Rule of law and constitutionalist ideals are understood by many, if not most, as necessary to create a just political order. Defying the traditional division between normative and positive theoretical approaches, this book explores how political reality on the one hand, and constitutional ideals on the other, mutually inform and influence each other. Seventeen chapters from leading international scholars cover a diverse range of topics and case studies to test the hypothesis that the best normative theories, including those regarding the (...) role of constitutions, constitutionalism and the rule of law, conceive of the ideal and the real as mutually regulating. (shrink)

Burgess, J.P. and Rosen, G. Subject with No ObjectElliott, R.Faking Nature.

With globalisation and neoliberalism as significant phenomena impacting the function and role of higher education institutions (Barnett, 2013), the discursive practices of such institutions as mani...

The role of the Nobel Laureate Henry Dale (1875-1968) in the history of allergy and the association of anaphylactic conditions with the liberation of histamine is often overlooked. This paper examines his work in this field in the broader context of his researches into endogenous mediators of normal physiological and abnormal pathological functioning. It also assesses the impact of his working environment, especially the unique conditions he enjoyed at the beginning of the twentieth century in the Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories (...) (WPRL). The WPRL belonged to the pharmaceutical manufacturer Henry Wellcome, and it was the juxtaposition of the routine commercial obligation of testing drugs for Burroughs, Wellcome & Co., with the opportunities of pursuing unfettered physiological research in well-equipped and supported laboratories, that resulted in what Dale referred to as 'happy accidents' when one set of results suggested experimental strategies and designs to another circumstance. In this way an observation of an unusual effect of an extract of ergot of rye led to collaborative chemical and physiological explorations which revealed the presence of histamine, previously known only as a synthetic product. Further work, accidentally facilitated by the fact that the WPRL produced serum anti-toxins commercially and surplus horse serum was used in experiments where other physiologists routinely used saline, hinted that histamine played a role in the symptom complex known as anaphylaxis. This paper explores some of these themes and elaborates their significance. (shrink)

An excellent introduction to communication theory, this book is a comprehensive study of its subject; fields such as linguistics, logic, mathematics, and psychology are considered in terms of their relevance for communication theory. No material that appeared in the first edition has been deleted from this second edition, but some comments have been added, some figures updated, and the bibliography extended to include the new publications in the field. Cherry begins with an examination of the concept of "communication"; he also (...) discusses social structures, considering the pattern of communication within a social group. After this introductory chapter, Cherry presents an historical review of the evolution of communication theory; he discusses codes, signs, brains, and machines, mentioning the work of such scientists as Shannon, Zipf, and Wiener. Topics such as phonetics, phonemics, object language and metalanguage, Zipf's Law, and semantics are also considered, as well as the role of the telecommunication engineer, who describes and analyzes the physical signals themselves without reference to their meanings. In the concluding chapter, psychological considerations concerning the reception of information are presented: recognition, for example, of universals, of geometric figures, of speech sounds, of distorted speech, the relevance of past experience, and the intake of information by the senses. Although technical material is presented, the book is very readable; jargon is kept at a minimum. The result is an exceedingly interesting and stimulating book.—E. M. (shrink)

Boscovitch's Theoria, originally published in 1758, introduced the idea of particles as point masses surrounded by a field of force, which varied between attraction and repulsion at very short distances and merged with Newton's law of gravitational attraction at larger distances. Though Boscovitch's attempt to explain the observed properties of extended bodies in terms of point masses ultimately proved unsuccessful, his ideas on fields of force strongly influenced. Faraday, Kelvin, and other nineteenth century scientists. This paperback reissue of Child's 1921 (...) translation makes one of the seminal, but almost forgotten, books that shaped modern science readily available to students of the history of science.—E. M. M. (shrink)

This book, a revised and expanded version of a paper delivered at an international congress of linguists, is chiefly concerned with technical questions in the science of linguistics, particularly the superiority of transformational models over taxonomic models in developing an adequate theory of syntax and phonemics. Underlying these technical questions is a sustained criticism of traditional empiricist theories of knowledge. The taxonomic model assumes that the scientific approach to language is an atomistic one, classifying the basic invariant units, sounds, or (...) grammatical slots and fillers, and then specifying the laws that govern the combination of these units. The transformational model, Chomsky's own development, does not presuppose fully specified units, but intricate mental structures whose laws give a determination to the component parts. As a professional scientist, Chomsky argues that the transformational model is superior on three levels of adequacy: observational, descriptive, and explanatory. As a part-time philosopher, he feels that such structures reflect the general nature of the mind and show the inadequacy of atomistic accounts of mental phenomena.—E. M. M. (shrink)

Thomas' commentary, which is three times the size of Aristotle's work, is a detailed paragraph-by-paragraph exposition of the Philosopher's thought, supplemented by discussions of the commentators Thomas knew, especially Averroes. Thomas' rare disagreements with Aristotle, e.g., on the question of the eternity of the world, are usually occasioned by theological concerns but are defended on strictly philosophical grounds. This careful literal translation makes available the clearest and most complete presentation of medieval Aristotelian physics. Thomas' work is also important as an (...) expression of the ideal, which some still cherish, of a unified philosophical science of physical reality.--E. M. M. (shrink)

The central concern in this tightly reasoned, technically written book is the logic of scientific explanation and its relation to the logic of ordinary language. Empirical differentiation, through the conceptual systems that shape ordinary discourse, can take various forms, but all utilize the related basic concepts of individuals, classes, and continua. In ordinary discourse these notions are essentially inexact, a feature which Körner handles through an adaption of Kleene's three valued logic. Any explanatory system, e.g., scientific theories, based on two (...) valued logic automatically represents an idealization introduced to provide a deductive unification of experience. In treating scientific theories Körner concentrates on mathematical systems and on explicating the various meanings of "necessary" which may characterize scientific laws. The final third of the book, on the relation between experience and scientific explanation, emphasizes the role of man as an active decision maker. Though Körner's conceptualistic approach raises difficulties and leaves many questions unanswered—and even unasked—his carefully ordered and precisely elaborated development presents a new and significant interpretation of the relation between an ordinary and theoretical language and their respective roles in man's understanding of reality.—E. M. M. (shrink)

When Favaro compiled his magisterial 20-volume edition of Galileo’s works, he left aside a large quantity of manuscripts in Galileo’s hand, dating apparently from his youth. The Juvenilia, as Favaro called them, are written in Latin and deal with the standard topics covered in courses in natural philosophy and logic at that time. Two different dates of composition have been proposed: c. 1584, when the twenty-year-old Galileo was a student at the University of Pisa and c. 1590 when he was (...) already a lecturer at that university. Were the treatises transcribed by him from the class notes of one or more of his teachers? Were they compiled by him while still a student as part of his class work? Or were they composed by him as his own "official" class notes when he began to teach? Scores of authors, classical and contemporary, are quoted in them. To what extent does this reflect research on Galileo’s own part? Do the treatises reflect any innovation of doctrine or method attributable to Galileo himself? (shrink)

Newton and his contemporaries reinterpreted the traditional "design" argument for God's existence to argue from a universe, conceived along mechanistic lines, to the "Supreme Geometrician" who planned the design, started the machine, and continually compensates for its mechanical inadequacies. This position, Hurlbutt contends, was Hume's primary target in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, a target which Hume effectively demolished. Hurlbutt attempts to amplify the significance of this thesis by summarizing various classical and medieval arguments for God's existence. Hume, he feels, (...) effectively refuted all of them by undercutting the rational arguments and showing that the mystical arguments rested on subjective needs and cultural conditioning. The present result of Hume's labors is that: "No modern theology is pursuing the path of natural theology or its prized argument—the design argument," a conclusion that Hurlbutt reaches by ignoring those theologians, e.g., many Thomists, who are pursuing the path of natural theology as well as the arguments that they actually employ.—E. M. M. (shrink)

A book which might well become a classic on Heidegger. Richardson discusses most of Heidegger's works in chronological order, offering a close analysis of each. Most chapters include a general exposition of the argument of the work discussed, a detailed analysis of the problems of Thought, Being and Dasein in the work, and a résumé. While maintaining very high standards of scholarly precision in the rendering of Heidegger's ideas and terminology, Richardson yet succeeds in making his book very readable and (...) lucid. Without "supplementing" Heidegger in any way, refraining from explanatory speculations and staying always very close to the text, he manages to clarify some of the most difficult passages of Heidegger's works. His frequent cross-references make the commentary of genuine value to the advanced student as well as to the novice. Heidegger, in his own preface to the book, criticizes Richardson for the sharp distinction between Heidegger I and Heidegger II, but gives a most important substantiation to two of the author's main theories, viz., the difference between Heidegger's Seinsdenken and Husserl's phenomenology, and the central status of the concept of Ereignis in Heidegger's philosophy. Richardson regrettably does not pursue the Heidegger III suggested by Vycinas, the Heidegger of the Geviert, the question of the nature of Being as such. In some chapters at least this omission makes the interpretation seem partial and sometimes inexact. One hopes for a sequel as good and illuminating.—E. M. Z. (shrink)

This book is a collection of essays in honor of Radoslav A. Tsanoff, Chairman of the Department of Philosophy at Rice University for forty years. Besides a tribute to Tsanoff written by J. S. Fulton, there are ten essays written by distinguished philosophers, each considering a topic in his field of interest. Virgil Aldrich discusses the importance of language in an essay entitled "Self-Consciousness." An examination of the new in art and an attempt to explicate its value and rationale is (...) presented by Van Meter Ames; illustrative material is drawn from such sources as contemporary film, pop art and chance music. In "Social Science and Social Norms" Clifford Barrett discusses the relevance of facts and norms in systematic considerations of social scientists. C. P. Snow's concept of two cultures is examined by A. Cornelius Benjamin in "Philosophy and the Cultures." Other essays presented are "Philosophy and Common Sense" by George Boas, "Conscience and Conscientiousness" by A. Campbell Garnett, "Criteria for Ideas of God" by C. Hartshorne, and "Sovereignty and the Idea of Republic" by C. W. Hendel. Charles Morris examines the common themes of the pragmatic movement, discussing such fields as epistemology, axiology and cosmology, and such philosophers as Peirce, Dewey, Mead and Lewis. In the concluding essay G. R. Morrow discusses Plato's views about a God and the many gods of the Greek pantheon. This book is a loose collection of papers, lacking any single theme or determinate relation between the essays presented; each essay, however, is competently handled and is interesting in its own right.—E. M. (shrink)

Costa de Beauregard, one of France's senior theoretical physicists, has written a "haute vulgarisation" of modern physics trimmed to a particular point of view. His historical accounts of early physics are marred by an overfacile interpretation. Thus, Newton's laws are presented as spontaneous inductions from a common sense base. His accounts of contemporary physics, however, are well informed and clearly written. The thesis underlying the book is that four dimensional space-time is real and objective and can supply the conceptual basis (...) required to unify relativity and quantum theory. In presenting this he adapts and modifies de Broglie's interpretation of quantum mechanics, considering fundamental particles as essentially nothing but integral occupation numbers in the space-time continuum. With this interpretation of particle phenomena he can defend a species of determinism based on the total symmetry between past and future for elementary interactions, an assumption that has been sharply challenged by developments in particle physics subsequent to the writing of this book. There is little discussion of the philosophical presuppositions or implications of his position.—E. M. M. (shrink)

Gonseth's primary concern in this volume, as in his earlier study of space, is the methodology of philosophical investigation. How does the philosopher achieve thoroughness without introducing arbitrariness? His method of dialectical synthesis is aptly illustrated by focusing on a privileged example, the problem of time. Common language analysis of "time" words, his initial concern, gives a preliminary sketch of a solution by making explicit the intuitive view of time implicit in language. Language, however, is unintelligible apart from experience, while (...) experience, in turn, entails an openness to the deeper understanding made possible through mathematics and physics. Yet neither of these is self-sufficient. A time order can be axiomatized, but the interpretation of this axiomatic system involves the intersection of a theoretical horizon and a phenomenal horizon. Similarly, the more precisely the physicist attempts to measure coincidences and durations the more dependent he becomes on theoretical knowledge and on a personal evaluation of the total situation. Neither Bergson's stress on subjective time nor the positivists' objectification of time can properly interrelate intuitive, mathematical, and physical time. A dialectical synthesis clarifies and integrates the subjective and objective aspects of time. This challenging book invites philosophers of all persuasions to re-examine their own implicit assumptions on the nature and method of philosophy.—E. M. M. (shrink)

In his preface, Hunter explains that this volume is intended to provide for non-mathematicians an introduction to the most important results of modern mathematical logic. The reader will find here the work of Post, Skolem, Gödel, Church, Henkin, and others, presented in a terse and closely-knit style. Though acknowledging the trend toward natural deduction systems, Hunter sticks to more classical axiomatic systems on the grounds that the proofs of metatheorems are simplified by that choice. He begins with a formal system (...) of propositional logic, for which he develops proofs of completeness, consistency, and decidability. Systems of first order predicate logic are then dealt with, and Church's and Gödel's results on undecidability and incompleteness are presented. There is a brief, useful discussion indicating what parts of first order predicate logic are decidable. It is assumed that the reader has some familiarity with elementary formal logic: Hunter develops the set-theoretical results he requires. The compactness of the presentation is facilitated by the use of earlier results for propositional logic to obtain certain results for predicate logic. Especially helpful is Hunter's technique of prefacing each of the longer and more difficult proofs with a section explaining the key ideas and the general method of proof; summaries are also often provided in conclusion. Because of the orientation of the book, a more extensive discussion of the significance of the results obtained and the philosophical issues which have been raised concerning some of them, would have been welcome. Nonetheless, this is a good, concise introduction for those who are not yet prepared to tackle the more technical literature. A bibliography is provided for those interested in pursuing the subject in greater detail.--E. M. F. (shrink)

This is an historically oriented textbook including selected writings from such varied thinkers as Plato, Kant, Hegel, Taine, Croce, Fry, Camus, etc. Richter presents an introduction designed to acquaint the student with the diversity of perspectives and problems that will be encountered in the course of the text. Aesthetics is here construed as a broader field in the 20th century than in the past. It is no longer to be defined as the philosophy of the beautiful or of art; it (...) is in fact no longer limited to philosophic concerns but encompasses "all studies of the arts and related types of experience from a philosophic, scientific, or other theoretical standpoint, including those of psychology, sociology, anthropology, cultural history, art criticism, and education." The branching out of aesthetic concerns and methods is developed historically through the selections presented. Plato's discussions of aesthetics are seen to be subordinated to his political philosophy and doctrine of Ideas. Although they present a more complete aesthetic doctrine, the views of Schopenhauer and Hegel are also seen to be determined by their metaphysical systems. The romantic emphasis on the role of the artist by Tolstoy and Veron is represented, as well as the influence of positivism in the experimental approach of Taine. Each selection includes an introduction and discussion of the text along with study questions and suggested bibliography. The student is thus presented with most of the major theories of art, with art as imitation, as communication, as intuition, as experience, as rebellion; mimetic, empirical, and formalistic views on the nature of art are also confronted. Such discussions provide the basis for a recognition of interesting contrasts in views on aesthetic problems.—E. M. (shrink)

A brief, non-technical, well-organized presentation of a system of aesthetics which makes use of insights typical of various Gestalt psychologists and phenomenologists but claims Wittgenstein and the school of language analysis as its only source of influence. Works of art as well as the materials the artist uses are subject to "aspection" and "animation" by various images, such that "each material is featured as a little, elementary aesthetic object." Aldrich offers a theory of evaluations and normative descriptions of works of (...) art, showing that they are not purely subjective or arbitrary. Several important issues remain quite vague throughout the book, e.g., the concept of "holophrastic perception" which is supposed to give us the nature of the "material thing" as it really is. There is a complete lack of interest in anything done in aesthetics by continental philosophers.--E. M. Z. (shrink)

Unlike most anthologies in aesthetics and the philosophy of art, the present selection does not try to collect representative extracts from the writings of most, or even many, important aestheticians throughout the ages. It aims for depth rather than width and tries to do as much justice as possible to those aestheticians which it does include, without bothering much about those left out. The result is really impressive. No less than 138 pages are devoted to Plato and Aristotle alone, where (...) the reader may find not only the usual passages from the Poetics and the Rhetoric but also relevant material from De Partibus Animalium and Politica. Such an anthology, so it seems, must be an opinionated one. Thus, while it contains some 70 pages of Dewey's Art as Experience, there is not a single line of Santayana in it. Although I disagree with the choice made in this case, I cannot but admire the courage it took to make it. Another surprise is the inclusion of the relatively obscure mediaeval thinker, Marsilio Ficino, in an anthology which excludes Baumgarten, Lessing, Burke, Schiller, Coleridge, Bosanquet and Alexander, to mention but few, and whose sole contemporary representative is Heidegger. The extracts from Ficino's commentary on Plato prove, however, to be highly interesting and relatively original, too. Thus, even if Ficino is not as great as some of the aestheticians not included in this volume, I, for one, would not regret this mark of personal, off-beat, taste. The last selection, Heidegger's "The Origin of the Work of Art," appearing for the first time in English translation, comes as special bonus to the reader. The editors' introductions to each selection are generally concise, precise, and very helpful. Sometimes, however, one may find an exception: in their introduction to the Heidegger translation, the editors characterize the Kehre as a "reversal... from the stress on anxiety, nothingness... to a stress on more affirmative moods." This is, to say the least, a grossly misleading remark, which is likely to confuse the student of the later Heidegger rather than help him.—E. M. Z. (shrink)

This selection of writings nicely illustrates the many sided career of Joseph Priestley. Priestley is best remembered today for his discovery of oxygen. In his varied career Priestley managed to combine qualities and positions that most men find contradictory. His theological writings offended rationalists because of his defense of Scripture, miracles, and the doctrine of the resurrection, and were even more offensive to orthodox theologians because of his materialism and extreme unitarianism. Though a lifelong defender of civil liberties and minority (...) rights, he yet taught that it is better for the law to punish the innocent than to take a chance on letting the guilty go free. Passmore's excellent introduction summarizes Priestley's career and gives a balanced appraisal of his merits. In Priestley's writings the major intellectual and political movements of the period are reflected and refracted by a mind which, though not profound enough to play a leading role, yet was bold, energetic, and above all else, commonsensical.—E. M. M. (shrink)

The author, a physicist as well as a philosopher, uses the thought of Werner Heisenberg as a focus for examining the epistemological foundations of quantum theory. Though Heisenberg's earliest original insights were stimulated by Plato's Timaeus he soon swung over to Bohr's empiricism in developing and supporting the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. His later philosophical reflections are markedly Kantian with irreducible physical invariants playing the role of Kant's necessary and universal laws. As Heelan sees it, an examination of the (...) intentionality-structure of the scientist supplies the critical basis for judging the reality of the objects known through science. Though Heisenberg rejected the naive "empirical objectivity" of pre-quantum interpretations of science, his reflective evaluation of his own achievements is inadequate in explaining the formal objectivity of the objects known. By distinguishing the criterion of reality, rational affirmation, from the meaning of "reality," whatever is defined by the object in its formal sense, Heelan is able to develop a critical realism that assigns an ontological status to fundamental particles. "Main-line" philosophers of science may feel ill at ease with Heelan's phenomenological terminology of "intentionality-structure," "noema," and "horizon" and may object to his treatment of "meaning" and "language." But if they "bracket" these reservations they will find this book an unusually well-informed and penetrating study of the philosophical implications of modern physics.—E. M. M. (shrink)

Helpful and thorough as an introduction to Santayana's aesthetic theory, Ashmore's presentation is an exposition of Santayana's views; he does not judge these views or attempt to develop them further. According to Ashmore, Santayana held a single aesthetic theory all his life, the nucleus of which was contained in his early poetry. However, he developed different aspects of this theory at different stages of his life. During the first stage, Santayana emphasizes aesthetic experience. In considering this topic Ashmore discusses aesthetic (...) value, and the psychological analysis that Santayana gives of this value. Next Santayana focuses on poetry and its criticism. Thus Ashmore examines topics such as the relation between poetry and religion, the relation between poetry and philosophy, and Santayana's formulation of a scale for judging poetry. The chapter entitled "Rational Art" presents the third major stage of Santayana's development; here Ashmore considers Santayana's construction of a theory of art. For Santayana, art, as distinct from fine art, is a rational activity in the pursuit of happiness. Ashmore concludes with a discussion of Santayana's final work, considering the additions to and modifications of his earlier views.—E. M. (shrink)

Frankena continues the development of his theory of justice presented in "The Concept of Social Justice." He begins by presenting the formal principle of justice—"similar cases are to be treated similarly." He points out that not all similarities and differences are relevant and "not just any manner of treatment may be assigned to any class of cases." The main body of the paper is devoted to a discussion of the most basic material principle of justice. Frankena tells us that he (...) will not attempt to present a proof of the material principle of distributive justice. His tack is to "try to give a rational case for one principle and against others," to present grounds for giving assent to one principle and withholding it from others. The basic criterion is the principle of equality which Frankena says is "that matters are to be so disposed... that everyone has an equal chance of achieving the best life he is capable of."—E. M. (shrink)

Though Béla von Juhos belonged to a Hungarian family, he was born in Vienna and, after his ninth year, lived there for the rest of his life. Though associated with the Vienna Circle, he did not assume a teaching position in Vienna until 1948. The present collection, ably translated by Paul Foulkes and introduced by Gerhard Frey, focuses on the type of epistemological analysis of scientific knowledge that remained Juhos’s abiding concern. By the mid-nineteen-thirties the pristine positivism of the early (...) Vienna Circle had been compromised by the switch from phenomenalism to physicalism and by expanding the early emphasis on logical syntax to include Tarski’s semantics. Juhos refused to accept such changes and remained to the end the purest, though hardly the most original, of the logical positivists. His development is of some interest in showing how the potentiality of the original program could be fulfilled, something that will merely be indicated here. (shrink)

The book can be roughly divided in two parts. The first four chapters criticize several previous systems of aesthetics, notably those of Cassirer, Croce, and their followers, and suggest an alternative based upon an interesting extension of the recently, much-discussed theory of direct perception as a "seeing-as." Hofstadter would use this model of interpretative-perception to explicate the nature of language as well. A cry will not be, thus, an "expression" of pain but rather present the pain directly; it would articulate (...) human existence in a certain way. Accepting, in addition, the idealistic theory of Categories, Language is understood by Hofstadter as the emergence of the self and the world into a meaningful and an intelligible existence. The next three chapters which, to my mind, make the weaker part of the book, distinguish three kinds of language and, hence, three kinds of truth. There is the truth of statement, which is explicated as the identity of the meant with the existent, the truth of things, which is the practical governance of things by the self's laws and ends, and the truth of spirit, being the synthesis of the former two, where the thing reaches a full realization of its own will of being. When the life-will brings itself to full realization, the thing is perfect, i.e., it is beautiful. It is unfortunate that in the development of these important and highly interesting ideas rhetoric often takes the place of philosophical rigor. The concluding chapter, exploring "the spiritual truth of art," gives a coherent application of the theory and combines a dialogue with several aestheticians, critics, and artists with an analysis of some crucial problems in aesthetics.—E. M. Z. (shrink)

In this work, the first of two volumes, Harris attempts to explicitate the world-view implicit in modern science. The second volume, adumbrated at the conclusion of this study, will develop a philosophical synthesis consistent with this world-view. The survey of science, which occupies the bulk of the book, is a masterful tour de force which stresses the striving of every level of reality toward completion on a higher level. His interpretation of physics is generally competent, but tends to rely too (...) heavily on Eddington and on speculative interpretations of general relativity and of the Pauli principle. His evolutionary biology is a sober critical redevelopment of views similar to those which Teilhard de Chardin sketched in glowing prose. In interpreting the findings of neurophysiology and psychology he utilizes Gestalt theory and Piaget's idea of developmental stages. His general conclusion is that mind and thought, the ultimate terms of evolutionary development, must be immanent in every preceding stage, not as consciousness but as rationality. Accordingly, the philosophy modern science requires must be a synthesis, along Hegelian lines, of monism and pluralism, of process and holism. Any philosophy which rests on atomic facts or atomic propositions is, in Harris's opinion, radically incapable of supplying such a synthesis.—E. M. M. (shrink)

The first six chapters of this book present and criticize six views of the nature of proper names, among which are theories that proper names have no meaning or connotation, that proper names have more meaning than other signs or that their meaning is infinite, that ordinary proper names should be analysed into "logically" proper names, etc. This part of the book is the best. One may find in these chapters several well-reasoned arguments which seem to totally demolish the theories (...) under investigation. Chapters seven to nine present the author's own solution to the problem. Sørensen holds that a proper name does have a meaning—otherwise it would not have been a part of language at all. The meaning of a linguistic sign, he argues, is a set of conditions to be satisfied by an extra-linguistic entity, such that this entity may be identified as denoted by the said sign. A proper name is an individual name, and its meaning is a series of necessary and sufficient conditions for the identification of the individual entity which this name is intended to denote. It is Sørensen's view that this series consists of a definite description of final length including space and time indicators. The definiens formula for proper names is thus 'P' = 'the x that... t... p....' The discussion of this proposal is, however, greatly impaired by Sørensen's utter disregard for the rich philosophical literature existing on the subject: no attempt is made to confront his view with the now standard arguments against theories of that type. Even many inner difficulties of the proposed solution are ignored. E.g., one may ask what values do 't' and 'p' take in the definition of 'Zeus'. Or take the following puzzle: are 'The x that taught Aristotle in p at t' and 'The x that studied with Socrates in p at t' both the meaning of 'Plato'? Sørensen's view that "A national register may be looked upon as a dictionary of proper names" suggests a positive answer, but surely R and S cannot be the same meaning. Many similar problems bother the reader of Sørensen's book, but, unfortunately, they are nowhere discussed.—E. M. Z. (shrink)

Given the tremendous burst of activity in the philosophy of science during the last quarter century, the number of books by trained philosophers dealing with the logic of biology is surprisingly small. Simon’s book resembles Morton Beckner’s The Biological Way of Thought in its comprehensive ambitions: "trying to discover what, if anything, is distinctive about biological science, its concepts, and its mode of explaining." The most obvious difference of the two books is Simon’s long central chapter on "Theories, Models, and (...) the Concept of the Gene," which deals with the history of genetics from Mendel’s predecessors to the successors of Watson and Crick. Beckner paid little explicit attention to the history of biology. Another difference lies in Beckner’s dogged assessment of all problems in the logic of biology from the perspective of what he called the Humean Pattern of Explanation—a detailed and difficult variant of the approach of Hempel, Oppenheim, and Nagel. Simon’s philosophical position is more flexible than Beckner’s. He provides an acceptable review of the literature of the last decade and a half; some of his conclusions are most interesting—even when incompletely supported by his arguments; and the utility of his book is insured by the fact that it is necessary to go back over twelve years to find another with which it can be compared. The first chapter contains a very effective critique of J. J. C. Smart’s thesis that biology is no more an autonomous science than is electrical engineering, but is merely applied physics and chemistry. Smart had argued from the grounds that all biological generalizations implicitly refer to terrestrial evolution and are not truly universal, and Simon demonstrates the general lack of success of all efforts to demonstrate a difference in kind between so-called laws of nature and empirical generalizations of the sort found in biology. The second chapter continues in this same vein, drawing an interesting contrast between phylogenetic explanation in biology and the explanation of individual events in human history, and claiming that ‘explanatory’ status may be granted to accounts which do not meet the requirements of the deductive-nomological model, as in the case of Darwin’s theories of the geographical distribution of plants and animals and the persistence of rudimentary organs. The author’s negative reaction to much of the recent philosophical literature concerning the role of functional analysis in biology seems particularly well placed. Following Hempel, most philosophers writing in the past ten years have regarded the occurrence of the item whose function is in question as the event to be explained. Simon correctly points out that in the biological literature, statements indicating the presence of this item are part of the explanans, usually one component in an explanation of the normal functioning of the organism. He also insists that functional or teleological statements cannot effectively be replaced by nonteleological ones. A functional account is one that relates an entity to the role it plays in an organized system. In the first of several serene non-sequiturs which mar the latter half of this book, Simon insists that the above account shows that the notion of function is essentially an "extrinsic" one and that teleological principles generally cannot be used to account for experience. No better argument than an appeal to Kant’s authority backs up this conclusion. The third chapter deals with the recent history of genetics; its summary makes the claim that "at no time during this history was it correct to say that one model was replaced by another one; rather, the development appears to have been one involving successive correction and refining of earlier conceptions. There has been no revolution: geneticists have always succeeded in either repelling or accommodating critical attacks on the model." The evidence presented earlier in the chapter confers some plausibility on this conclusion, but no more: Simon takes no notice of the controversy surrounding Kuhn and the notion of scientific revolutions, and provides no criteria by which to distinguish "revolutions" from "accommodations." The precise nature of the methodological continuity to be found in the history of genetics is crucial for the view that "biology, or at least genetics, must be regarded as incapable of yielding a complete explanation of the phenomena that come within its purview; if the ultimate principles appealed to are not those of chemistry and physics and hence essentially nonbiological, the explanation cannot be regarded as complete." The text does not clearly indicate the extent to which the author agrees with the statement just quoted; perhaps he only attributes it to "many biologists" impressed by the successes of molecular genetics. It is clear the Simon regards something he calls the "Cartesian attitude" as pervasive in biology. "Biologists are committed to attempting to explain the phenomena of life in terms of the nonliving... The property of being alive or being associated with a living system is simply not treated as a logical primitive within biological science." But this seems to take us back full circle—to the position of Smart, that biology is no more than applied physics and chemistry. Simon disagrees with Smart. How does he stand vis-a-vis this last statement of the Cartesian spirit he finds so pervasive in biology? I think he disagrees with it, but it is very hard to tell. Perhaps the answer is that the resolution of the issue of the autonomy of biology is a pragmatic matter, relative to a complex set of needs and commitments: the sorts of things that determine life styles, political attitudes, and religious points of view, as well as the growth of scientific understanding. The question of the precise configuration of Simon’s pragmatism remains very vague indeed—a consequence of his over use of the style of impersonal attribution rather than direct assertion. Simon says generally sane and familiar things about Biology and the Idea of Progress and about Biology and Ethics. The really startling assertion of the penultimate chapter, that "consciousness" is neither a biological nor a behavioral predicate, and that its foundations are essentially moral and legal, is unfortunately supported by no argument whatsoever. Instead, the reader is urged to examine two of the author’s previous articles.—E. M. (shrink)