The research presented in this volume demonstrates that it is no longer reasonable to ask whether or not synesthesia is real--we must now ask how we can account ...

This book attempts to fairly summarize the thought of over four hundred "greatest" contributors to philosophy in addition to providing thumbnail biographies. As might be excepted, it fails. For example, all of Plato's dialogues, except the Republic, are allowed one sentence; Berkeley comes off as an influential moron. Heidegger is "to philosophy what Gertrude Stein is to literature...." Of Kierkegaard's nineteen lines, six are devoted to his alleged dislike for women, and none to his philosophic contributions of note.—L. C.

The editor has included eighteen of the best-known papers on positivism and linguistic analysis. Although the readings vary greatly in difficulty a careful selection would make the book useful for introductory courses. An introduction provides a brief survey of analytic philosophy since 1900. Included are papers by Russell, Moore, Ayer, Wisdom, Austin, and others.—L. C.

This volume consists of BBC broadcast lectures by Hampshire, Gardiner, Warnock, Foot, Williams, Trevor-Roper, and an additional essay by Pears. The essays are confined in scope because of length limitations, but an effort has been made to reflect the wide compass of Hume's interests and influence: history, epistemology, morals, religion. The overall result achieves the purpose: a critical Hume "sampler."—L. C.

The author adopts a broad analogy with physics to explicate the tension between inner and outer determinism. This analogy tends to get the better of the argument, and unfortunately most of the crucial problems involved in this longstanding controversy receive assumed answers. Hence the author concerns himself much more with explication via the analogy than with argument. There are frequent errors in grammar and sentence-structure.—L. C.

An account of the transition in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries from the image of the world as a finite, hierarchically ordered whole to the image of it as an infinite homogenous system. The author's method is simply to display the ideas of the leading thinkers of this period, culminating in the dispute between Leibniz and the Newtonians. The fact that this volume is an expanded version of a lecture suggests the reason why at least one half of it consists (...) of direct quotations. It is more of an anthology, arranged by a perceptive guide, than a work of history.--C. L. (shrink)

Gottlob Schulze has been almost totally neglected by English-speaking philosophers and historians of philosophy. His German commentators have been almost unanimous in their claim that his "positivism" arises out of a misunderstanding of Kant’s transcendental method and an ability to connect the various subdivisions of his own philosophical system. The present study will probably do little to set aside that verdict. Schulze’s "positivism" is more Comtean than Kantian, though the general architectonic of his "system," however ill-fitted its parts, owes much (...) to the critical philosophy. (shrink)

In his Lindley Lecture, Professor Chisholm argues that neither determinism, "hard or soft," nor indeterminism is compatible with the fact of human responsibility. He proposes a theory of agency similar to those advanced by C. A. Campbell and R. Taylor, and defends it as being more consistent with responsibility, and as being respectable in its own right.—L. C.

The author covers the history of logic and mathematics from pre-Hellenic theory forward to Gödel's theorem and metamathematics. A special effort is made to show the co-ordinate development of mathematics and logic, and the grounds for their identification in recent years. The critique of the parallel postulate, and the development of non-Euclidean geometries are dealt with in detail. A good index and an extensive bibliography are provided.—L. C.

An attempt to represent the major conflicts in discussions of the status of behavioral science as science. Most of these conflicts involve the question of just how "scientific method" is to be construed. The author suggests that many traditional bifurcations in such discussion tend to mislead rather than enlighten. An extensive treatment of the relation between natural and behavioral sciences is presented. A general sense of "scientific method" is proposed, and in that context it is concluded that there are no (...) inherent difficulties and many advantages in treating the behavioral sciences as true sciences.—L. C. (shrink)

The present study of G. E. Moore’s common sense philosophy focuses on two issues: in what sense Moore may be said to be a common sense philosopher, and whether he is consistent as a common sense philosopher. The first four chapters are devoted to his conception of philosophy, common sense, and ordinary languages, and the philosophical paradoxes which arise out of these conceptions. The second half of the study offers a detailed account of his theory of knowledge with special emphasis (...) upon his account of the existence of material things. (shrink)

Employing the premiss that "fundamental religious doctrines are arguable," the author considers the traditional arguments for the existence of God and gods, in addition to arguments for and against His existence from authority, particular experience, pragmatism, and the phenomenon of evil. His conclusion is that there exist no reasonable grounds for such belief, and that it doesn't matter much, in general, whether God exists or not, since God's proper function is as an ideal. The work provides an interesting and easy-to-read (...) introduction to the problem, and the chapters on the traditional arguments for God's existence are particularly stimulating.—L. C. (shrink)

Marxism-Leninism, thinks the author, is a "philosophical farrago," a collection of ideas, some false, some trivial, some confused and some inadequately defended. He presents a detailed exposition and criticism of the Marxist theory of knowledge, ontology, ethics, and doctrine of historical materialism. The expository sections are unusually clear and draw upon materials not easily available to English speaking readers. The criticisms are detailed, rigorous, and, even when not convincing, provocative. The chief merit of the book is that the author does (...) not view Marxism from an external set of assumptions as so many critics do, but proceeds in piecemeal fashion, considering each aspect of the theory on its own merits. However, he does not always differentiate between the scattered insights of Marx which can only be aided by analysis, criticism and qualification, and the later dogmatic renderings of these insights, some of which are unsalvageable.--C. L. (shrink)

Althusius is significant as an early and rigorous contract theorist who explored the concepts of confederation and social symbiosis. This work is the first English translation of a large part of the Politics. In most cases the translation is clear and readable. Both a preface by Carl J. Friedrich and an introduction by the editor provide short surveys of the general Althusian theory.—L. C.

Holding that the Whitehead of Principia Mathematica is still to be found in the later speculation of Process and Reality, Lango attempts to show in some detail how the various particular entities and relations of Whitehead’s metaphysics are definable in terms of the formal properties of a universal relation which he calls "synonty," the relation by which one entity "has being for" another entity. This universal relation, he claims, is implicit in Whitehead’s "principle of relativity," according to which each entity (...) in the universe is related to every other entity such that all entities, actual and non-actual, are characterized by the "potentiality for being an element in a real concrescence of many entities into one actuality." Lango then draws out the more general principle that "it belongs to the nature of a ‘being', that it is a potential for entities of all types." Thus, the prehension of one actual entity by another is a special case of the universal relation of synonty. Lango then proceeds to show how "derivative created entities," such as prehensions, subjective forms, and contrasts, are also special cases whose logical properties can be defined in terms of the universal relation of synonty. (shrink)