Iris Murdoch’s Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals ranges wide over the field of Western philosophical thought. Throughout the work, Murdoch proposes and enacts a form of philosophical inquiry that she believes supports a moral philosophy based on the idea of the good. One of her attempts, partly inspired by Paul Tillich and J. N. Findlay, centers on her critique and appropriation of the structure of the so-called “ontological argument” in Anselm’s Proslogion. This study assesses Murdoch’s accomplishment and the tenability (...) of the kind of Platonism she proposes against Anselm’s argument about the good in both the Monologion and the Proslogion. My claim is that Anselm’s conception of the good simply does not permit the kind of interpretation that Murdoch puts on the “ontological argument.”. (shrink)

Nicholas Wolterstorff's Divine Discourse attempts to give philosophical warrant to the claim that ‘God speaks’. While Wolterstorff's argument depends largely on his appropriation of J.L. Austin's speech act theory, he also uses two narratives that for him demonstrate how ‘God speaks’. The first is the story of Augustine's conversion in the Confessions and the second is a story that Wolterstorff recounts about a certain ‘Virginia’. This study argues that what Wolterstorff claims to derive from Augustine's narrative for his view of (...) divine discourse is not fully supported by the Confessions, and that Augustine's interpretation of the words ‘tolle lege, tolle lege’, can be construed as a useful interpretation of an ambiguous sign. This is consistent with Augustine's understanding of the interpretation of texts in both the De doctrina christiana and the Confessions. In short, Augustine is far more open to the ambiguity of signs than Wolterstorffs's account suggests. (shrink)

First published in 1914, this volume by F. B. Jevons was designed as a response to the simple question: What is philosophy? Consisting of five separate lectures, the work throws light on the themes of philosophy and science, materialism and idealism, scepticism, practical philosophy, and the notion of the whole and its parts. The aim of the study was not simply to provide an answer to the question in the title, but to bring out the meaning of the question itself (...) and to demonstrate the inherent utilitarian significance of philosophy to everyone. As Jevons notes in the preface, 'Philosophy is a concern of the average man and of practical life, and should not be the monopoly of the professed student.'. (shrink)

Die Grieckischen Culten und Mythen in ihren Beziehungen zu den Orientalischen Religionen. Von O. Gruppe. Erster Band: Einleitung. Leipzig: Teubner. 1887. 14 Mk.

First published in 1900, this philosophical essay on Evolution questions how the acceptance of Evolution as scientific should influence the thoughts and actions of humankind from the perspective of morality and moral conduct. In his discussion, Frank B. Jevons deals with such subjects as pessimism and optimism towards evolutionary theory, the laws of motion and matter, and the importance of scientific evidence.

The present volume contains Part Four, "The Great Shift," of Susanne Langer’s projected six-part magnum opus entitled, Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling. The first volume dealt with three parts: "Problems and Principles," "The Import of Art," and "Natura Naturans;" Volume II rests squarely on these three foundational parts. The balance of the work will be concerned with "The Moral Structure," and with "Knowledge and Truth." In this reviewer’s opinion, Professor Langer’s essay is easily the most significant theory of mind (...) yet developed in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy. The central task of her essay is to establish the total qualitative difference that divides human from animal mentality by showing that the nature and origin of that difference is explicable in terms of a continuous course of biological development. "The great shift" to human being as a mode of life typified by all that we understand as culture is accomplished, according to the conceptual framework extended throughout Volume II of the work, without recourse to metaphysical assumptions of nonzoological factors. By carefully locating a vast amount of exact psychobiological information in a conceptual structure that extends scientific definitions by modification, she makes the biological concept of human mentality adequate to the extraordinary reality it is intended to make comprehensible. Through the incorporation of highly sophisticated detail, she investigates repertoire and instinct; animal acts and ambients; animal values; interpretation of animal acts; the specialization of man; symbols and the evaluation of mind; and, finally, symbols and the human world. It is difficult to imagine that a reader could find fault with Susanne Langer’s method, because she never expands her conceptual structure by metaphorical extension, but only by modifying definitions in scientific terms so as to comprehend domains wider than those conventionally assigned to the sciences themselves. Her study, however, is not only eminently adequate methodologically, it is immensely satisfying in helping us understand that the uniqueness of human being can be fully articulated and intellectually sustained without resorting to a vitalistic discontinuity of any order. If, as Susanne Langer herself contends, the value of a philosophical outlook rests ultimately on its "serviceability," then this masterwork will serve all manner of investigators for a long time to come.—C.F.B. (shrink)

Augustine’s metaphysics is a subject little studied, but often much criticized. Among the recent studies of Augustine’s metaphysics, Scott MacDonald’s interpretation of Augustine’s notion of goodness claims that Augustine’s account is incoherent. This suggests a reading of Augustine that is somewhat problematic. This article argues that much of the difficulty that MacDonald claims rests on a misunderstanding of Augustine’s views about the goodness of creation and existence and the corruptibility of created things. Augustine’s position takes for granted an understanding of (...) existence as a good and the participation of all things in the pre–eminent good, that is God. (shrink)

Plato, in one of his dialogues, says: “ The feeling of wonder is the genuine mark of the philosopher; for philosophy has its origin in wonder.” What Plato here says may be accepted as true: the philosopher does wonder. But the philosopher is not the only man who wonders about things. It might perhaps be going too far to say that all men experience the feeling, for some men seem to plod on their weary round without curiosity enough to wonder (...) at anything, whilst others, being comfortable, are satisfied to take things for granted, and never think of wondering at them. (shrink)

Originally published in 1948, this book contains personal reminiscences by Frederick Blagden Malim on the various schools he attended, taught at or visited from 1895 to 1939. Malim discusses a number of schools in the UK and elsewhere in the English-speaking world, including several schools in Australia and New Zealand. The text is illustrated with photographs of several of the schools mentioned in Malim's account. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the history of education (...) in the British Empire. (shrink)