Abstract

This is a collection of eight essays by the famed historian of philosophy, six of them previously unpublished. The first two concern the practice of the philosophical historian; the rest loosely group about the theme of the validity of metaphysics. I shall first comment on the most interesting of the second group. "Ethics and Metaphysics: East and West" explores the limits of comparative generalizations about Eastern and Western philosophy. When suitably qualified, statements such as "Eastern philosophy tends to be metaphysically monistic, and thus ethically relativistic" and "Western thought stands fast on the concept of the individual and his value" convey reliable information. Copleston believes Eastern thought poses a challenge to Western societies, for its moral vision remains embedded in a metaphysical and religious view of man, while the West has put its concept of the value of the human person in jeopardy in effecting the divorce of fact and value.