C. I. Lewis and Hans Reichenbach are the contemporaries selected for special study to support the thesis that a carefully redrawn Kantianism is still viable in logic and philosophy of science. The synthetic a priori is reinterpreted as the assumption that conceptual systems can be used to organize the data of sensuous awareness. The doctrine of the Ding-an-sich is defended.--W. L. M.

Pucelle tries to show how the idea of personal liberty is central to Green's ethics. Green's criticisms of other philosophers and the historical context of his philosophy are especially well handled. --W. L. M.

The title refers to Anselm's insight into the modal uniqueness of the divine existence and the proof based upon it in Proslogium III. Hartshorne continues his vigorous defense of "the Proof," his polemic against its critics, most of whom confuse it with the weaker one in Proslogium II, and his attempt to show that Anselm's discovery is ultimately viable only in the context of neo-classical theism. In the second half of the book a variety of responses to the proof, from (...) Gaunilo to several contemporaries, are examined and criticized. While this does not add substantially to the presentation and defense of the argument given in the first half, it does provide ample evidence of the way in which a host of philosophical questions are brought into sharp focus by reflecting on Anselm. Some of these, e.g., the theory of modalities, receive important attention which was lacking in The Logic of Perfection. The author's own position has not changed, though he now seems more impressed than previously by Barth's treatment of Anselm.—M. W. (shrink)

The forty-three selections in this volume, three-fourths of which are from twentieth century authors, come from every corner of the philosophical world. They are grouped in five divisions, corresponding to those in the companion volume by the same author, Religion and Judgment, each of which has a brief introduction and selected bibliography attached. The whole is constructed on the principles by which the author distinguishes philosophy of religion from religious philosophy, namely that religion can be treated generically in relation to (...) other human concerns and modes of existence, and that it can be treated non-theologically, i.e. independently of the assumption that belief in a god or gods is the essential feature of religion.—M. W. (shrink)

A concise set of speculations regarding principal divine attributes. Part I outlines these themes as treated by fourteen historical philosophers. Part II is a systematic reconsideration and reordering of such notions as infinity, form, and self-sufficiency, which Sontag considers central. Freedom of will, hence some degree of contingency, he concludes, must be allowed in a modern concept of God, thereby altering notions of God's unity, power, motion, etc. --W. L. M.

The major portion of the book is devoted to careful and detailed historical analysis of two traditions of theodicy in Christian theology, the Augustinian and the Irenaean. The latter, though foreshadowed by the second century Bishop of Lyons, was first fully developed by Schleiermacher. Both traditions are traced right up to the contemporary scene in English theology and systematically compared. The last five chapters are devoted to the author's own constructive theodicy which grows out of the Irenaean tradition. He finds (...) the ultimate solution to the problem of evil in a doctrine of universal salvation.—M. W. (shrink)

Included are eight essays by Collingwood from the period of 1921 to 1930, and introductory essay by the editor which adroitly summarizes the later views of The Idea of History and An Autobiography and discusses the relation of the early essays to them, and a bibliography of works by and about Collingwood, including a list of reviews of his books. One of the essays is a sympathetic critique of Croce, another a devastating attack on Spengler. The others discuss the nature (...) of historical-knowledge, its relation to scientific knowledge, the nature of philosophy of history, and such special problems as the theory of cycles and the idea of progress. On the whole, as the editor suggests, the relation to the later writings is that of continuity and anticipation.—M. W. (shrink)

Finally—a full length treatment of the Phenomenology of Mind in English. Its strengths and weaknesses stem from its not being a commentary. The author has set himself to the task of "capturing without its letter the spirit of the humanism pervading the Phenomenology." Avoiding the letter involves 1) the attempt to get free from Hegel's terminology, 2) the attempt to see the argument at the level of chapters rather than paragraphs or sentences, and 3) the complete abstraction from historical questions, (...) i.e., from questions about Hegel's life and times relevant to understanding the text. While the first two attempts are ably carried out and extremely instructive, the reader is often left with the frustrating need for the historical treatment of a commentary. The assumption "that the heart of Hegel's thought is to be found more in the method than in the results achieved by it..." is dubious, but it fortunately remains for the most part in the preface. The use of dialogue form in a quasi-commentary is as refreshing as it is unusual. The price of the book is unfortunate.—M. W. (shrink)

Herder's thought is presented as well advanced beyond his times, if often disorganized and confused. To contrast his ideas with those of more traditional eighteenth century political thought, the latter is described in terms of the mechanical models it embodies, while the organic and teleological categories of the former are stressed in discussing his answers to the questions of one and many, causation, motion, and power in their political contexts. As much attention is given to Herder's philosophies of history and (...) education as to his social and political thought in the usual sense, and the subtitle is distinctly misleading, since Herder's views on nationalism, involving the basic themes of self-determination and Volksgeist, are only one of many areas of thought presented to the reader. The book is lacking in any apparent embodiment of the organic unity which is one of its themes. A rather extensive bibliography is included.—M. W. (shrink)

A distinguished New Testament scholar turns his pen to the history of Israel. The result is a lucid and compact narrative, geared to the layman and student rather than the scholar. As the title suggests, the emphasis is on political rather than religious history. Much of this book's value will stem from its intentionally lopsided emphasis on the post-exilic period.--M. W.

This is a rambling and rather slow moving essay in metaphilosophy, though it is not so "meta" that the war in Vietnam does not get discussed. It embodies the broadest concept of philosophy's function and an unmitigated optimism in its capacities. Dogmatism, the chief obstacle to philosophic progress, is analyzed in terms of the interests and emotional motivations which underlie basic theoretical presuppositions. Its twofold cure involves the Spinozistic doctrine that the passions are best rendered meek by bringing them to (...) the light of consciousness, and the Hegelian doctrine that conflicting tendencies can only be harmonized by finding a larger context in which they become complementary. The illustration of this technique in the chapter on Eastern and Western philosophies, focusing on the concepts of reason and freedom, is the high point of the book, along with the chapter on ordinary language philosophy. The discussions of existentialism and Marxism are disappointing.—M. W. (shrink)

This is a commentary on the Aesthetic and Analytic of the Critique of Pure Reason with frequent reference to the much neglected Methodology and a very brief discussion, in the final chapter, of the Dialectic. Dryer insists that the fundamental question of the Critique is how metaphysical judgments, i.e., judgments about how things are in general, can be verified; that it is neither a theory of knowledge or experience nor the exposition of a system of metaphysical principles except insofar as (...) such concerns are ancillary to the primary task; and that the literature on the first Critique, including Paton's and Kemp Smith's interpretations of it as a "metaphysic of experience," fails to understand Kant's argument by failing to accept Kant's description of his task. In the central chapter, "Verification in Geometry and Metaphysics," Dryer gives a detailed analysis of Kant's theory of verification in geometry and the way in which this is related to his final answer to the question of verification in metaphysics, with emphasis on imagination and the discussions of the Methodology. Chapters devoted to the First and Second Analogies and the Axioms of Intuition follow for the sake of illustration. The emphasis on verification and a large measure of freedom from Kantian terminology give the analyses a freshness which is only partially destroyed by the highly repetitious style. With minor exceptions Kant's arguments are defended throughout.—M. W. (shrink)

After a survey sketch of the development of analytic philosophy and its application to problems in philosophy of religion during the 1950's, Clarke argues that the non-descriptive functions of religious language depend on its descriptive functions and that the central problem of natural theology, upon which all revealed theology depends for its meaningfulness, is to show that the statement "There is a God" is both necessary and descriptive. To this end its first task is to provide a precise definite description (...) of God for which this may be done. His own suggestions are Hartshornean, carrying with them the explicit argument that traditional conceptions are not viable. In an interesting twist of a Kantian theme it is argued that the ontological argument depends for its success on the cosmological argument. The more general question of the possibility of metaphysics in the light of linguistic philosophy is treated in chapters devoted to the descriptive character of necessary statements and the logical requirements for setting up a metaphysical language. The chapter on the application of symbolic logic to natural theology might well have been included as an appendix, for its inclusion in the main text tends to fragment an essay which is already none too unified.—M. W. (shrink)