Abstract

Mohanty’s work is a collection of essays whose range of interest is quite astounding: phenomenology, analytic philosophy and Indian thought. Part One is concerned with the problem of the given, a problem of great interest to both analytic and phenomenological philosophy, and argues against a theory of raw, uninterpreted sense data. The title of the book is drawn from one of the essays contained in this part, which makes a plea for a non-speculative, descriptive ontology of the given. Part Two offers a series of critical essays on the work of Quine, Goodman, Ryle and Moore on the one hand, and Husserl and Hartmann on the other. The last part is devoted to a study of the Indian "Nyaya" philosophy, and shows its relevance to the epistemological issues that Mohanty has raised throughout this volume. Perhaps the major interest of this book is the striking unity the author finds among these diverse philosophical strains.—J. D. C.