Since their separation in Platonic metaphysics, the Western philosophical tradition has given primacy to the question of being and neglected the question of the good. This, according to French phenomenologist Emmanuel Levinas, was not merely oversight, but a result of the manner in which being was thought. The present book is a series of reflections on being and the good written between 1940 and 1945, originally published in 1947, and translated in conjunction with the projected translations of Levinas’s essays on (...) the philosophy of religion and other matters as well as his major work Autrement qu'être ou au delà de l'essence. It is to be read in the context of Levinas’s later efforts to think this relation through anew by grounding metaphysics in ethics rather than by constructing an ethic upon pre-established metaphysical foundations. The original difficulty derives from the nature of consciousness itself which attempts to encompass the one and the other in a single point of view. By thus reducing the alterity of the other, otherness is incorporated into the same thus compromising it as other. This is especially pernicious in the matter of other persons since they are then taken to be the sum total of their observable roles and behaviors. This procedure holds mutatis mutandis for the intricate economic and political structures of society which are incorporated in like fashion into a totality. But what gives meaning and worth to existence lies beyond constituting consciousness and beyond totality: other persons, irreducible to the sums of their behaviors, are the ultimate source of values. (shrink)

This metaphysical essay opposes all theories which place man's ultimate significance within a totality. The priority of a rupture of the totality is asserted in such phenomena as desire, enjoyment, will, reason, and communication. The reasoning and problems chosen are too often dependent upon a special existential-phenomenological vocabulary.--E. W.

This Norwegian philosopher feels that the search for a unified theory of man rationally imposes itself, in spite of the radically diverse and contradictory views of man inherent in Western thought. Rambling observations on the implications regarding man of religion, science, and philosophy, phenomenological method, and the role of contemporary culture upon philosophizing, lead to the conclusion that reason should never be equated with one of its successful methodologies, but rather is constructive structural thinking upon our background experience.--E. W.

The different distribution of "sexual strength" throughout the female and male life-span, and the resulting social backlogs of unsatisfaction in older women and young men, are cited as natural conditions having as final upshots the inferior social status ascribed to women and the permanent tendency toward war. To break the constellation of sexual adaptations which aggravates the tendencies toward war, the author suggests the introduction of "more generosity" into sex, i.e., the discarding of absolutist sex ideology.--E. W.

Biotheism, briefly sketched here in iambic hexameter doggerel, achieves man's salvation and atonement of wrongs through loving service of mankind.--E. W.

The dominant interest here is in metaphysics today; three-quarters of the articles date from the Twentieth Century. The editor has successfully kept internal editing to a minimum; the original authors thus develop their subjects in their own way. Nonetheless, to this reviewer, the composite impression from the book was that metaphysics, if it exists, is disputatious, technical, and inconsequential. This may derive from a persistent image of too many conflicting theoretic alternatives, suggested internally by the approach of many of the (...) contemporary articles, and externally by the editor's desire to be representative. Tending to counter this general dissatisfaction, happily, is a successful section on "Being and Substance." There are many printing errors, disruptive to thought.--E. W. (shrink)

The thesis of this book is that Herbert Marcuse is "indispensable to the theory and practice of the New Left." The one-dimensional quality of contemporary everyday life is to be disrupted by a critical theory of society based upon the works of Karl Marx as interpreted and brought to bear upon the 20th Century. Hence, this collection of six New Left studies on Herbert Marcuse is called Critical Interruptions. The contributors are former students of Marcuse and all are younger than (...) thirty-five. The work is dedicated to Theodor W. Adorno and Ho Chi-Minh. The book is poorly edited; not only does the heavy Marcusean terminology make intelligibility slow; but poor rhetoric, grammar and punctuation also add to the slowness of the pace. The content of the essays, however, is uniformly very worthwhile and the book deserves a careful reading. The Marcuse Festschrift of 1967, edited by Kurt H. Wolff and Barrington Moore, Jr., entitled The Critical Spirit, was a collection of essays "in honor of Herbert Marcuse." This 1970 book, Critical Interruptions, is addressed to the exposition, up-dating and critique of Marcuse himself. Therefore, this present work is of immediate help to all readers and students of Marcuse. Paul Breines, the editor, wrote the first essay, "From Guru to Spectre: Marcuse and the Implosion of the Movement"; this is a history of Marcuse's relation to the New Left over the past few years. The second essay, "Individuation as Praxis," by Shierry M. Weber, is an incisive and insightful critique of the New Left while studying the meaning of praxis, the personal dimensions of individuality and exploring realistic alternatives for a viable counter culture. "Reversals and Lost Meanings" by Russell Jacoby is a short attempt at dialectics. William Leiss' study, "The Critical Theory of Society: Present Situation and Future Tasks," is a fine review of the major representatives of the Frankfurt School of social philosophers. "On Sexuality and Politics in the Work of Herbert Marcuse" by John David Ober, explains the continuity and development in Marcuse's thought on sexuality from Eros and Civilization through One-Dimensional Man. Finally, the last essay, "One-Dimensionality: The Universal Semiotic of Technological Experience" by Jeremy J. Shapiro is an extended commentary on Marcuse's most recent thought as applied to the advancing technology of the age. The editor openly disclaims any inner unity to the six essays. The studies, however, reveal that at least these six students of Marcuse from the New Left understand the Master very well and are able to extend his thought successfully to key contemporary issues. At the end, there is a greater unity to the book than the editor anticipated.--E. W. R. (shrink)

Theodore Roszak wrote of the counter-culture, Charles Reich of Consciousness III, and Alvin Toiler of Future Shock. In Culture Out Of Anarchy, Judson Jerome, an eminently successful college teacher with all the sensitivity of an accomplished poet, brings all these concerns to bear upon the reconstruction of American higher education. Jerome, however, has no clear consistent thesis, and his proposals for academic change seem rather vague, general, and even undramatic. Part I, entitled "The Fifth Estate," describes the social/political context of (...) contemporary academe. Part II, "Threshold of Change," describes six recent experimental colleges. Part III, "Tomorrow's Schools...," is Jerome's prognostication for the reconstruction of American colleges and universities. It seems from evidence in the book that the author had students tape a number of interviews, these tapes forming the background for much of the book. There are no documentary references and index. The result is that much of the book reads like an interminable college-student bull session. The discussion is serious and intense, interspersed with many personal experiences and suffused throughout with high idealism. But the reader is apt to suffer from the same kind of hangover one feels after sitting through an all-night session. One remembers many personal details, but he can recall very few well-defined principles and has no carefully constructed proposals for genuine educational reform. Perhaps professional educators can read Culture Out Of Anarchy and distill enough essence to rejuvenate the old forms of education. Or perhaps today's anarchists can see in this book the emerging new culture. There are others who only feel dulled with a foggy hangover.--E. W. R. (shrink)

The starting-point is the soul, as the subject of power, will and participation in being; about it the activities of man are to be ranged. A dialectic of liberation appears, sometimes explicitly sketched, sometimes underlying the comments and analyses of human experiences. The central steps show that understanding is love, and therein lies a source of liberty, an opportunity to discover the infinite depths of Being. Love is the constraint and the aspiration to seek deliverance from temporality, finitude, unhappiness. The (...) true, the beautiful and the good are perfections similar in structure, the knowledge of which is the enterprise of science, art and communal morals. A sizable chapter draws specific examples from theoretical physics to show what kinds of phenomena the central themes are meant to illumine.--E. W. (shrink)

A project accomplished largely by Roman members of Catholic Action. It is a compendium of maxims and discussion in moral theology, arranged alphabetically by subject. The book shows a sustained effort to incorporate evidence from, and problems posed by, contemporary jurisprudence, medicine and psychiatry, and political and social theory; but the moral authority founded upon revelation, Catholic tradition, and the pronouncements of Pius XII is never qualified. An introduction spells out in detail the purpose and standpoint of the work. A (...) forty-page bibliography is organized under special and general topics. The many articles upon matters sexual and familial make for interesting browsing; the general topic heading of the longest section is "marriage." Comments upon other religions, and non-Catholic philosophical and political views, are brief and harsh. For purposes of reference to a definitive Catholic point of view upon questions of practical morality, the work is of interest.--E. W. (shrink)

The central themes of the indicated company of ethical theorists are set forth in simple terms. --E. W.

This novel follows a couple seeking to fulfill themselves through spiritual training in universal love.--E. W.

This book is both extraordinarily useful and wonderfully beautiful. It provides a sympathetic and articulate account of the basic philosophical and religious theory of Hindu polytheism, an analysis of some of its fundamental concepts, a systematic ordering and explanation of the major deities with their various names and symbols, and a clear picture of the structure and development of Hindu thought. The Sanskrit texts are printed separately, and there is a set of fine black-and-white plates. I can't imagine a more (...) delightful, or more useful, basic reference work on the subject. The earlier French edition, published in 1960, differs in minor points and does not contain the very valuable index.—W. G. E. (shrink)

This book comprises Cameron's Terry Lectures at Yale, given in 1964-1965 before a disappointingly small audience. Disappointing, primarily because the lectures represent a serious analysis of a significant, though often neglected, aspect of classical natural law, natural theology doctrines. This is the concept of vicarious authority with its corresponding claim of an independent access to truth on the part of one subject to authority. This is surely an important historical as well as contemporary notion in jurisprudence and ecclesiology. Cameron's analysis (...) and documentation is rich, thoughtful, and encompassing. This may have made the lectures too serious and dense, but it makes the book satisfying and thought-provoking, and deserving of a much larger audience than could have filled the lecture hall.—W. G. E. (shrink)

A critique of Dewey's ethics. Arguing from a Thomistic point of view, Bausola claims that Dewey's ethics lacks adequate speculative grounding, but provides an occasionally useful anti-formalist attitude.--E. W.

The noted Cambridge philosopher, who has twice served as President of the British Society for Psychical Research, discusses a representative summary of the most impressive cases of experience which seem to refute some of the generally conceived limits of possible personal existence and experience. The subject matter is divided into experiments in card-guessing, cases of veridical but paranormal quasi-perception, and mediumship. Painstaking distinctions in the interpretations and estimates of credibility occasionally make for tedious reading, though they amply prove their advisability (...) as a corrective the tempting imaginative leaps and careless inferences with which some people react to the trans-commonsensical. Occasional flashes of Broad's ironic humor, delightfully testy, lighten the reading considerably. The focus of interest is on the relevance of this material to the question of human survival after death. For someone interested in knowing the current state of psychic science on this question, the book is invaluable. Mr. Broad is not concerned with building a case for any one position. Though he believes that paranormal phenomena strongly suggest some sort of persistence of personality in some cases, he concludes that "one can only wait and see, or alternately wait and not see."--E. W. (shrink)

This book is built upon the premiss that there is more than a heuristic connection between Heidegger's thought and his accounts of the Pre-Socratics. Accordingly, by studying what Heidegger has said about them and why he has said it, Seidel offers explanations of some key Heideggerian themes, such as history, being, truth, and language. Seidel brings to this task a sound and thorough reading of both the Pre-Socratics and Heidegger and succeeds in illuminating some of Heidegger's basic concepts.—W. G. E.

In these three lectures, metaphysics is envisioned as an activity of reconciliation with an incomprehensible absolute Being. Though only a vague awareness of the Beyond is possible, men need this, intellectually and psychologically. True freedom is the capacity, through choices, to realize oneself within the concrete living situation, and in relation to Being.--E. W.

To refute the pathological reactions typical of American political thought about communism, Fromm shows Russian communism to be a conservative state managerialism, and argues against the premiss that world domination is its supreme goal. His argument is given urgency by his conclusions that only genuine disarmament and the coming to terms with revolution, socialism, and neutralism will save the United States from nuclear destruction or the internal degradation of its democracy.--E. W.

An exposition of non-dualist Vedanta. Advaita, called the summit of Indian philosophical and religious thought, is the knowing the absolute reality and ground. The component of "seeing" truth is developed through our immediate presence to the Self, as this latter is purified through separation from everything object-like. The differentiated apparent world is Maya, illusion created by erroneous perception. That creation is not a real act, however, and its product is utterly unreal; "false identification" is the only relation between appearance and (...) reality, and because even the problem is unreal, there is no proper metaphysical explanation. The work too often exhibits a superficial understanding of Western philosophical formulations.--E. W. (shrink)

Classical French spirituality, ornate and delicate, rich and stylized, like the Louis Quatorze furniture of the same period, is perhaps not to everyone's taste. Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, the great "Eagle of Meaux," was the most eloquent and elegant sacred orator of the period of the great Louis, and his prose has remained ever since a model of that style. This is the first translation of his Méditations sur l'Evangile, perhaps more elegant and certainly more personally intense than the great state (...) sermons. The translation, however, is too close to the French style; it would have been better to match the elegance of the French with comparably elegant English.--W. G. E. (shrink)

Two essays by the famous physicist dated 1925 and 1960 develop hints of the Vedantic doctrine that particular, plural consciousnesses are in reality One. "Seek for the Road" suggests that consciousness in us is the "growth-tip" of the evolving Whole. "What is Real?" discusses the development of communication and mutual understanding between apparently disjoint consciousnesses. The earlier essay has more human warmth and delightfulness about it, while the later is more anecdotal.--E. W.

In addition to serving as a competent and sympathetic text for classical Indian philosophy, this book is meant to show that it was the universally presupposed concern of Indian speculation to defend the possibility of human freedom as a liberation from worldly determinism. Early chapters introduce the topics of bondage, self-knowledge, and liberation in a way attractive to the Western point of view. There is a helpful chapter introducing Indian logic. The author's "fresh classification of India's philosophical systems" evolves as (...) a systematic comparison of the alternative Indian theories of relations, and especially those relations of dependence or causality which constitute bondage, and whose reversal would effect liberation.--E. W. (shrink)

Meant as a text in the Prentice-Hall "Foundations of Philosophy" series, the book is a breath-takingly rapid, comprehensive survey of the major arguments from the philosophical study of the Judaic-Christian religion. The author gives his criticisms and appreciations of these arguments with studied obviousness and frequent lack of sympathy. At times the author adumbrates a coherent religious position which he implies to be rather more worthy of respect, as when he speaks of a divine purpose of "soul-making" as a solution (...) to the problem of evil, of "facts of faith" as opposed to their theological renderings, or of eschatology as solving the paradoxes of verification-falsification of religious utterances.--E. W. (shrink)

The first half of this careful little book defends the "analytic" interpretation of psychological science, and refutes "a priori" type arguments which would impose or eliminate certain theories in advance of science's proper estimate of their empirical usefulness. The criticism is almost always directed against the Gestalt school, for both its general conceptions of science and its particular theories. The second half, after refuting some rather unimpressive philosophical attacks upon psychoanalysis, goes on to state the latter's relevance for the philosophical (...) problem of responsibility.--E. W. (shrink)

A collection of essays written upon various occasions during the past dozen years concerning encounters of philosophy with religion, and of religion with philosophy. The first five essays critically survey the religious implications of some leading classical philosophers; the following eight consider problems in contemporary perspective. Mr. Smith does not enter the polemics of the conflicting claims of philosophy and religion, but calls for fundamental respect and helpful criticism from each side. He holds that philosophy must develop a full concept (...) of existence, grounding as valid man's posing of the "religious questions"; and that religion must accept philosophical reason and its criticisms as crucially relevant to man.--E. W. (shrink)

To state the central argument of this book would be to miss a great deal of the author's achievement. Munz is concerned with tracing the metaphysical foundations of ethics and furthermore the nature and roots of these, and all, metaphysical conceptions. He does all of this in a resolutely original and tough-minded way, exploring alternatives in the fullest possible manner, arguing with great resourcefulness and force. His originality can be seen in his serious and thorough oppositions to classical and contemporary (...) positions. He never scores off straw men, but takes the trouble to develop opposing positions fully so that his argument will strike at the most fundamental and stringent point. Thus, his thesis, that the basic ethical stances of absolute commitment to others and absolute detachment from others, are dialectically interdependent, is honestly and articulately supported. He is to be credited with developing concepts, arguments, and positions which derive their considerable force on their own merits, while encountering a full range of opposition. He has produced a book with which one can disagree, which may puzzle and even seem peculiar, but which must nonetheless be sincerely admired.—W. G. E. (shrink)

This book is the result of a series of discussions among Cambridge theologians on the general topic of the relevance of established religion and theology to the problems and values of the mid-twentieth century. A wide range of problems is treated: the methodology and importance of natural theology, the effect of recent philosophies of science on theology, the analogical use of the notion of the transcendent, Freudian analysis, and moral theology, the authority of scriptures and the church, prayer, the grounds (...) of moral judgments and the role of the established church in society. The essays reflect the varied interests and capabilities of the writers and should be of interest to a quite varied audience. Most of the essays reveal fresh viewpoints, perspicuous analysis, and rigorous thought.--W. G. E. (shrink)

Joining his monumental erudition in the phenomenology of religion with affinity and skill in the arts, Gerardus van der Leeuw has produced a really beautiful work. Tracing the genesis of the various arts from an original unity in expressive religious dance, through their assertions of independence as distinctive secular forms marked by the individualism of their practioners, he tries to show that each art form structurally expresses an aspect of the holy. His concern is to prepare for the reunification of (...) the arts based on a religious esthetics. The writing is somewhat diffuse but graceful, the presentation descriptive rather than argumentative. Throughout, one senses the quality of the author's cultivation and concern. The posthumous translation and publication of this work gives his many admirers in the English-speaking world a fitting memorial of a beloved master.—W. G. E. (shrink)

In its original form this was Bonhoeffer's first work, presented as a theological dissertation when the author was only twenty-one. It has been very influential on proponents of "religionless Christianity" among the Continental theologians. The argument is compressed and often elliptical, exceedingly difficult to grasp. Bonhoeffer follows Tonnies' distinction between society and community, holding that the religious community is a community of will which admits no end outside itself, but whose telos, God, is its boundary. It is a structure of (...) meaning rather than a structure of purpose, uniting persons in an I-Thou relationship in which they assume the relative independence of a Leibnitzian monad. The book is magnificent; the translation unobtrusive and long overdue.—W. G. E. (shrink)

The Indian philosophy of Maya is devoutly reviewed with extended analysis of Amobindo and Radhakrishnan. Introductions pose sharply the centrality of the concept, but in her faithfulness to the positions discussed, the author fails to reveal Maya as a unitary concept. Reyna's greatest admiration seems to be for the Sankaran formula that the phenomenal world is not real, a description which she "finds" vindicated by modern science.--E. W.

The broadest principles of James's thought are reviewed to show the primacy of his concern for morality over metaphysics, religion, and epistemology. The treatment is often too sympathetic to bring out the difficulties with which James struggled, and to which his dicta were aimed. Of greatest interest is the theme of the enrichment and transformation of morality by religion. The result obtains its authority and reality for man in terms of the happiness and steadfastness of the life it promotes.--E. W.

A popular introduction to Hinduism. Religion is fundamentally experience, and since all men start from the cultural formation they actually have, Hinduism tolerates all forms of religion, while encouraging the evolution to higher forms. The second half of the book deals with a few basic Hindu concepts. The lack of critical, self-reforming energies in the Hindu fold of the last few centuries is criticized unflinchingly.--E. W.

This is a guide to the use of films, television, and other mass media objects as subject matter in the classroom. The unassuming thesis of the book is that the mass media products vary in their excellence, within their genres, and that a responsible teacher should introduce them into the classroom, so that the student may learn better "taste" and acquire generally better critical skills. Apparently, The Popular Arts is written for members of the British educational system. American educators and (...) critics have been succeeding, for several years, with the sorts of curricular innovations these authors desire so strongly. Hall and Whannel are pleading their cause before a less "progressive" cultural establishment, and, in order to dignify the mass media, they feel compelled to undergo elaborate agonies of scholarly definition. In order to distinguish art from kitsch they rely on notions about the purity of the motivation of the creator, and make some elementary aesthetic blunders. This study, by the authors' own admission, is concerned with criticism and not with the vast research into the process and effects of mass communications. This same research, though, is intimately connected with new and experimental techniques in education. As a consequence, The Popular Arts tends to be a manual on the use of exceedingly modern subject materials in a rather old-fashioned classroom.—E. W. (shrink)

In the central chapter of this short work, Dumery shows that the Husserlian reduction cannot be stopped at the level of the constituting ego with its corresponding essences, for this level of intentionality necessarily involves a community of subjects and a world of essences. This multiplicity shows that passivity and dependence are characteristic of even this level and forces us beyond to a fourth level, the transcendent One. In supporting chapters Dumery discusses the philosopher's stance vis-à-vis religion and other areas (...) of human experience, "henology" vs. "ontology" as a philosophic basis for discussing God, and negative theology. He clarifies the classic proofs for God's existence from his own phenomenological viewpoint. The book is admirably lucid and forceful. The translation is very good, though the translator's Introduction is needlessly long and confused for such a short and clear text.—W. G. E. (shrink)

The miracles of life, particularly the keen intuition and purposefulness required to direct cellular activity, are evoked in these reverent reflections by a self-instructed naturalist.--E. W.

The author introduces axiology as a recently developed, independent branch of philosophy, in which values are found to reveal a subtle identity of nature and structure, and to constitute a domain distinct from that of being. Sketches of objectivist and subjectivist doctrines are offered, chiefly as foils for a final chapter which suggests that the exaggerations of both sides can be corrected and their truths preserved by analyzing and putting in proper context all relevant aspects of the concrete situation—factual, psychological, (...) and cultural.—E. W. (shrink)