Historians and anthropologists are seldom seen in one another’s company. Recently, however, they have come to realize that even a desultory courtship might be to their mutual advantage. Professor Evans-Pritchard on the one side and Keith Thomas on the other have stressed how much might be gained in this way. Thus, it might perhaps be illuminating, for example, to examine Burckhardt’s historical Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy as a fine piece of cultural anthropology. The book under review, however, will (...) do little to bring these hopes near performance. It was published presumably as an act of pietas. It purports to bring together the significant pronouncements of a great anthropologist. But the effect it leaves is of a mass of vague pronouncements often couched in the most disconcerting style. The author illustrates the use of literary jargon in the process of denouncing it. This is sad. The cause is a good one but it will not be furthered by this particular collection. (shrink)

The re-issue of Professor Cobban’s book on Edmund Burke is a cannonade in the war of skirmishes which still goes on between the disciples of the late Sir Lewis Namier and his critics. One of the casualties in the fighting was Edmund Burke, who had the misfortune to have lived, as a man of ideas, during a period in which Namier claimed that political ideas were at a discount. Burke’s political philosophy was written oft as the rationalising of a party (...) hack who thought that earth had not created anything more fair than the Marquess of Rockingham. However, he has found numerous defenders, among them Professor Cobban, well known as a critic of Namier. His book dates from 1929, a year before the publication of The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III, and its second edition appears a year or so later than the second edition of Namier’s masterpiece. It is a useful, competent introduction to the main ideas of Burke and those of Wordsworth, Coleridge and the Lake School of Poets. It suffers however by comparison with Namier, with Halevy’s book upon Burke’s ‘rival’, Jeremy Bentham, and more pertinently with Professor Cobban’s mature writing, such as In Search of Humanity or his contributions to the Cambridge Modern History. It also looks dated, when the onward march of Burkiana, notably the Burke correspondence, is taken into consideration. The book has great merit, however. It takes Burke seriously as a political thinker, and this is all to the good but, like Burke himself, it is vague where precision is called for. A good book on Burke is badly needed. It is a pity that Professor Cobban was unable to fill the gap by rewriting this work. (shrink)

Professor J H Randall made a substantial contribution to the same debate in his Nature and Historical Experience published in 1958. In this new book he goes over much the same ground, though in a cursory way. He stresses the importance of the history of philosophy for an understanding of philosophy and singles out for attack the anti-historical outlook of contemporary English philosophy. Essentially, however, he and Gallie are on the same side. This is a disappointing book, though perhaps only (...) when it is seen against the background of Randall’s impressive contribution of the last few years. It is something of a dessert to the main feast, and rather expensive at that. (shrink)

Professor Gallie of Queen’s University, Belfast takes his history seriously, in the spirit of R G Collingwood, and like Collingwood, he gives the impression of knowing what the historian is about. He inspires confidence by reference to a wide range of historical writing, instead of the one or two faded examples which tend to turn up again and again in books on the philosophy of history. Gallie’s primary purpose may be seen as a blow against the kind of systematised history (...) which Marxism stands for. He is opposed to this and to all sociological approaches to history because they misrepresent the nature of the task which confronts the historian. For Gallie, history is essentially narrative. Narrative is indeed too weak a word. In Gallie’s view, the historian tells a story. Our attention is held because the element of the unexpected is always present as it is in a story. A rational predictable construction of a Marxist type is ruled out because of the multiplicity of contingent events round which history revolves. History for this reason is distinct from science. The historian, in Gallie’s view, is not concerned with events in so far as they are specific instances of general laws. The scientist who ignores history, however, does so at his peril. Men who assume that scientific progress is inevitable and regard history as irrelevant are disregarding the fact that scientific development has taken place in some societies but not in others. Gallie’s pages on this topic are among the most illuminating in the book. Where he is perhaps open to criticism is in pressing the analogy of history to story telling too far. It may be argued that what the historian is after is surprise. He is trying to show us that the past is not as we thought it was but different. This may be achieved in ways other than story telling. For example, the sociologist or anthropologist may teach us to look at the past in a new light. Place medieval England and twentieth century Africa in juxtaposition and handy dandy, which is the justiciar and which is the thief? This method of illuminating the past is analogous to putting two photographs together or two caricatures. Whatever it is, it cannot be described as story telling. If we regard surprise as our criterion, we may also rule out both the plodding story tellers, who bore us with banalities, and the Namierites who are equally predictable in their own sphere. In a word, we will banish the bores from history. Professor Gallie in this entertaining book may be said to have banished boredom from his own pages. He is an example to philosophers and historians alike. (shrink)

Each generation finds new significances in its own past. Historians tend to reflect in new preoccupations the interests of their own day. Hence, in an age when we are conscious of the significance of science, it is understandable that the history of science should come increasingly into prominence. Histories of science have existed since the nineteenth century—it was Comte, apparently, who coined the phrase ‘the Scientific Revolution ’—but they have been written on comparatively unsophisticated lines by scientists, turned historian in (...) the ‘sere and yellow’. To-day the position is very different. General histories of science exist in plenty and of a quality higher than any political histories of a similar kind. Journals devoted to the history of science also find a ready audience and conferences take place at regular intervals. The volume under review is the record of a conference held at Oxford in 1961 under the general heading ‘Scientific Change’, with special reference to the intellectual, social and technical conditions for scientific discovery and technical invention. (shrink)

This landmark work provides a systematic introduction to systems of modal logic and stands as the first presentation of what have become central ideas in philosophy of language and metaphysics, from the "new theory of reference" and non-linguistic necessity and essentialism to "Kripke semantics.".

Strangers, Gods and Monster is a fascinating look at how human identity is shaped by three powerful but enigmatic forces. Often overlooked in accounts of how we think about ourselves and others, Richard Kearney skillfully shows, with the help of vivid examples and illustrations, how the human outlook on the world is formed by the mysterious triumvirate of strangers, gods and monsters. Throughout, Richard Kearney shows how strangers, gods and monsters do not merely reside in myths or fantasies (...) but constitute a central part of our cultural unconscious. Above all, he argues that until we understand better that the Other resides deep within ourselves, we can have little hope of understanding how our most basic fears and desires manifest themselves in the external world and how we can learn to live with them. (shrink)

Study one: Between phenomenology and hermeneutics -- Study two: Between imagination and language -- Study three: Between myth and tradition -- Study four: Between ideology and utopia -- Study five: Between good and evil -- Study six: Between poetics and ethics -- Dialogue 1: Myth as the bearer of possible worlds -- Dialogue 2: The creativity of language -- Dialogue 3: Universality and the power of difference -- Dialogue 4: Imagination, testimony, and trust -- Dialogue 5: On life stories.

The ways human behavior is conceptualized need to be refined. Major stumbling blocks have been the reification of verbal descriptions of behavior and the construction of ill-defined clusters of dissimilar problems. The effect of behavior-modifying drugs can be completely dependent on situational details. Behavior is a complex product of many interacting factors and cannot be rigorously predictable as the same behavior may be arrived at in different ways. Thus similar-looking behaviors can be functionally different and conversely different-looking behaviors can be (...) functionally identical. More answerable questions about behavior need to be formulated. (shrink)

Appearing in English for the first time, Schelling’s 1842 lectures develop the idea that many philosophical concepts are born of religious-mythological notions.

This book proposes a way to think and speak about God in and through our contemporary, secular society, bridging the theist/atheist divide by considering the divine through the lens of aesthetics. It represents a timely contribution to Continental philosophy of religion that includes some of the most respected and important voices in the field.

This article explores the crisis of narrative in contemporary culture. It begins by examining the challenge represented by the mass media for the continuing art of storytelling. Taking up Walter Benjamin’s warning that we are moving from an age of narrative experience to an age of instant information, it analyses the implications of the post‐modern ‘cult of simulation’ for education, historiography and ethics. The paper concludes by advocating a critical hermeneutic approach as the most apt response to this contemporary dilemma. (...) Only by means of such hermeneutic retrieval, inspired by the work of Ricoeur and Gadamer, can we avoid the current reduction of temporal experience to a ‘depthless present’ without past or future, thereby reaffirming the crucial narrative dimensions of historical memory and hope. (shrink)

With precision and profundity born of 30 years of devoted study, John Boyle offers an essential introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas on Scripture, shedding helpful light on the goals, methods, and commitments that animate the Angelic Doctor's engagement with the sacred page. Because the genius of St. Thomas's approach to the Bible lies not so much in its novelty but rather in the fidelity and clarity with which he recapitulates the riches of the preceding interpretive Tradition, this initiation into St. (...) Thomas's vision of Scripture is itself an orientation to the Church's vision of Scripture, from the Fathers through and beyond the Middle Ages. St. Thomas's embeddedness within the Church's Tradition and his own historical context is integral to his approach to Scripture, yet it sets him at some distance from modern readers, for whom his interpretive vision may seem perplexing or even impenetrable. In this Primer, Boyle first provides an acclimation to this medieval context through a survey and explanation of pertinent technical terminology used by St. Thomas and characteristic of the scholastic theology of the time. With an eye to the medieval practice of considering Scripture according to the fourfold division of causes, Boyle builds on this initial foundation by exploring in turn St. Thomas's accounts of the end or use of Scripture (final cause), its divine and human authorship (efficient cause), its order and division (material cause), and its literary styles or genres (formal cause). Drawing on writings from across St. Thomas's corpus, but especially his work On the Commendation and Division of Sacred Scripture and the prologues to his biblical commentaries, Boyle masterfully elucidates both the hermeneutical principles and deep wisdom of the Angelic Doctor's approach to Scripture, imparting invaluable guidance not only for reading and understanding St. Thomas and other great masters of the Tradition, but also-and ultimately-for understanding Scripture in light of this Tradition and reading it with greater benefit and joy. (shrink)

With his writings on phenomenology, psychoanalysis, Marxism, ideology, and religion, Paul Ricoeur has single-handedly redefined and revitalized the hermeneutic tradition. _From Text to Action_ is an essential companion to the now classic_ The Conflict of Interpretation_s. Here, Ricoeur continues and extends his project of constructing a general theory of interpretation, positioning his work in relation to its own philosophical background: Hegel, Husserl, Gadamer, and Weber. He also responds to contemporary figures like K.O. Apel and Jürgen Habermas, connecting his own theorization (...) of ideology to their version of ideology critique. (shrink)

The theory and practice of contemporary comparative biology and phylogeny reconstruction (systematics) emphasizes algorithmic aspects but neglects a concern for the evidence. The character data used in systematics to formulate hypotheses of relationships in many ways constitute a black box, subject to uncritical assessment and social influence. Concerned that such a state of affairs leaves systematics and the phylogenetic theories it generates severely underdetermined, we investigate the nature of the criteria of homology and their application to character conceptualization in the (...) context of transformationist and generative paradigms. Noting the potential for indeterminacy in character conceptualization, we conclude that character congruence (the coherence of character statements) relative to a hierarchy is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for phylogeny reconstruction. Specifically, it is insufficient due to the lack of causal grounding of character hypotheses. Conceptualizing characters as homeostatic property cluster natural kinds is in accordance with the empirical practice of systematists. It also accounts for the lack of sharpness in character conceptualization, yet requires character identification and re-identification to be tied to causal processes. (shrink)

To entertain an idea is to take it in, pay attention to it, give it breathing room, dwell with it for a time. The practice of entertaining ideas suggests rumination and meditation, inviting us to think of philosophy as a form of hospitality and a kind of mental theatre. In this collection, organized around key words shared by philosophy and performance, the editors suggest that Shakespeare's plays supply readers, listeners, viewers, and performers with equipment for living. In plays ranging from (...) A Midsummer Night's Dream to King Lear and The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare invites readers and audiences to be more responsive to the texture and meaning of daily encounters, whether in the intimacies of love, the demands of social and political life, or moments of ethical decision. Entertaining the Idea features established and emerging scholars, addressing key words such as role play, acknowledgment, judgment, and entertainment as well as curse and care. The volume also includes longer essays on Shakespeare, Kant, Husserl, and Hegel as well as an afterword by theatre critic Charles McNulty on the philosophy and performance history of King Lear. (shrink)