attractiveness on exploratory visual behavior. Heterosexual and homosexual men and women viewed natural-looking scenes that depicted either two women or two men who varied systematically (...) in levels of attractiveness (based on a pre-study). Participants’ eye movements and attractiveness ratings towards the faces of the depicted people were recorded. The results showed that although attractiveness had the largest influence on participants’ behaviors, participants’ sexual orientations strongly modulated the effects. With the exception of homosexual women, all participant groups looked longer and more often at attractive faces that corresponded with their sexual orientations. Interestingly, heterosexual and homosexual men and homosexual women looked longer and more often at the less attractive face of their non-preferred sex than the less attractive face of their preferred sex, evidence that less attractive faces of the preferred sex might have an aversive character. These findings provide evidence for the important role that sexual orientation plays in guiding visual exploratory behavior and evaluations of the attractiveness of others. (shrink)

Do the ethical features of an artwork bear on its aesthetic value? This movie endorses misogyny, that song is a civil rights anthem, the clay constituting this statue was extracted with underpaid labor—are facts like these the proper bases for aesthetic evaluation? I argue that this debate has suffered from a false presupposition: that if the answer is yes (for at least some such ethical features), such considerations feature as pro tanto contributions to an artwork's overall aesthetic value, i.e., as (...) merits or flaws which make something have more or less overall aesthetic value. As the case of ethically laden, aesthetic evaluation makes clear, however, good aesthetic judgement is irreducibly multi-dimensional, e.g., "the movie has an engaging soundtrack, tasteful camera work, and takes a misogynistically prurient perspective on its female lead.'' Such a "non-summative" judgement refuses to reduce those various dimensions of aesthetic value to a single aggregate aesthetic evaluation, like "it's a 6/10" or "it's a pretty good movie!" I defend both the modest claim that such non-summative evaluations are not mistaken and the extremist claim that summative (i.e., unidimensional) aesthetic evaluation is defective by considering other domains of normative assessment in which summing seems inappropriate, notably including evaluations of people's character. (shrink)

A necessary condition for a group being taken as a rational agent is that its choices and judgements are ‘logically contestable’, but this can lead to problems of aggregation, as Arrow impossibility theorem or the discursive dilemma. This paper proposes a contractarian or constitutional approach: the relevant thing is what aggregation mechanisms would be preferred by the members of the group. Two distinctions need to be made: first, judgement aggregation is not aggregation of decisions, and judgement aggregation needs be distinguished (...) from the aggregation of information: we assume that every member of the group has already taken into account the opinions of the other members, by means of a process of public deliberation, but they may end having different opinions; we also assume that the members are rational, so that they have no reasons to accept further changes in their individual opinions. So, from the epistemic point of view, the collective judgment is not a 'better' opinion than those of the individual members. The collective judgement is better seen as a kind of compromise, the outcome of a ‘bargain’, so to say. Basically, we assume that individuals will have an interest in choosing a specific aggregation function by taking into account how are they affected by the collective actions carried out by the group, and grounded on the chosen collective judgement. (shrink)

The title of this book is misleading; the subtitle indicates the content more faithfully. Only the last chapter is concerned with paradoxes, namely, with the semantic paradoxes. But the argument there is based on the general theory of assertion and predication defended in the preceding six chapters, which constitute the heart of the book. Cargile rejects the familiar answers to the semantic paradoxes mainly on the grounds that they require restricting the universality of the laws of logic, which involve self-reference (...) just as much as do the paradoxical sentences. What is Cargile’s answer? His treatment of the Epimenides is representative. A Cretan who asserts that all Cretan assertions are false is asserting a different proposition from the proposition a non-Cretan would assert with the same sentence. What assertion is being made with such a sentence depends on the predications, performed by the assertion, of truth or falsity of the propositions "non-assessably" asserted in the original, "assessable" assertion. The Cretan’s assertion predicates falsity of itself, as well as of every other Cretan assertion, but the non-Cretan’s assertion does not. The latter is presumably false and in any case nonparadoxical. The former is self-contradictory, therefore false, therefore also nonparadoxical, since, among other things, it asserts that it is false that all Cretan assertions are false. Other semantic paradoxes require different treatments, also provided by Cargile, but on the basis of the same general theory of assertion and predication. (shrink)

L'on montre: 1) que l'affirmation tschirnhausienne selon laquelle l'art de découvrir transforme notre nature en une nature quasi surhumaine qui semble assez participer de celle de Dieu, et en laquelle C. Thomasius avait subodoré un fort relent spinoziste, est explicable, et est effectivement expliquée par Tschirnhaus dans sa Medicina mentis, d'une façon qui ne saurait effaroucher un théologien orthodoxe; 2) que, malgré la modernité de certaines vues de Tschirnhaus relatives au rôle de l'expérience, cet auteur n'a pas perçu la véritable (...) fonction de la „confirmation" expérimentale, contrairement à ce qu'on admet fréquemment de nos jours; 3) pourquoi il convient de penser que c'est dans Spinoza que Tschirnhaus a puisé sa conception des définitions génétiques; 4) que, contrairement à l'opinion courante, ie manuscrit de la Mediana mentis a vraisemblablement été envoyé en Hollande en latin . Suivent des indications bibliographiques et un erratum. (shrink)

The Ethical is a collection of readings on ethics and the nature of morality by some of the most important contemporary philosophers in the continental tradition. Presents penetrating discussions of the ethical as it is treated in Continental philosophy. Provides the foundation for further study of the continental treatment of ethical issues. Includes newly commissioned essays by prominent philosophers. Offers comparison between Continental and Anglo-American ethics.

The process of scientific investigation is reconstructed as a process of empirical approximation to the truth. This last concept is explicated as a combination of “degree of simmilarity between theory A and the strongest accepted empirical law at moment t” and the “degree of depth of this empirical law”. A number of methodological theorems are proved, and avision of science closer to sophisticated falsificationism is mathematically deduced from our definitions.

P. M. S. Hacker 1. The ‘confusion of psychology’ On the concluding page of what is now called ‘Part II’ of the Investigations, Wittgenstein wrote.

I argue that a theory of distributive justice is sensitive to desert if and only if it does not require an institutional scheme that prevents individuals from treating one another as they deserve, and requires a desert ethos. A desert ethos is a set of principles that, though not embodied in a society’s basic coercive structure, nevertheless governs interpersonal relations between citizens. These two necessary conditions are jointly sufficient for ‘giving desert its due’ in a theory of justice. I therefore (...) reject the received view that a desert-sensitive theory must endeavor to guarantee distributions patterned according to desert. (shrink)