Editorial ROBIN LE POIDEVIN, Religious Studies , FirstView Article(s).

By means of careful philological analysis of several key passages and concepts, the author throws some light on the development of Aristotle's ethical thought. Differing explicitly from Jaeger on several points, he emphasizes Aristotle's reliance on the Platonism of the Statesman and sees Aristotle as developing between the poles of a "practical metaphysics" and a theoretically grounded ethics. He does not, however, emphasize Aristotle's characteristic differences from Plato, perhaps because the unified character of Plato's thought is neglected. A section on (...) the ethical aspect of tragedy is included, and Aristotelian usages are illuminated by comparison with contemporary and post-Aristotelian terminology.--C. B. (shrink)

A collection of essays, about half of them published previously. Part I is concerned mainly with theoretical issues arising from the present international political situation; the last essay in Part I is a defense of "philosophic wisdom" against therapeutic positivism. Part II consists of studies in the philosophy of such figures as Royce, Descartes, Whitman Spengler and Kant.--C. B.

The fragments of the Peripatetic philosopher and mathematician in a scholarly edition. Greek texts are joined to a German commentary setting each fragment in historical and philosophical context. The volume is the eighth of a series comprehending the Peripatetic school. Bibliography included.--C. B.

Presents with mature sense and sensibility the thesis that the image-creating activity of the artist is presupposed by the cognitive systems of the scientist and philosopher. The argument is given in the form of a history of the visual image in seven roughly chronological stages, from paleolithic vitalism to modern constructivism; the application to philosophy is rather suggested than carried out. This account of visual art as the primary mode of cognition should prove suggestive not only to aestheticians, but also (...) to those interested in the theory of emotive meaning, the history of thought, and the problem of "beginning to know."--C. B. (shrink)

An attempt to re-think, within and for the tradition of Husserl and Heidegger, certain central contributions of Greek thought. Interpretations of the Philebus and of other Platonic and Aristotelian texts concerned with problems arising therefrom are carried out; they culminate in an analysis of the fruitful union of intellectual power and impotence in philosophy. The existentialist framework often provides suggestions for the interpretation of difficult transitions in the classical works; conversely, the adherence to the arguments of the Greek texts strengthens (...) the existentialist position with respect to such concepts as world and rationality.--C. B. (shrink)

Nietzsche presented as an existential thinker in his encounter with Schopenhauer and in his struggle with the determinism-freedom antithesis. Nietzsche's resolution of the latter problem in terms of the creative amor fati is discussed, though the author suggests that such a resolution is not conceptually possible. The study shows sensitivity both to historical influences on Nietzsche, philosophical and aesthetic, and to his own emphases; it presents, however, no new or profound synthesis of Nietzsche's thought.--C. B.

Readable translations of Plato's Philebus and Epinomis, from A. E. Taylor's unpublished papers, with the Sophistes and Politicus to follow in a further volume. The long introduction to the Philebus by Taylor amounts to a commentary; it is clear, well-organized, perceptive on the psychological-ethical level, sometimes suggestive on the metaphysical level. Lloyd's introduction to the Epinomis summarizes the problems of its content, and the discussion of its genuineness, with special reference to Taylor's position, sensibly concludes that the question is still (...) moot, depending "on our interpretation of Plato's mind." --C. B. (shrink)

A posthumous collection of essays centered around the attempt to ground classical humanistic gymnasium education in first principles, themselves derived from Greek, especially Platonic, thought. The history of educational ideas is briefly traced, and humanism, democracy, and metaphysical zeal are related to each other and to specific problems of education.--C. B.

The present work is an expansion of the author's doctoral dissertation, entitled "The Fiducial Argument," completed at Columbia University in 1975. Seidenfeld's principal objective, as stated in the Preface, is to "reconstruct and evaluate Fisherian statistics, with special attention to Fisher's idea of fiducial probability as it pertains to inverse inference.".

A careful explication de texte which too rarely rises to a macroscopic view of Browne's works. Mrs. Bennett treats Browne less as a master of Baroque style than as a far-ranging, experimental thinker, a Janus who looked back on the medieval world and ahead to the modern one. He took witchcraft seriously but was skeptical of contemporary proofs of it; believed in a Ptolemaic universe but was open to the possible truth of Copernican conceptions; and speculated freely within a framework (...) of Christian belief. Browne emerges as more than a literary curiosity, although his thought seems less than striking when it is shorn of its stylistic glories.--C. B. (shrink)