A useful edition of some political and strategic writings, together with all the significant philosophical essays of Mao Tse-tung, who is described as the "most influential" contemporary Marxist philosopher. Except for the 1957 "Hundred Flowers" speech, all the translations and footnotes are from International Publishers' four volume Selected Works. Miss Fremantle's forty-one page introduction is largely a paraphrased abridgment of Edgar Snow's well known biography, Red Star over China. For the general reader, this Mentor paperback probably provides the best low (...) priced introduction to the thought of Mao Tse-tung.--K. R. D. (shrink)

The third volume in a projected library of contemporary Soviet thought called 'Sovietica' is of particular interest because it makes available to non-Russian readers a condensed German translation of the most recent Summa of Soviet thought, Osnovy marksistskoj filosofii. The text, organised under two main headings, Dialectical and Historical Materialism, is a catechism of Soviet dogmata which ranges from questions of space, time and perception to those of scientific socialism, class war and social consciousness. One of the aims of the (...) editor, as stated in the preface, is to demonstrate that the current Soviet version of 'Marxism' fails to express young Marx's overriding concern for the human being, and the phenomenon of estrangement.--K. R. D. (shrink)

The fourth volume of the 'Sovietica' series is chiefly composed of a collection in German translation of four papers read at a Moscow conference in 1958. The theme of the conference was 'The Question of Dialectical Contradiction in the Light of Contemporary Science and Practice.' Included are a brief excerpt from the official Soviet textbook, Osnovy marksistkoj filosofii and a noteworthy paper by A. I. Kolman.--K. R. D.

The first systematic study printed in the recently inaugurated "Sovietica" series, edited by J. M. Bochenski. In this volume, the author examines the basic theses of dialectical materialism and reviews the efforts of Soviet philosophers and physicists to accomodate their official philosophical framework to the challenge of Einstein's special relativity theory. The excellent handling of this subject owes much to the author's masterly grasp of physics, philosophy, and Russian.--K. R. D.

A new journal issued in connection with the Hegel-Kommission der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft, which is preparing a new critical-historical collection of Hegel's works. The first volume contains critical editions of certain Hegel fragments, essays on Hegel, and reviews of Hegel literature.--K. R. D.

A significant advance toward a more objective understanding of western philosophy in Soviet philosophical circles. Unlike the off-hand condemnations of western philosophers which so often fill the pages of Voprosy Filosofii, this Georgian philosopher presents a well documented historical development of twentieth century analytic philosophy from Russell's atomism, through Wittgenstein's Tractatus, logical positivism, and recent trends in English analysis. The "moral" of the story is that western thinkers are gradually coming to see the poverty of their philosophical perspective; linguistic analysis (...) must give way to the "precise vision of historical materialism."--K. R. D. (shrink)

A selection of articles originally written in English for the New York Tribune and here edited with an eye to proving the tantalizing thesis "that for Karl Marx antagonism between capital and labor took second place to the eternal duel between East and West, in which his sympathies... lay unequivocally with the West." Although these articles, dealing mainly with the Crimean War, merit greater attention than they have thus far received, this edition is misleading in two critical aspects: 1) Many (...) of the articles signed by Marx in the New York Tribune, especially those dealing with military affairs, were actually written by Engels. The crucial document for distinguishing them, a notebook kept by Marx's wife, is acknowledged to be in Moscow, but the editor makes no mention of this. 2) The editor also gives no hint of Marx's many other statements on Russia, especially in his preface to the second edition of Capital and in his correspondence with Vera Zasulich.--K. R. D. (shrink)

The first book of a projected two-volume set which construes the diverse tendencies of contemporary political thought within the tradition of classical political philosophy. In two very closely argued sections, Brecht examines the degree to which modern logic and scientific method may be said to necessitate "scientific value relativism," and the actual rise of relativism among Europeans and Americans of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The final section, "At the Borderline of Metaphysics,"- is an eloquent argument designed to demonstrate (...) the relevance of belief in God to the question of universal values. Brecht's challenging thesis is developed with unusual care and vast scholarship.--K. R. D. (shrink)

A free and lucid translation of Scheler's first mature work on social and ethical theory. It represents an imaginative reinterpretation of Nietzsche's concept of "ressentiment," the structural key to the phenomenon of "slave morality." Generously sprinkled with apt illustrations, Ressentiment is a sustained attack on the notions of "work" and the "universal love of mankind" as ultimate sources of value. Such ressentiment-laden social tendencies are seen to form the faulty cornerstone of modern morality, both bourgeois and socialist.--K. R. D.

The author divides present ideological tendencies into three groups: Christian, Communist, and agnostic. Subsequent chapters attempt to outline a "small-1 liberal" theology designed to provide a "reason for living" through "the present chaos."--K. R. D.

In this book, a Woodbridge Lecture, Professor Dennes assesses the formulations of naturalism given by such philosophers as John Dewey and J. E. Woodbridge, and finds them open to certain fundamental circularities of argument. The critique centers its attention on the questions of meaning and morals, and in each area seeks to lay bare the 'restriction metaphysics' to which naturalistic explanation is inevitably tied down.--K. R. D.

At the age of eighty-six, Professor Hocking has contributed a treatise on our times which shares the rarely combined merits of youthful adventure and mature insight. The central theme of "strength" is pitted at once against the theories of ideological intransigeance and appeasement. The main body of this work is devoted to an investigation of the present contrasts, the common values, and the possible paths toward a creative reconciliation of the guiding educational, economic, legal, moral, political, and esthetic ideas of (...) US and Soviet society.--K. R. D. (shrink)