In this edition of two of Nietzsche's late works, Kaufmann has written a short introduction to each work and included indices for each work. There is an appendix to the Genealogy consisting of Kaufmann's translations of the aphorisms from earlier works which Nietzsche alludes to in the Genealogy. Also included is an appendix of discarded drafts of parts of Ecce Homo. In addition to a readable translation, Kaufmann has written a running commentary in the form of short footnotes which become (...) more expansive in one section of the Genealogy which deals with intellectual conscience and with truth. The Genealogy is intended by Nietzsche to be a sequel to and clarification of Beyond Good and Evil. It deals with such themes as master morality as opposed to slave morality, bad conscience, ressentiment, and ascetic ideals. Ecce Homo is Nietzsche's commentary on himself, his books, and his intellectual development. In the introductions, Kaufmann pleas for responsible scholarship when dealing with Nietzsche and rails against what he considers to be a conspiracy of malicious misinterpretations that have sought to discredit Nietzsche. He criticizes views that would disregard Ecce Homo as an insanely disfigured self-portrait. He also rejects interpretations of the Genealogy which suppose that Nietzsche would lump together as evils slave morality, bad conscience, and ascetic ideals. Kaufmann's admiration for Nietzsche is undisguised, and he admits a special fondness for Ecce Homo.—S. O. H. (shrink)

This volume of the Chicago series is an anthology of what might be called religious literary criticism, where 'religious' speaks of a concern for particular motifs not of any didactic intent on the part of the critics, all of whom, as in the other volumes of the series, are either alumni or faculty of Chicago Divinity School. The contributors on the whole seem to be sound secular scholars with an interest in and passion for literature as a window on life's (...) hard questions. Scott's introduction and his lead article on Saul Bellow are erudite, vast, esoteric, and exhausting. The rewards of careful, hard-work reading are high; but the price will turn many back. All the entries except one focus on recent American prose: Malamud, Heller, Pynchon, Salinger, Flannery O'Conor, J. F. Powers, Styron, and Mailer.--S. O. H. (shrink)

This collection of essays, sketches, talks, and poems is hardly a must, even for Buber fans. It is not his best writing or his deepest thinking. However, each selection is short enough not to waste the reader's time and suggestive enough to lure him on to the next one in the hope that the real gems will be there. Buber seldom published his poems, and the reason is clear. With a few memorable exceptions the poems collected here are not strong--at (...) least not in the translations given; fortunately the German is printed alongside. Buber made these selections himself from writings between 1902 and 1964. The criterion of selection was to collect a valid and "survival-worthy expression of an experience, a feeling, a decision, yes even a dream." The ten sections of the book are not titled but some of the topics covered are: words and language, discussions of various thinkers, the idea of community, education, religion, psychology, and politics. Many of the pieces were prepared for particular occasions. Friedman explains those occasions in the back of the book and gives other bits of information that aid the translation and clear up some obscure references. Some of the themes that pervade the selections are: the togetherness of body and spirit, dialogue, the importance of existential trust, and the sacredness of the concrete world and of everyday encounters. Ruth Anshen's inspired introduction to the Credo Perspectives Series is worthy of its repetition in all the volumes.--S. O. H. (shrink)

Where is the old Marcuse? Is he too tired to be explicit, to reason, to give a rationale for what he is contending? Why has he written this?--this which is just another protest lost in the shouting and the printing scattered all over stop signs, subway walls, placards, newspapers, magazines, and in books. Perhaps the importance of the book is its perseverance at a time when we are exhausted, worn out by protest's apparent sterility on the one hand and its (...) kiss-of-death fashionability on the other. Many places in this book are obscure because they are poorly written and poorly edited. Marcuse walks the line between being original enough to be provocative and irresponsible enough to be dismissed. The book is a fascinating interplay between sense and nonsense, penetrating insight and polemical overstatement, between creative originality and banal sloganism, between brilliant interpretive social commentary and abject confusion. Marcuse does succeed in letting the reader know that there is something wrong with our society and that many of the values that we have taken for granted must be rethought, but this is not Marcuse at his best, and the net force of the book is to leave the reader bewildered with this, another indication that these are bewildering times.--S. O. H. (shrink)

This study originally appeared in German in 1963. It was revised for the English edition and the translation is smooth. It is an introduction aimed at the layman. The language is simple and, except for the most important of Teilhard's terms, technical terms are scrupulously avoided. The book is organized around what Wildiers feels are Teilhard's major motivating concerns: God and the universe, or love of God vs. love of world. Wildiers explains how Teilhard sees the universe evolving from the (...) geosphere through the biosphere and noosphere and converging toward a specific end, the omega point, which Teilhard identifies with the parousia. Man has a unique position in this scheme. He represents the noosphere and is, in a sense, evolution in charge of itself. Wildiers shows how Teilhard's original concern was scientific and how he tenaciously made use of a phenomenological scientific methodology even in his most speculative theological reflections. Teilhard's christology, philosophy of history, and concept of evil are also discussed. The book does perhaps leave the reader "introduced," but there is no substitute for discovering Teilhard for oneself.--S. O. H. (shrink)

Berger goes against the prevailing intellectual currents of our age by asking after the truth of the supernatural. Taking his cue, as he has before, from the sociology of knowledge, which would suggest that the all-pervading anti-supernaturalism of our age is more a function of the social support the idea gets than of its innate worth, Berger offers up a program by which his investigation might take place. After a brief historical account of the gradual liberalizing of Protestant, Catholic, and (...) Jewish religious institutions, and after some suggestions on how to avoid following this trend on to what he calls "a surprise-free future," he predicts the indefinite continuation of some vestige of supernatural religion. He gets into the real business of the book by suggesting a "theological" approach that starts with man. By looking carefully at certain commonplace but important aspects of human experience, one can see some "signals of" transcendence. The "little effort" involves what Berger calls inductive faith. It is this radically empirical thrust that protects Berger from the charge that he is pushing for the restoration of conservative theology. Berger suggests that this book is an elaborative and corrective postscript to his The Sacred Canopy, which he felt "read like a treatise on atheism, at least in parts." As usual: Berger's engaging style.--S. O. H. (shrink)

Parker obviously has a warm fondness and a deep empathetic understanding of this period of history, and they are offered to the reader in every carefully worked sentence. In a narrative style that presents the human dimension as well as the central ideas of the Presocratics, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, Parker imaginatively reconstructs the phenomenological, empirical, and the homely rationale for their theories. He depicts the Presocratics as organized around the question "What is the universe made of?" and Socrates around (...) "What is Truth, Justice, Goodness?" There is a chapter giving a profile of Athens and Sparta. The three chapters on Plato cover the theory of forms, the Republic, and the Laws. The four chapters on Aristotle, besides the biographical inclusions, cover a scheme of his works, his view of nature, The Ethics, The Politics, and his lasting impact on the rest of intellectual history. The book ends with a brief treatment of Hellenism and a conclusion that takes its cue from the awe and excitement of Keats in On First Looking into Chapman's Homer. Altogether it is a simplified yet sympathetic, thoughtful, and sensitive introduction.--S. O. H. (shrink)

Pranger directs his attention to the everyday experience of citizens, including their Angst, their estrangement, and other existential phenomena, and extrapolates from them a political theory which will integrate the private and public dimensions of individual lives, and which will take into account the multiple political settings and allegiances within the overall national community. First, he explores the institutional setting of the citizen in which the citizen is seen as the player of a particular status role. Next he looks at (...) the category of action where citizen action is seen as basically anonymous, with its outcome ever unpredictable, a fact which Pranger feels any philosophy of government must take into account. By far the strongest chapter is the one on Symbolism and Attitude in which Pranger forges a theory of the relation between public and private and of the citizens' individual and collective symbolic construction of reality. The final chapter explores modern man's anomie, his Wendung, and his uprootedness, as a dimension of political reality. Pranger insists that modern striving for order must take seriously the disorder, confusion, and ambiguity in the daily lives of each individual citizen. Unfortunately Pranger's erudition and insistence on alluding to the work of others renders the book diffuse, his thesis elusive. This is especially unfortunate in light of the fact that he is at his best when he puts his note cards aside and speculates on his own.--S. O. H. (shrink)

These papers were delivered at the 1966 Meeting of the Conference on Science, Philosophy, and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life. They all deal in some way with education and professional training, although, in spite of the subtitle's enticement, there is almost no discussion of strategy for change in higher education. There is much hard analysis of what is going on in higher education and even a little musing about how things might or should be, but (...) the major concern is not really with change. The book opens with three background essays on educating for responsibility, on civic education in the techno-scientific age, and on educating for character in the arts and in the various disciplines. There follows a section on some professional aspects of education and the schools, including an essay by Daniel Bell on education and social change. Next come sections on Law, Business, the Ministry and their slant on education and training. Just before the appendices relating to the Conference there is a section of miscellaneous papers covering everything from police to LSD including language-consciousness and the mass media. Responsibility is a theme that carries through the essays. The three-year delay in publication is unfortunate. What one expects today from a book on change in higher education is much different and much more than these 1966 essays are able to give.--S. O. H. (shrink)

Sleeper is a New Testament scholar, and half of the book is concerned with building the subtitle's "Biblical Foundations for Social Ethics." This part of the project is pursued with care, freshness, and originality. The part of the book dealing with race relations and the Christian is a term-paper type survey of what current thinkers are thinking on race and the Christian conscience. There are a few attempts to integrate these chapters with the biblical scholarship, and, where these attempts occur, (...) they are generally successful--the only threads of unity between the various parts of the book. It is a shame that Sleeper's strengths as a biblical scholar are burried in this primer for white Christians.--S. O. H. (shrink)

Reiser declares that what the modern world needs is a new system of thought, a new world-view that will integrate the "mystical participation of an earlier age" with the "hard core of scientific objectivity." And so he proceeds to build one, drawing on diverse attempts of East and West to decipher the mysteries of the universe. The result is a "Hindu-Pythagoras-Stoic-Bruno-Spinoza-Einstein world-view" that is intriguing if not entirely palatable. His treatments of such topics as space-time, field forces, the double-helix, relativity, (...) and the Heisenberg principle are clear but sketchy. In fact, many of his entries for discussion, although impeccably up-to-date and relevant, are too brief to give a strong account of themselves, even though they seem to serve adequately to support his over-all project of synthesizing modern scientific breakthroughs with ancient insights. Physics, chemistry, biology, music, cybernetics, mathematics, astrophysics, psychology, and history of religions all find themselves with interrelating contributions to make to Reiser's gestalt of Cosmic Humanism.—S. O. H. (shrink)

With a few exceptions all the essays in this issue of Daedalus are biographies of world intellectual and political leaders. Erik Erikson's "psycho-historical" examination of Gandhi is followed by sketches of Nkrumah, Ataturk, de Gaulle, Bismarck, Andrew Johnson, Newton, James Mill, and William James. There are three exceptions to the biographical motif: 1) an essay on charisma which, although it does not go much beyond Weber, does offer a concise anatomy of the various dimensions of this slippery category which is (...) an underlying theme throughout many of the biographies; 2) a short essay proposing that obstacles to change in underdeveloped countries are connected with obstacles to the perception of change; and 3) an essay which examines the relation of the American intellectual-academic community to government during the first half of this century. Dankwart Rustow's introductory essay consists of "scattered remarks" on various methodologies for the exploration of the anatomy of leadership. His organizing themes are leadership as communication, leadership as learning process, and leadership as sense of timing.--S. O. H. (shrink)

This book is much in the tradition of Paul Goodman and Edgar Friedenberg in that it accepts their critique of what is wrong with American education. But then it goes on to share a utopian vision of how it could and should be--a vision featuring a Summerhill-like, multi-media, "total environment" approach where life from birth to death is dedicated to the joys of learning. Leonard is currently vice-president of Esalen Institute and a veteran magazine journalist on education. He has written (...) with considerable skill and passion a book that is as engrossing as a good novel. The book is intoxicating in its suggestion that perhaps there is some way to preserve and kindle the creative zest which all children are born with, without killing it as we do now by regimentation. Leonard not only spins out his own vision of the future, but does some first class reporting on current experiments which point the way to it and on current policies which block it. No educator, could fail to enjoy or benefit from this book.--S. O. H. (shrink)

A large and fully representative edition of Emerson's most important and most penetrating prose. "The American Scholar" and the "Divinity School Address" plus essays on History, Self-Reliance, Love, Heroism, Art, The Over-Soul, The Poet, Character, Manners, Nature, Politics to name only a few. Parts from "The Conduct of Life," and from English Traits. The longer essays on Domestic Life, Plato, Thoreau, and Lincoln. The fifty pages of excerpts from Emerson's Journals are one of the most interesting features of this edition. (...) There is none of Emerson's poetry except what he placed at the beginning of some of the essays. There is a concise, informative, biographical introduction by Mumford who paints an unhealthy and shy, "cold but fiery" Emerson who nonetheless, through his writings, was a giant on the forefront of the new thinking and changing attitudes of his time. There is no critical apparatus or bibliographical information, but with the introduction the book is an effective and ample reader.--S. O. E. (shrink)

It is not always clear whose side Frankel is on in the current debate over university reform, but that is perhaps the hidden strength of the book. For, although the rational orderliness with which he proceeds seems to indicate that he leans toward the establishment, he nonetheless, in the process, does manage occasionally to dig out the legitimacy of much of the radical position. Although his topic is the university in general, it is evident that in the back of his (...) mind is Columbia 1968. Although his sympathies are with the old order he manages with some reservations to catch a glimpse of what students are pushing for, especially in terms of the university's commitment to its immediate neighborhood, and student representation on board and faculty committees. Not that Frankel is for such representation, but he concedes that it is perhaps time to do a little experimenting in that direction.--S. O. H. (shrink)

The journal begins with random memories and reflections on Ionesco's childhood. These soon blend into adult reflections on dreams and other situations which make the reader wonder if the childhood was not a dream also. Ionesco's preoccupation with his dreams and his belief that they hold the key to ultimate truth is one of the organizing principles of the book. The main secondary theme is his preoccupation with death and with his goal: to learn how to die. Ionesco claims not (...) to take himself too seriously, but the tone of this journal is often one of grim earnestness. Granted, there are some lighter moments, but even these reveal a very deep self concern and more than a frivolous insight--"Is life worth dying for?" There are also the reductionisms of wishing, which only the journal style, with its exemption from the need for development, can produce. Basically what we have here is an anxious, neurotic, insightful man graciously sharing his anxieties, his neuroses, and his insights. The work is catalytic for philosophical reflection.--S. O. H. (shrink)

This is not a book on religious language, not an analysis or suggestion about the "logic" of God-talk. It is one of those homiletical efforts to make God relevant. But, as such it is a notch above most. Its images are fairly vivid, and its language is urbane and fresh, although occasionally new phrases are coined without sufficient development or rationale to reveal what they mean. Its approach, then, is theological not philosophical, compelled as it is to cover Christian motifs--sin, (...) salvation, resurrection, eternal life, etc. One of the frequent themes is the rejection of the medieval propositional approach to God and the rejection of the "half-baked existentialist" conceptual approach. Rather, Moore sees the discovery and understanding of God in terms of a radically loving, Christ-powered life-style.--S. O. H. (shrink)

The Pegram Lectures at Brookhaven National Laboratory are designed to provide a forum to consider the question of the interaction among science, the humanities, and society at large. Just before Maurois was to deliver these lectures in 1967 he became fatally ill. However, the manuscript had been prepared and was delivered by Jacques Barzun. These lectures along with prefatory remarks by Barzun and E. Morot-Sir of the French Embassy comprise Illusions. There are three lectures by Maurois. The first begins by (...) cataloguing various everyday illusions, mostly optical. It discusses dreams, the difference between illusion and hallucination, the role of interpretation of reality in the creation of illusion, and the distinction between who we are as opposed to whom we play. In short it reminds us that, for various reasons, we do not see the world as it is. The second lecture shows how science tries to correct our distorted pictures of reality. Science is largely successful in this effort, says Maurois, although inasmuch as men need to interpret what science discovers, the door is still open for illusion. Moreover, inasmuch as scientists are men, science is not above producing some illusions of its own. The third and perhaps the most contrived lecture explores the world of willful illusions: the fine arts. Here Maurois suggests some differences and similarities between art and science, and explores the technological interaction between the two. He concludes that illusion will always be with us and that in fact it is "the stuff of which our life is made."-S. O. H. (shrink)

Each group of selections in this text book is preceded by about ten pages of commentary by Harrington. These commentaries can be read either before the selections as a preparation setting forth the issues, or after the selections as an elucidation, isolating the selection's central concerns. All the selections, with the exception of Kierkegaard's, are from twentieth century thinkers. The contributors include Tillich, Herberg, G. E. Wright, Bultmann, D. M. Bailie, J. J. C. Smart, Wisdom, Hare, Sartre, Barth and Vahanian. (...) The book is divided into three main parts. The first part is basically doctrinal, exploring Biblical themes and contemporary views of revelation, God, man, Jesus, crucifixion, resurrection, and incarnation. The second part deals with aspects of the philosophy of religion including the connection between philosophy and theology, religious language, the existence of God, theistic proofs, and epistemological considerations. The third part, under the heading of "Challenges to Contemporary Man," is a potpourri of theological glamor issues including Existentialism and the death of God. Very often Harrington's commentary provides the reader with the classical aspects of the problem which the contemporary contributer is dealing with. There is a topically organized bibliography of suggested reading. There is no index.--S. O. H. (shrink)

This is a remarkably crisp and lucid comparison between Bultmann and Jaspers organized around the former's concept of Christian faith and the latter's notion of philosophical faith. Many of the issues arise from an actual dialogue between the two men over a period of years. Long's book develops some of the two men's difficulties with and misunderstandings of each other. The two men display similarities in their rejection of positivism and system-building and in their recognition of risk and commitment in (...) man's coming to know himself and his relation to the transcendent. But they also have important differences, the most significant and representative of which concerns whether or not to accept any one tradition as being central, authoritative, or exclusively helpful in the quest for self-understanding. For Jaspers, who rejects the centrality of Jesus, every tradition, whether authoritative or kerygmatic, is relative and ambiguous with no particular claim on man. In accepting one particular manifestation of truth as definitive, says Jaspers, theology has turned what is by nature incomprehensible into an object of understanding. Long traces these similarities and differences through chapters on revelation, language, science, and reason. Long's thorough grasp of the issues and the clarity and simplicity of his presentation place the usefulness and importance of this book beyond the topic of Bultmann and Jaspers. With a meta-critical perspective, Long opens up the border between Philosophy and Theology on the Existentialist front in perhaps a more promising way than similar attempts to open it up on the front of linguistic analysis.--S. O. H. (shrink)

Hamilton takes the tools of the competent New Testament scholar that he is and uses them to strip past the cultural overlays left on the New Testament by the first few centuries A.D. He does this to discover the primitive Jewish Christian Church's way of speaking about Jesus. This way of speaking, Hamilton feels, can inform our own cultural setting in a way that the less obscure, more Hellenistic New Testament traditions, with their elaborate metaphysical commitments, cannot. Basically, this primitive (...) Hebraic tradition sees Jesus as the eschatological prophet and emphasizes the fact that he was a Jew. Hamilton begins by tracing the primitive conception of "the future world," and then demonstrates its relation to the resurrection which, properly understood in that context, should serve to underscore the importance of the historical Jesus. An important part of Hamilton's project is to trace the separation of Hellenistic and Jewish cultures and to examine Christianity's unfortunate preference for the former. The book is forceful and convincing. Hamilton pays close attention to the texts, but his feeling for contemporary culture is as important a component of his persuasiveness as his dispassionate and penetrating scholarship.--S. O. H. (shrink)

Each contributor to this volume, collected in conjunction with St. Louis University's sesquicentennial celebrations, addresses himself to the title topic in terms of his own field. The first part of the book contains essays grouped loosely under the theme "The Environment of Learning." This section is introduced by Ong with a thumbnail portrait of the knowledge explosion, its history, its technological apparatus, its social implications, and its undergirding presupposition: a faith in the intelligibility of the universe. Other essays in the (...) section cover university education, education in Africa, international politics, urban problems, and architecture. In his essay, McLuhan moves from a discussion of architecture to an explanation of a certain art form which integrates separate environmental fragments into a gestalt fusion of artist, art form, and art work. This art form, this "happening," for post-mechanical man is the environment itself plus the programmed structuring of its elements. John Macquarrie builds a doctrine of human responsibility using the creation myth and a little Heidegger to portray man not as the sovereign over creation but as its steward and guardian. The second section deals with specific areas of knowledge. J. R. Zacharias leads off with a superficial account of how scientific training, with its emphasis on objectivity, can lead to moral sureness and of how scientists make moral decisions. This ethical emphasis is maintained as other contributors in biology, law, and business discuss the impact of technology in their area and the "way out" possibilities of the future. The final three essays are moderate by comparison. J. D. Collins, speaking for philosophy, points out that philosophers are characteristically more concerned with their past than with their future, that they delay in order to reflect when others barge ahead, and that consequently for them the knowledge explosion has also been a knowledge implosion. However, he does manage a discussion of philosophy's new "developing patterns," the most significant for him being the convergence of phenomenology and language analysis. M. Eliade gives a short account of the history of religions, and Karl Rahner ends the book with a crisp essay relating Christian eschatology to secular ideologies of the future.--S. O. H. (shrink)

Montague seems to have marshalled this repetitive, overlapping collection of essays to stamp out once and for all the Hobbesian myth that man is innately aggressive and violent. He succeeds by over-kill; there are no voices for the other side. This is in part because the other side has already spoken, and to too wide an audience. The targets of this collection of diatribes are Konrad Lorentz, and Robert Ardrey. Both are repeatedly accused of over-simplification, inadequate or irresponsible research, subjectivism, (...) and particularly of making the unwarranted and poorly defended analogy between animals and men. Individually the articles are convincing: balanced and just in their criticism. The trouble is that putting them together in this one-sided barrage is like killing a sparrow with a cannon.--S. O. H. (shrink)

Capital "H" Humanism is the moving spirit behind this book, complete with its quaint, crusading anti-supernaturalism. What starts out as a propagandistic apologia for this "movement" manages to come up with some solid essays on various aspects of ethics and ethical theory. There is a star studded cast including H. J. Blackham, Marvin Farber, Hebert Feigl, Rollo Handy, Sidney Hook, A. H. Maslow, Ernest Nagel, Carl Rogers, and B. F. Skinner covering topics dealing with ethics and religion; the good life (...) ; law, the individual, and social organization; justice and society; and death. Many of the essays are reprinted from The Humanist. Some of them over-simplify the problems of philosophical ethics. Although there are some strong and interesting essays, the usefulness of the book is limited by its effort to advocate the Humanist position.--S. O. H. (shrink)

These lectures, given at the University of Chicago and slated to be the Nobel lectures at Harvard before Tillich's death, are a compromise between the technical style of the Systematic Theology and the sermon style of his more popular books, although they are closer to the latter. They are eminently readable and filled with those rich insights that only the reflection of a mature mind can produce. The first chapter is a narrative, autobiographical account of Tillich's years as a young (...) man in which he acknowledges his intellectual debts and influences. The last three chapters are suggestions for absolutes found in his search--absolutes in knowledge, ethics, and religion respectively. These include the logical structure of the mind, categories, and polarities; the unconditional character of the moral imperative, agape; being-itself, and the holy. The book contains an inspired introduction to the Credo Perspectives series by Ruth Anshen as well as her short prologue to this particular volume. The twenty-six full-page drawings by Saul Steinberg are a significant bonus. They parallel and often interpret the text, and the text, in its turn, often reveals the drawings in a clearer light.--S. O. H. (shrink)

As a whole these essays take their cue from the later Wittgenstein in an effort to get beyond the verifiability/falsifiability cul-de-sac and to "get clear" on some religious concepts by exploring religious language at work. The opening two essays, by E. Heller and P. Holmer, are the only two that deal directly with Wittgenstein. Heller shows some interesting parallels between Wittgenstein and Nietzsche, but largely these essays are for introductory purposes. Although Wittgenstein's presence is felt in the remaining essays, his (...) name is seldom mentioned. Ian Ramsey has two contributions, one on paradox and one on religion and science. He is up to his usual method of making plausible suggestions by means of careful distinctions, always with a careful eye on the phenomenology of the religious universe of discourse. F. Ferré explores the notion of "models" as it works in science and sees how this concept can work in the examination of religious language. T. McPherson uses a distinction between literal, semiotic, and symbolic meaning to explore religious assertions and analogy. R. C. Coburn suggests that a neglected use of theological statements is to answer the limiting questions of religion in a manner that is logically complete. B. Mitchell talks about justifying religious belief in answer to MacIntyre's charge that such a project reveals a basic misunderstanding of religious discourse. There are two intriguing essays by Wm. Poteat, one of which draws an analogy between birth and suicide to build a doctrine of creation. C. B. Daly writes on metaphysics and the limits of language. Although there is same familiar wrangling over tired issues, the book does manage to collect some refreshing although not strikingly original essays.--S. O. H. (shrink)

In an effort to give a "personal account of the impact of Whitehead on one reader" and to promote the enthusiasm of others who have not yet discovered Whitehead, Jordan takes off to give his readers an aerial view of the Whiteheadian panorama, flying high enough to avoid becoming entangled in the Whiteheadian word thicket below. This is not to say that Jordan ignores Whiteheadian terminology. On the contrary he has enhanced Whitehead's famous mute appeal for an imaginative leap with (...) a string of ingenious metaphors which serve well to explicate Whitehead's key technical terms and concepts. The result is actually more of a commentary and exposition than is advertised in the introduction. The final chapters come closer to the autobiographical emphasis promised in the introduction. There Jordan makes some general observations on Whitehead's language, his method, and the place of reason in his thought. He affirms the importance and modern relevance of Whitehead as a whole in spite of some misgivings about Whitehead's theism in an age of justifiable skepticism. The importance of the book is its metaphors and images. At last someone has made a responsible effort to explicate Whitehead in everyday terms. Obviously this involves distortions, but the book has no pretensions about its authority and is coupled with an invitation to read Whitehead himself and his more technical commentators. There are no footnotes.--S. O. H. (shrink)

The bulk of this work is a responsible and well documented exposition of Whitehead's major themes with emphasis on how they contribute to his theory of perception and how his developing theory of perception contributes to them. Although Schmidt divides Whitehead's development into three parts, the important part of the project, and obviously his favorite, is the elucidation of Whitehead's "mature theory of perception" and the demonstration that it provides a foundation for the cosmological system and his philosophy of science. (...) Throughout, Whitehead is presented as an empiricist, although not in the usual sense. Perception and immediate experience are his starting point, but "perception" is used in a more basic, generic sense than is customary. It includes conception as well as sense-presentation. Schmidt pays prolonged and welcome attention to presentational immediacy, causal efficacy, and symbolic reference. The book contains some useful expansions of underdeveloped Whiteheadian doctrines, elucidations of Whiteheadian obscurities, and a number of interpretive distinctions, all of which serve to make it a useful new commentary as well as a proposal of an important thesis.--S. O. H. (shrink)

This is primarily a sociological study of the impact on the viewer of television coverage of particular key events. Singled out especially are: MacArthur day in Chicago in 1951, the 1952 political conventions, and the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960. The impact of television on political opinion and the effect of nationally televised voting returns on late voters are also explored. Relying on the method of questionnaires and interviews with strategically placed eye-witnesses and television watchers, the Langs discovered: that there is (...) a difference between being there in person and "being there" via T.V., that the major networks differ, often markedly, with respect to the impression of the event conveyed, and that in spite of seeming to be a "see for yourself" news medium, T.V. can't help but introduce some "refraction," some inadvertent bias, into the actuality it conveys. Although there is occasional passing reference to McLuhan, there is little discussion of T.V. as medium. Rather, content, and content of news coverage specifically, is the primary focus. However, in the last chapter, and here and there throughout the book, there are more speculative reflections on what the authors have discovered. For example, they speculate on the way television coverage becomes an event in its own right and on the way television "manufactures" actuality, transforming the viewers' quest for truth into a quest for trust. The book is a helpful, feet-on-the-ground reference point for the exploration of the problems of media and messages.--S. O. H. (shrink)

This is a very useful collection of important, standard, primary sources. Two-thirds of volume one is taken up with Plato and Aristotle with the rest of the volume evenly divided among the Presocratics, Hellenistic philosophers and Medieval philosophers. Four of the Platonic dialogues are complete. Second edition changes in the first volume include: changes in translators and new entries. In both volumes Kaufmann's prefaces are very brief and mainly biographical. He consistently ties in information about each thinker's contemporaries. The second (...) volume has readings from Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant. Almost half the second volume is taken up with Hume and Kant. The second edition changes in volume II are: expansion of Spinoza's Ethics, Locke's Essay, Berkeley's Principles; and additions of Descartes' correspondence with Princess Elizabeth, and a short Leibniz essay translated especially for this volume by M. Furth. The selections are adequately long and representational. The volumes contain double columns, no index, no bibliographies, no "Study Guides," just solid and important reading.--S. O. H. (shrink)

This book is a primer of contemporary philosophy of religion. It introduces in non-technical simplicity the four basic philosophical options which can inform a modern religious posture. The options are: process philosophy, phenomenology, language analysis, and existentialism. There is an introductory essay by the editor which describes the attitudes of Barth, Brunner, Bultmann, and Tillich toward philosophy and its relation to theology. Hartshorne's essay on process philosophy sets forth the bare bones of his bipolar theism and presents his case that (...) it is necessary for the creatures to contribute to the enrichment of God. The phenomenology article is written by Quentin Lauer, S.J. He deals briefly with Husserl's methodology and its applicability to the investigation of "religious consciousness." He describes four styles of phenomenology of religion represented by James, Van der Leeuw, Otto, and Scheler. He also discusses briefly Teilhard de Chardin. In the next essay, Frederick Ferré uses Socrates as his point of departure for showing the relevance of language analysis for policing religious discourse, both theistic and christological. He is skeptical, however, as to whether language analysis can be considered a resource for Christian thought. He points out that because it is in the Socratic tradition it can better serve as a midwife. John Macquarrie contributes the chapter on existentialism, showing its anthropocentrism and its reluctance to develop a doctrine of God. All the essays, originally the Alden-Tuthill lectures at Chicago Theological Seminary, raise provocative, important, and basic questions. They would serve well as an introductory text or as a catalyst for class discussion.—S. O. H. (shrink)

These volumes are reprinted without change, revision, or comment from the 1928 edition. Tennant set out with a largely empirical method to investigate the presuppositions of Christian theology. In the back of his mind was an arbitration between theology and science. His ethical theism makes room for a purposive creator and sustainer of the world. It makes room for an enduring soul but not for original sin. In a scheme that brings to mind some modern efforts at "natural theology," he (...) sees God, man, and the world as mutually requisite.--S. O. H. (shrink)

This book is a preliminary treatment investigating how quantum physics' view of the world is related to the central concepts and doctrines of the western philosophical tradition. Recognizing the analogy between the subject-object distinction in philosophy and the instrument-system distinction in physics, Petersen sees that the problems of description in quantum theory and in philosophy have a profound kinship and suggests that quantal description and the concept of complementarity might play an important role in the solution of those problems. A (...) principal focus in this study thus becomes the idea of correspondence, through which physicists sought to establish the relation between quantum and classical physics. Petersen's approach is largely historical, beginning with an account of the development of ontological philosophy that dwells largely on Berkeley, Locke, Hume, and Kant in order to get at the point of contact between epistemology and ontology. Then comes a short history of atomism and an account of the correspondence idea in quantum physics. Finally he uses his historical accounts in a discussion of the relation of quantum physics to traditional philosophy. There is a summary in Danish at the end.--S. O. H. (shrink)

Jonathan and Paul Weiss, obviously enjoying themselves, spar with one another over everyday problems of ethical decisions and principles--problems which they have obviously discussed before and which they now air for our benefit, taking advantage of their prolonged and special relationship to avoid haggling over banalities and to present the fruits of dialogue without its heavy stalks. Although the two men are enjoying their talk, their tone is not frivolous. They reveal a deep and human concern with the issues they (...) are discussing. They are aware of their presuppositions but conscientiously avoid any philosophically compulsive examination of them. The result is that the lay reader is rewarded with strong substantive positions that deal squarely, even if not definitively, with the practical issues at hand. The format of the book is what appears to be a transcription of actual conversations about the individual, his obligations, the family, the state, society, and the universe. The conversations often seemed to be "staged," however, with one of them playing devil's advocate. They stick to the agenda and leave each issue when the time is up or when the discussion becomes unfruitful.--S. O. H. (shrink)

This is an anthology and source book of ancient and modern, eastern and western, sophisticated and crackpot, pro and con writings on reincarnation. The selections are largely fragmentary with the editors' ample commentary offering some continuity. It is difficult to see how the coverage could be broader as it includes various myths of reincarnation, writings from scriptures and theological writings from the major world religions, a short section on reincarnation in Theosophy and Masonry, and anthropologists' reports on beliefs and traditions (...) concerning reincarnation throughout the world. More than half the volume is taken up with fragments from western thinkers from the Presocratics to twentieth century scientists. Not surprisingly, these fragments are more from literary figures than from philosophers, although few of the great philosophers seemed able to keep entirely silent on the subject. Many, if not most, of the selections are too fragmentary to be interesting and often show little more than that the thinker in question had once or twice toyed with the idea of reincarnation. But this is a necessary aspect of the book's imposing breadth and its value as a reference work.--S. O. H. (shrink)

Some members from the cast of New Essays in Philosophical Theology set the tone of this anthology, although with essays not included in that volume. The Flew-Hare-Mitchell-Crombie discussion on falsifiability is the only selection from that volume included here. Also included in the same section are Wisdom's "Gods," much of Braithwaite's Empiricist's View of the Nature of Religious Belief, and selections by Diogenes Allen and John Hick. The opening section of the book is on the logical status of religious language. (...) Besides essays by MacIntyre, McPherson, and Crombie, it contains William Christian's article on truth-claims in religion and also a clear, sympathetic account by Father Bochenski on the formal structure of religious discourse. The section of the book on the question of literalness includes selections from Ayer, Tillich, Mascall, Buber, and Bultmann. The section on the possibility of religious knowledge includes essays by Calvin O. Schrag, Paul F. Schmidt, and Kierkegaard. Santoni's introduction discusses all the essays, ties them together, and consequently gives a rationale for their inclusion. On the whole, the anthology is thorough, unified, and, in spite of its restricted and well-worn theme, remarkably nonrepetative.--S. O. H. (shrink)

What starts out as a run-of-the-mill denunciation of mechanism and behaviorism in the physical and social sciences ends up with some exciting, if sketchy, suggestions for new conceptions of man and his world. The key words for Bertalanffy's psychology are symbolism and system. The former delimits what is uniquely human in human behavior; the latter replaces man as stimulus-response robot with man as "active personality system." After discussing the advantages and drawbacks of man's propensity for the symbolic construction of reality, (...) the author turns his attention to the systems approach to an understanding of man. He warns against the common error of identifying cybernetics with general systems theory. The cybernated system, he feels, is still basically mechanistic, distinguishing itself only by the addition of a feed-back loop to make it self-regulative. It is still closed with respect to the introduction of matter or energy from outside the system, even though it is open to the introduction of information from outside. That is, no matter how complex the cybernetic system, it "can always be resolved into feedback circuits" and thought of in terms of "linear causality." The regulative behavior of general systems, on the other hand, is determined by goal-directed, dynamic interaction between many forces and variables in an open system. Bertalanffy points out that "no comprehensive theory of systems exists today." However, as a model the approach has many advantages, such as obviating the need for the "ghost in the machine" and suggesting some solutions to the mind-body problem. The book, originally the Heinz Werner Lectures at Clark University, is a provocative introduction to systems theory, and the bibliography is especially useful in suggesting further steps in the exploration of this exciting idea.--S. O. H. (shrink)

Unless the title is a McLuhanesque play on words--which Finkelstein would never allow himself--the book is mistitled, for Finkelstein dwells almost exclusively on what he considers to be the nonsense of McLuhan. Writing with all the venom of an anti-smut campaigner whose moral principles are threatened because they are too weak and too inflexible, Finkelstein wages his polemics against McLuhan in an effort to discredit him and expose him as a false prophet. What nettles Finkelstein most is that McLuhan, a (...) professor--a guardian of truth and goodness--should be so irresponsible as to fail to denunciate T.V. commercials, Madison avenue mind-manipulators, T.V.'s causing the atrophy of the ability to read and think, and the other bogeymen of humanist dogma. How dare McLuhan, the Albert Schweitzer Professor of Humanities at a great University, challenge the foundations of the humanities themselves? Finkelstein is at least thorough in his refusal to come to grips with what is valid in McLuhan: he does us the service of pointing out the errors in McLuhan's reading of history, in his dictum that the medium is the message, in his suggestion that media are extensions of man, and in his advocacy of media involvement. The final and the least weak chapter draws a parallel between McLuhan and Marx, showing how McLuhanism can lead to a world totalitarian monolith. We should pay Finkelstein the courtesy, however, of pointing out that there is a sense in which his criticisms, if not always valid, are at least important to keep in mind while seeking to understand McLuhan without being seduced by him.--S. O. H. (shrink)

Both the essays in this short book have appeared before, but separately and both in German. Voegelin shows how certain modern intellectual movements whether political, philosophical, scientific, right or left share characteristics with ancient gnosticism in that they are salvation-oriented formulas designed to dominate and control being by conceptually reconstructing it into a manageable, man-centered packet. The gnosis is the knowledge of the particular method of altering being. Voegelin isolates two major prerequisites for the construction and marketing of such formulas: (...) 1) The prohibition of questioning, and 2) the elimination from the formula of the essential features of being that would tend to expose the program as foolish. He picks on Nietzsche and Marx as the "intellectual swindlers" indulging in 1, and cites Moore's Utopia, Hobbe's Leviathan and Hegel's construct of history as demonstrating 2. The book is generally intriguing with occasional worthy aphoristic insights. It can be read in one enjoyable sitting.--S. O. H. (shrink)

Wicker's concern is to build a philosophical and justificational foundation for a "Christian radicalism" which can serve to synthesize the two modern secular themes of self-determination and communalism. He explores particular secular theories of perception, language, and society and rejects them as irrelevant to modern realities. He then constructs in their place three sacred theories, where "sacred" is to be understood not as a sheltered corner of our experience but rather as the basis of the more general intersubjectivity which defines (...) man-in-society. He draws on Merleau-Ponty for a theory of perception, Wittgenstein for a theory of language, and Marx for a theory of society. All three theories find man in a closer participating relation with his world environment than do their rejected alternatives. These three theories suggest three modes of being-in-the-world: the bodily, the linguistic, and the economic, all of which are expressive—the latter in the sense that it involves the transformation of environment into expressiveness. The conjunction of the three modes, then, defines our community life. Wicker uses George Eliot, Dickens, Orwell, and William Golding to show how various human attitudes toward environment are manifest in literature. These attitudes are classifiable into the secular—environment as passive context for human life—and the sacred—environment as fraught with primordial significance which man shares and of which he is part. Wicker further justifies his vision of Christianity with the aid of Levy-Bruhl, van der Leeuw, and Eliade whose studies in primitive religions fructify Wicker's notion of the sacred. The book ends with a theological formulation of its main themes involving new translations of old doctrines. The book is a brave effort to revitalize with secular insights a moribund Christianity and to point it to its own roots in the foundations of man.—S. O. H. (shrink)

These readings in the philosophy of education are designed to allow issues to emerge and to allow students to see how they arise, how they can be dealt with, and how a philosophy of education might be built. Of course no gathering of disparate works can deliver on that kind of editorial promise. However, this company of contributors is distinguished, and most of their entries provocative and interesting. The first section is designed to show what is special about our age (...) and what must be taken into account in order to think critically about modern issues in education. In this section Talcott Parsons, Cassirer, Melvin Seeman, Wm. H. Whyte, Marcuse, Jung, Sartre, and D. Bell talk about specialization, alienation, organization man, one-dimensional man, anxiety about values, and the knowledge explosion. This is the most "with-it" section and paints a fair portrait of our times. The last three sections are more conventional and more philosophical. There is a section on methodology which finds D. J. O'Conner, Dewey, and Whitehead discussing the nature of philosophy and which closes with Buber's opening pages from I and Thou. The last two sections have contributions by Plato, St. Augustine, Locke, Kant, Hegel, Dewey, Polanyi, and Maritain among others. These sections deal with questions of learning and with some "isms". All the sections have critical bibliographies which are enlightened, useful, and up-to-date. There is a glossary of technical terms. On the whole this is a strong anthology. Each of the four sections is sufficiently unified to provide a helpful context for the readings within it.--S. O. H. (shrink)

In 1963-1964 the Carnegie Corporation awarded Grinnell College a grant to support new interdisciplinary programs. One of these was the "Interdisciplinary Seminar on Order." Scholars came from all over the country to lead discussions and read papers on some aspect of order as it related to their field. Various philosophers, historians, political scientists, psychologists, and people in religion, philosophy, and literature all took part. Philosophers show up under several of the book's headings. Paul Weiss has a short paper on some (...) paradoxes relating to order. Feibleman speaks on disorder. Ernan McMullin kicks off the history of science section discussing cosmic order in Plato and Aristotle. Monroe Beardsley has a paper on order and disorder in art. Hartshorne discusses, among other things, the reality of chance in his essay on order and chaos in the section on Religion and Ethics. Voegelin and Toynbee are naturals in this volume. They comprise the whole section on history. Among the twenty-two other contributors are Talcott Parsons and J. M. Kitagawa on world religions. There is an enterprising introduction by Kuntz in which he brings an historical approach to the problem of order. Somehow, in the process, he manages to tie in most of the other papers.--S. O. H. (shrink)

As "dialogue" tends to suggest an implicit dispute between the parties involved, this book is mistitled. What we see here is the co-operation of the resources of psychology and theology in the common quest for a unified theory of man. However, although they are co-operative, the two fields do maintain their identity throughout the studies. Very often the attempt is made to find the differences and to show the relation between theological and psychological theories of man. As with the other (...) volumes of this series, all the contributors are associated with the Chicago Divinity School, either as alumni or as faculty. The entries cover such topics as sin, Freud and Tillich, various aspects of the dynamics of knowing and of faith, dream and myth, Jung, Pastoral counseling, group therapy.--S. O. H. (shrink)

Between two reasonably priced paper covers, in print of adequate size, we have an extensive and unified collection of primary sources displaying the continuity and periodic adjustment of the ideals and practical considerations of democracy. Between Pericles and the present Sherover finds four basic periods: The Classical Heritage, The Democratic Revolutions, The Priority of Freedom, and Contemporary Groundings. The editor introduces each section with a clear and simply stated digest of each thinker's basic ideas and how the thinkers compare with (...) each other. These introductions contain no novel interpretations and will give the student a running start on the readings that follow them. The introductions are also important transitions whose historical perspective gives the book its continuity. The volume might have been strengthened by allowing some of those who have fundamentally challenged the democratic tradition to speak for themselves.--S. O. H. (shrink)

The theme of the church's impact on culture does not ignore, but rather rounds out the Chicago school's earlier and opposite preoccupation with the cultural-environmental factors in the development of the church. Brauer sees the socio-historical method which is identified with the Chicago school as "the first serious attempt in America to make church history a responsible scientific discipline at home in the university." These essays by faculty and alumni of Chicago Divinity School are presented chronologically and cover ancient, medieval, (...) reformation, and modern church history. Specifically, the essays cover: the use of the prefix auto- in early Christian Theology; the period of Constantine; the fourth and fifth century relation between Christianity and Judaeism; some medieval reforming critiques; the importance of the church in the rise of Moscow; a new line on the problem of the sources of conciliarism in the fifteenth century; and various reformation essays including one by J. T. McNeil, one on Anabaptism, one on religion and science in the reformation, and one on reformation humanism. The final essays include studies of Oliver Cromwell, Schleiermacher, Joseph Miloslav Hurban, and one on Harnack.--S. O. H. (shrink)

This series of character sketches is disappointing to the reader expecting an interpretive historical document. The bulk of the book is taken up with reflections about the author's mother, who died when Svetlana was only six, her mother's family, her brothers, and her sweethearts. Many readers are naturally interested in the figure of Stalin, but he is treated directly only in small and scattered portions of the book with much of the information repeated. It becomes evident that the author knew (...) her father primarily through his impact on the people she loved. Consequently, the figure of Stalin emerges as somewhat enigmatic and mysterious, a combination god and devil. It is apparent that she did not really know him very well, see him very often, or think about him very much. The book is not really about Stalin at all. It is an enjoyable combination of behind-the-scenes gossip, and engrossing narrative fragments.—S. O. H. (shrink)

Yarnold is motivated by the thesis that theology must interpret science. It does so presumably for the benefit of the religious community, being careful that the formulations emanating from such an interpretation are "true to the facts of biblical and Christian experience." Yarnold's main focus is the distinction between time and eternity, or between the temporal world and the eternal world. The book is a valiant attempt to explore post-Newtonian concepts of space and time and space-time, and to relate them (...) to the traditional theological notion of eternity. After exploring our biological and physical awareness of time and relating that awareness with the law of entropy and after exploring some biblical concepts of time, Yarnold reaches the formula that we in the temporal world experience successiveness, while God in the eternal realm experiences everything all at once. "The space-time continuum may be regarded as a valid representation of the external world as apprehended by Deity." Unfortunately, when he is through investigating the dynamism of modern science, he continues to cling to a basically static and traditional theology which seems to ignore that dynamism.—S. O. H. (shrink)

This collection of essays was originally designed as an anthology of Lamprecht's earlier articles. However, about one third of the essays collected here are new for this volume and serve to integrate the old essays so that the volume has become "a record of the course of his thought... and a kind of epilogue to his career of philosophical speculation." For Lamprecht, naturalism is a "philosophical position, empirical in method, that regards everything that exists or occurs to be conditioned in (...) its existence or occurrence by causal factors within one all encompassing system of nature." The author seems to be uncomfortable in the face of extreme solutions to philosophic problems. He takes a mediating position between "determinacy and indeterminacy," "causality and contingency," the primacy of "subject-matter" and the primacy of "method." Lamprecht is at his best when exploring the implications of his theories rather than when defending them. His observations on freedom and necessity, the nature of man, the role of historiography in philosophy, and the question of religion bear a richness of insight that must be appreciated regardless of the reader's attitude toward the author's philosophical position.—S. O. H. (shrink)

The book begins with four case studies and works its way through various manifestations, descriptions, and explanations of those new cultural attitudes toward sex called the sexual revolution. Much of the emphasis is on co-marital sex because the author feels that this area has been largely ignored in the recent literature on the subject. The book is well written and adequately researched; its subject matter obviates any need for it to struggle for the reader's attention. The final chapters cover "The (...) Playboy Philosophy," a report by some British Friends entitled Towards a Quaker View of Sex, and ethical pragmatism. The author's conclusions grope toward a "morality beyond morality" and an ethical pluralism.--S. O. H. (shrink)