The bibliography has two main divisions: the first is an alphabetical inventory of materials relating to Al-Färäbï; the second is a break-down of the former into special listings including editions, translations and studies of Al-Färäbï's own works. Although the author has examined a vast amount of materials in many languages, he readily admits that his collection is not complete--the literature by and about the philosopher is inexhaustible. The author also adds that his bibliography is more geared to medieval science and (...) thought than to oriental studies.--A. B. (shrink)

Discounting the importance of historical influences upon Simmel's philosophy, the author gives a straightforward exposition of Simmel's Lebensphilosophie his theory of history--ic representation of Reality;" and lastly his theory of philosophy--"Philosophy is the expression of certain types of philosophical attitudes." With the aid of numerous translated quotations, Weingartner counts up the pluses and minuses of Simmel's work and critically evaluates him as a near-great philosopher.--A. B.

Art as a representation of ideal action is presented in five chapters, each devoted to a different art.--A. B.

Offering a theory of imagination, and indirectly a defense of the humanities, this overly-rich and confusing work contains more literature than philosophy, and more philosophy than imagination. The author makes many suggestive comparisons: e.g., the literary equivalent of traditional positivism is the novels of Robbe-Grillet; the poetic equivalents of Peirce's firstness, secondness, and thirdness are the poems of Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound, and T. S. Eliot, respectively. While Levi's division of the imagination into its teleological, dramatic, literary, and metaphysical forms (...) is well taken, he fails to heed Plato's warning to define the essence and not to be satisfied with a list of its kinds. The printing is careless.--A. B. (shrink)

If Reality or What-Is is "presential, perspectival and coalescent," then only the tensive language of metaphor is adequate to express and reveal it. Dividing metaphor into epiphor, movement from the concrete to the strange, and diaphor, movement through the heterogeneous, Wheelwright extends the terms to myth as a narrative or story. With a lucid and easy style, the author inter twines the complexities of anthropology, mythology, poetry, and philosophy.--A. B.

Basically, the author places Heidegger's Sein and Seiende in a theological context; l'être is God, both present in the relations between les étants and absent as the Being of all beings. The task of ontology as a "topique de l'être" is to start with the "phenomenal situation" and dialectically make explicit the meaning of l'être in related "places", i.e., temporal consciousness, world, self, other, and love. The book suffers from scanty exposition and unacknowledged debts to Heidegger and to Merleau-Ponty--A. B.

To the student familiar with the dialogues this book offers a fresh, wide, and daring perspective on Plato; to the scholar it offers a welcome alternative to dogmatic views. Concentrating on the interplay between Plato's life, work, and times, Brumbaugh sees three stages in the dialogues: 1) the early commitment to philosophy as shared inquiry, 2) a mature and systematic vision, 3) criticism and application of the system. The dialogues make sense if they are interpreted self-referentially; that is, the characters, (...) action, and aesthetic wholeness of the dialogues "concretize" their philosophical or theoretical import. With handy charts, diagrams, and an annotated bibliography, the return to Plato is made easier--and more adventurous.--A. B. (shrink)

prefaced throughout by editorial comment--on various facets of the idea of reincarnation. The first part quotes from world religions ; the second part focuses on particular writers--grouped by nationality. Even sceptical and opposing views are charitably, though briefly, cited.--A. B.

Almost a legend, Simone Weil wrote with conviction, passion and style. This collection of historical and political essays tinged with philosophical reflection presents some astounding views. She claims that the real Renaissance occurred in the Languedoc Romanesque civilization during the 13th century; and in the longest essay, "The Great Beast," she depicts Nazi foreign policy under Hitler as typically Roman in its cruelty and treachery. The political essays deal with the precarious world situation before the second World War and the (...) battle of ideologies played out in the Spanish Civil War. The last essay, "Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation," is a succinct rendering of her ethical and social philosophy. --A. B. (shrink)

Banned in 1936 in Russia, this book offers much reflective nourishment for both philosophers and psychologists. Starting with the assumption that the relation of thought and speech is a product of the historical development of consciousness, Vygotsky traces the ontogenetic and phylogenetic development of each function. He stresses that word meaning, which changes and develops in the child, binds together thought and speech. Vygotsky is well acquainted with the psychologists Buehler, Kafka, Koehler, Stern, and Piaget. The translation is excellent. This (...) book has influenced many European psychologists; its provocative last sentence shows why: "A word is a microcosm of human consciousness."--A. B. (shrink)

In this highly compressed monograph, a theory of conceptual phenomenalism awkwardly emerges from an enormous amount of psychological data and philosophical reflections culled from Anglo-American and Continental sources, especially the works of Piaget and Price. Particularly note-worthy is the attack on the "anti-ghost" people, Ryle and his associates, who reduce thought to action, meaning to use. The author intends to reinstate the ontological status of thought and the reality of concepts as mental entities, thereby providing for a theory that offers (...) a bona-fide philosophical explanation. The concluding chapter deals briefly with a generic "logic of explanation" that is shared, yet differently employed, by philosophy, science, and the social sciences.--A. B. (shrink)

With their common concentration upon the theme of man as a pilgrim on the highway of life, the verbal imagery of English Renaissance writing relates to the visual imagery of Continental art. The book is an enormous achievement in collecting, collating and interpreting texts, engravings and paintings. A definitive source-book, it provides a beginning for subsequent speculation about the expressions of human imagination.--A. B.

In this first of the projected "Yale Ben Jonson" volumes, the editor philosophically interprets Volpone's character and the course of the play as a spiritual degeneration to brute matter; for man, according to the Great Chain of Being, may rise to the level of rationalism or sink like Volpone to the lowest level of materialism.--A. B.

Edie's introduction, caustic notes, and select bibliography provide a rich summary of the philosophical ancestry and development of the movement. He equitably judges Heidegger's "second period" and points out the intimate relation of James' pragmatism to the phenomenological method. Thevenaz's four essays--less exciting because of their academic flavor--are divided into the title essay, an essay on the radicalism of Descartes and Husserl, and two devoted to the author's own philosophy of "reflexive analysis" and his interpretation of metaphysical questioning. The book (...) serves the two-fold purpose of presenting advanced introductions both to phenomenology and to Thevenaz's "protestant philosophy," which critically modify the former.--A. B. (shrink)

Aiming at a modest analytical ontology, the author shuns any metaphysical system of Being and, in the Parmenidean tradition, keeps his mind away from non-being. Instead he proposes three ways of being--natural, cultural, and formal--for which man is the common matrix. Given originally as a series of lectures, the book omits discussion of such topics as historical being and the interaction of the ways of being.--A. B.

Why be mired in books, papers, and blackboards? Should learning always be bound to the grindstone? This "Game of Modern Logic" realizes the ludological possibilities of symbolic logic, and does so in such a way that it amuses school children and challenges veteran logicians. The nineteen proof games, but not the three elementary recognition games, are completely revised from the first edition of 1961. Lukasiewicz's notation and Fitch's system of subordinate proofs are used, but familiarity with these is not necessary (...) for playing. Although there are games here that can be played by children, grandmothers, and even vertiginous existentialists, it should be noted that the instructions demand a patient, attentive reader--ideally, a logician--to pass them on to ordinary mortals.--A. B., C. D. (shrink)

The essence of Japanese art lies in the peculiar character of the people and the influence of "life-affirming" Zen. Painting, poetry, and even the tea ceremony are "ways" to the Absolute Nothing. The aesthetic qualities of Japanese art are "limitlessness," "unfinishedness," and naturalness.--A. B.