An engineer views mind as a graduated development of, and complement to the physical world, aided by the principle of microphysical coding of information.--G. L. C.

Science, which is guided by reason and not pure intuition, is to be regarded as justifiable opinion. Bunge's sketch of philosophical intuition from Aristotle to Heidegger will probably be of interest primarily to the general reader.--G. L. C.

Northrop's familiar model of concepts by intellection and by postulation, and their epistemic correlation, provides the key for resolving the dilemma with which the book is concerned: the paradox of man, who is both the closest thing to himself and yet often so unable to understand himself. The argument is taut and the moves so quickly executed--in spite of explicit effort at clarity--that even the reader long familiar with the framework and corpus of Northrop's writings may find himself pleading for (...) further elaboration of central points. Northrop is a man whose fertile and suggestive mind continues to move with care and in focused manner over far-ranging conceptual terrain.--G. L. C. (shrink)

These letters reveal Cohen the friend and teacher of philosophers and jurists, the conscientious liberal, the philosopher. Since few of Cohen's germinal ideas appear in his letters, his tenets find their chief expression through his daughter's uneven commentary. Of the major series of letter exchanged between Cohen and noted figures of his time, O. W. Holmes's letters--with their wit and irony-prove the most exciting.--G. L. C.

This collection of essays brings together three philosophers, a lawyer, and an economist, who discuss both similar and unrelated points. Of special importance is the treatment of the problem of adjudicating equality and merit. Questions of political, legal, and moral obligation, and of the relationship between justice and the good life are also explored.--G. L. C.

A "problem" book which reads, throughout too many of its pages, like an almanac of distinctions. Yet Bunge's discussions of partial truth, causality and chance, and especially of metanomological statements restore the balance and lend support to his thesis: science as a body of knowledge must be regarded as a set of systems of propositions and proposals of many kinds with the aim of "the maximization of the degree of truth."--G. L. C.

Critical expositions of criticism from Aristotle to Bradley, and of features of scholasticism provide the historical foundation for Eliot's theory of poetic criticism as well as for a prolegomenon to the relationship of scholarship and criticism, history and religion, tradition and education. Cardinal points presented and criticized are Eliot's hostility to scholarship not complemented by criticism, his insistence upon literature's commitment to institutional religion, and of literature as a preparation for the inner life of the individual. The main defect of (...) the book is the burden placed upon the reader of tying together too may philosophical and critical ends. The result is that the philosopher unfamiliar with most of Eliot's critical writings, and the critic only slightly disciplined in formal philosophy, may find themselves hard pressed to meet on common ground.--G. L. C. (shrink)

A distinguished group of linguists examine the present state of theoretic linguistics by looking to the past to see what has been accomplished, and to the future for requirements needed to frame a workable theory of language. The universals of language are taken from phonology, grammar, semantics and psycho-linguists. Uriel Weinreich's paper, "On the Semantic Structure of Language," should be of special interest to philosophers.--G. L. C.