Environmental ethics has traditionally focused on a defense of the intrinsic value of animals and wild habitats. However, this ethical project needs to be supplemented by a consideration of the kind of culture that can take such an ethical point of view seriously. This essay argues that one component of an environmentally responsible culture is its domesticated environment. How we construct the domesticated environment has an impact on our perception of our own identities and our relations to wild nature. If (...) we care about wild nature, we must also care about the domesticated environment in which we live our lives. This essay contributes to an ethical reflection on the need to overcome the traditional dualism between domesticated and wild, built and natural that permeates environmental ethical thinking. (shrink)

According to familiar accounts, Rousseau held that humans are actuated by two distinct kinds of self love: amour de soi, a benign concern for one's self-preservation and well-being; and amour-propre, a malign concern to stand above other people, delighting in their despite. I argue that although amour-propre can (and often does) assume this malign form, this is not intrinsic to its character. The first and best rank among men that amour-propre directs us to claim for ourselves is that of occupying (...) 'man's estate'. This does not require, indeed it precludes, subjection of others. Amour-propre does not need suppression or circumscription if we are to live good lives; it rather requires direction to its proper end, not a delusive one. (shrink)

Many of the selections included are readily available, but the editor has earned our gratitude for reprinting the series of seven papers read before the Aristotelian Society from 1915-1923, and for making readily accessible the 1927 essay, "Time." The somewhat lengthy introduction adds little to the value of the book, and is occasionally inaccurate. --B. J. H.

Twenty-four scientists and philosophers contribute to this volume, which constitutes the proceedings of the 1959 meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Six symposia deal with theory construction; empirical and conventional elements in physical theory; induction, probability and simplicity; the logic of variables and constants; philosophical issues of quantum theory; and the methodology of psychology and the social sciences. Many of the contributions are excellent; most deal with controversial issues, and generate considerable life in the discussions and (...) commentaries.--B. J. H. (shrink)

This historico-critical analysis of the concept of mass is the third in Jammer's series of studies of fundamental physical concepts. His fascinating account traces its intricate historical evolution from early notions of matter and the medieval concept of mass as quantitas materiae to the dynamic conceptions of mass. The concept is followed through the three stages of conceptualization ; systematization ; and formalization. Jammer further treats mass in relation to the electromagnetic theories; special and general relativity; quantum mechanics and the (...) theory of elementary particles; and the modern "space-theories" of matter. He concludes that no final clarification of the concept has yet been attained, despite the efforts of both physicists and philosophers. This difficult material is handled with great scholarship and control, skillfully interpreted, and concisely presented --B. J. H. (shrink)

In this introduction to social problems, sixteen social scientists discuss the major forms of deviant behavior and social disorganization. The introduction attempts to elicit the general theoretical orientation which is implicit in the specialized studies making up the main body of the book.--B. J. H.

Rejecting the idea that the principal aim of science is prediction, the author claims that science tries to create an explanatory intelligible system "with some legitimate claim to reality"; he argues that the intellectual framework within which this construction proceeds is revealed more by its presuppositions and its "explanatory paradigms" or "ideals of natural order" than by its detailed results. Comparing the dynamical theories of Aristotle, Galileo, and Newton, he asks which occurrences are "phenomena" for these theories, i.e., deviations from (...) the expected standard manner in which bodies move. He concludes that to explain a phenomenon is to show that it is a special case of, or a complex combination of, paradigms taken as fundamental, and that theories are not to be judged as true or false, but as helpful, fruitful, misleading, and the like. --B. J. H. (shrink)

This lucid and compact book contains a forceful critique of the "wave-particle duality" interpretations of quantum theory, and a unitary particle theory which explains the quantum rules in terms of non-quantal axioms. To speak of a wave-particle duality, says Landé, is to speak of an abstraction and a real thing as if they were on a level of parity; and he takes Born's statistical interpretation of quantum phenomena as evidence that a unitary particle theory is needed. The problem then is (...) to explain why particles obey quantum laws of interference and h-dominated periodicity. Although much of the book assumes knowledge of mathematics and physics, many sections require no scientific background; and in the more technical sections there are frequent summaries which state the arguments and conclusions in a non-mathematical way. An incisive and provocative work which deserves to be widely read.--B. J. H. (shrink)

A survey of contemporary physical science, and an attempt to envision a philosophy in harmony with it. The discussion of physics centers on three topics: the status of postulates and first principles; the movement away from limited forms of empiricism toward the acknowledgment of aesthetic and metaphysical considerations in framing theories; and the disappearance of mechanical models in favor of increasingly abstract mathematical formulations. The exposition of physical theory is lively and imaginative; the treatment of the more properly philosophical problems (...) is stimulating, but will often leave the reader wishing for a more searching analysis.--B. J. H. (shrink)

The essays included are somewhat uneven in value; some advance interpretations and criticisms, others are mainly expositional. Various aspects of Whitehead's later thought are discussed: the doctrine of feelings, actual occasions, causal efficacy, symbolic reference, mathematics, and the philosophy of history. Hartshorne's philosophy is examined in a seventh essay by Andrew Reck.--B. J. H.

A series of five lectures delivered at Yale University, this book discusses the historical and technological roots of natural science, its present organization, and its probable future in our scientific civilization. A particularly good chapter on the "Diseases of Science" discusses some of the problems of science's internal economy--its increasing specialization, the exponential growth rate of scientific publications, and the consequent difficulties for scientific education and research. A fascinating and well-written account.--B. J. H.

A discussion of "the time-concept" which depends heavily upon physical theory for its basis and conclusions. Within these limits, it is thorough, careful, and sometimes illuminating. The physical meanings of "direction" and "irreversibility" of time are thoroughly explored; the relation of time to entropy is discussed, as well as the concept of time in relativity and quantum theory. The principal original contribution of the book is its suggested distinction between "Lorentz-" and "Clausius-processes" as a means for solving the clock problems (...) of special relativity. --B. J. H. (shrink)

This is a book in "theoretical chronometry," a study of the time-concept in its widest scope. It includes discussions of the physiological, psycho logical, and sociological aspects of time. While the treatment of large philosophical issues is sometimes too easy, the author has incorporated an enormous body of material.--B. J. H.

The second in the series from the Philosophy of Science Institute at St. John's University, this volume contains four essays by guest lecturers at the Institute, and provides "a summary introduction to the leading Thomistic philosophies of science in vogue today among those who believe that the philosophy of nature has an autonomy of its own, and is not applied metaphysics." The papers include an essay on Maritain's philosophy of science; a discussion of the Bohr atom; and examinations of scientific (...) method, and the subject-matter of the philosophy of nature.--B. J. H. (shrink)

Fourteen contributors present papers treating a wide variety of subjects. The treatments range from exposition, through sympathetic enlargement and development, to more critical explorations and the formulation of alternative views.--B. J. H.

This study in the philosophy of science analyzes "the logic of scientific inquiry and the logical structure of its intellectual products." The author distinguishes four patterns of scientific explanation: the deductive model, probabilistic explanation, functional and teleological explanation, and genetic explanation. The structure and application of each is explored with respect to some of the more specialized areas of science. Many of the traditional problems of philosophy of science are discussed, and there are excellent treatments of the methodology of the (...) social sciences and historical explanation. A large and important book, presenting a vast amount of material handled in an incisive manner.--B. J. H. (shrink)

The starting point for this book is the assertion that all gods are man-created, and that the Vedic gods were created in India, none being imported. The author then proceeds to examine the most important of the 33,000 Hindu gods and their worship. An enlightening introduction to the subject, aptly illustrated with quotations from the Hindu religious books, but difficult to read because of its monotonous, short, direct sentences, and its overt chauvinism. -- J. H. S.

The publication of Heidegger's important study of Kant not only made available in English a remarkably clear example of Heidegger's thinking but also created a need for an English commentary on the relation of Heidegger to Kant. Charles M. Sherover's attempt to meet that need fails to present Heidegger adequately. Sherover starts out with both Kant and Heidegger seeking the foundation of metaphysics "in a conception of the nature of human reasoning, in a conception of the nature of man." With (...) the exception of the last chapter, where Sherover claims to go beyond Heidegger, the book never takes us far beyond this formulation. But one of Heidegger's repeated warnings--a warning which Sherover passes over in his commentary--is that the science required is not an anthropology, not even a philosophical anthropology, since we cannot suppose we know what we mean by the question "What is man?" In a phrase which carries to an extreme a tendency to over-use the hyphen, Sherover seems to give us a glimpse of the self that lies beyond anthropology: "... the self is not a thing or an entity but a kind-of [!] reflexive event...." But this reflexive-event self is immediately brought down to the level of "our particular individual selves," the selves that on the basis of "concerns" decide which aspects of anything are important. Is the self of Heidegger's "pure self-affection" an individual? Then, since it is time, how do we all happen to live in the same time? Sherover's last chapter answers that question: It is because of what Heidegger supposedly meant by "world-time." Sherover reasons from "our success in dealing with the world" that human temporality must reflect with some accuracy "world-time." Now there is a third "time" on which the self as primordial temporality depends just as the latter is that on which time as ordinarily conceived of depends. What makes this third "time" any more satisfactory than the first? Why couldn't we do without the third and make the second again dependent on the first? Far from going beyond Heidegger, we are in danger of coming down from Kant--a surprising turn for a book that presents almost ad nauseam the "Copernican Revolution" and Heidegger's Kantianism. A work on Heidegger's Kantianism, on what Heidegger does with the Kantian turn to the subject, would be welcome, especially if written from the perspective of current analytic critiques of the notion of the self. Such a perspective would be able to throw its light on Heidegger's own critique of the self in its everyday meaning. It would also not be so attached to Kant as to speak of Heidegger's Kantianism without realizing that Heidegger's Kant is the Kant whom Heidegger understands "better than [Kant] understood himself."--J. H. (shrink)

A new volume of critical essays dealing with the central issues in the continuing discussion incited by Rudolf Bultmann's radical New Testament hermeneutics. Both theologians and historical biblical critics are confronted by the radical form of the Christological dilemma exposed by Bultmann: to avoid a non-historical docetic Christ, the Christ of faith must be grounded in the historical Jesus; but critical historical study of the texts discovers no historical details uninterpreted by the post-Easter affirmations about Christ.--J. H. H.