This book is a lucid and readable account of Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, James, and Santayana, not only as contributors to present-day secularism, but as precursors of religious liberalism. Beck traces the theme of "secularism and human values" through these thinkers, though difficulties arise from the fact that they represent a radical divergence of philosophic interests, and in any case would hardly have recognized, much less defended, the particular variety of secularism and religious liberalism that has arisen in recent times, (...) and with which the author associates them.—T. E. V. (shrink)

This book argues that The question, What is religion? is a religious question, that cannot be answered by philosophy. In method, the book is part theological, part philosophical, and part historical, with no clear differentiation between them. It is an interesting specimen of the little-known philosophical school of "presuppositionalism," which has been influenced by recent Dutch Calvinist theologians, including Dooyeweerd.—T. E. V.

Written in 1949 and recently expanded for its third edition, this volume ranks, along with Löwith's book on Heidegger, as one of the two or three definitive studies of Existenzphilosophie in print. Müller shows how Heidegger's Seinsdenken really fulfills some of the perennial aims and resolves some of the deepest paradoxes of traditional philosophizing, and is not the radical departure it seems to be. This is a most refreshing and readable work, and it is unfortunate for American students that it (...) has not been translated.—T. E. V. (shrink)

A systematic, capable, Catholic theory of history, combining historical analysis with constructive argumentation. The author is particularly sensitive to divergent trends in current Catholic and Protestant interpretations, including those of Rahner and Tillich. Though its philosophical content is minimal, the book should be of interest to students seeking a religious perspective on history.—T. E. V.

A generous and articulate work, written for students beginning a study of philosophy, as well as for the general public. Its author, Professor at Northampton College of Advanced Technology in London, argues that "the impulse to philosophize springs from human perplexities and these are illuminated by the tradition of philosophy." The book is reminiscent of John MacMurray in content, though in style it is warmer and less polemical.—T. E. V.

This is the first of the St. Thomas More lecture series given at Yale, and is written by one of the most noted Catholic intellectual historians. Presented to a general student audience, it traces in fluent style, with allusions in as well as outside of philosophy proper, the gradual decline of the dimension of the divine as a contemporary historical reality. Father Murray concludes that the "Death of God" in our times has brought theology back from preoccupation with correct articulations (...) to the fundamental problem of the "presence" of God in human life as it was understood in Biblical and patristic times.—T. E. V. (shrink)