In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:730 BOOK REVIEWS Yet for all this McDermott does hammer one wedge in between Aristotle and Thomas. Aristotle's God, he claims, differs vastly from Thomas's God. For Aristotle, God is the exemplar and goal of all the universe but not its efficient cause. For Thomas, he is much more than this-God is creator, the source of all being. But this position, which is by no means peculiar to (...) McDermott, seems to be contrary to what Thomas himself said on this matter. For example, in I, q.44, a.I Thomas makes explicit reference to Aristotle as one who saw that there must be an efficient cause of all existence. I was disappointed to see that this article gets short shrift in McDermott's process of con· cision. Apropos of this, McDermott's description of God as the " doing of all being" (p. xxxii), which is meant to stress God's continuous creative act, is probably not the most felicitous. It sounds odd and is difficult to understand, since doing, as opposed to making, is an action the termination of which remains within the agent. Certainly the " doings " of God, for example, to know and love, which necessarily belong to his essence, should never be confused with his " making," that is, creation, an act which he need not have performed. But the most forceful criticism should be directed at nothing less mundane than this book's price. $78.00 is very high to pay for what McDermott himself describes as " a useful translation for first reading " (p. xiv). Since he does not intend this book to replace the Summa, but rather to introduce and entice, he is competing with the much less expensive Tour, Introduction, and, to some extent, selections such as The Pocket Aquinas. If the Concise Translation is not published in a more affordable form, I doubt it will attract the readership it greatly deserves. That will be sorry indeed, for McDermott has written the finest and most faithful tour of Thomas's Summa thus far. Pontifical John Paul ll lnstitute Washington, D.C. GREGORY FROELICH The Church's Bible: Its Contemporary Authority. By DARRELL JoDOCK. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989. Pp. xi + 173. In the Introduction to his book, Darrell Jodock suggests that its vari· ous claims and arguments be approached with an " appropriate sense of humor" (p. 4). This is a delightfully refreshing invitation to which, I suspect, one ought to do one's best to respond. But after reading this book I am firmly convinced, Darrell's self-deprecating suggestion not- BOOK REVIEWS 731 withstanding, that it ought to be taken very seriously indeed... seriously by anyone who cares about the Bible, for purely scholarly reasons or purely religious reasons or for any combination of reasons. It is a thoughtful and challenging book. This review represents my own modest attempt to respond to that challenge. I would recommend The Church's Bible for a number of its virtues. Given the compactness of this book, it is remarkable how much the author actually accomplishes. He surely accomplishes his explicitly stated goals: in Part I of the book describing how the authority of the Bible became problematic in modern times, while also identifying the various strategies that have been executed to rescue its authority; in Part II articulating his own theory about what it means to say that the Bible is authoritative, offering a prescription for how the Bible ought to function for the Christian community in a postmodern culture. Yet the book does more than this, remarkably enough, providing brief but insightful analyses of such fundamental theological issues as revelation, inspiration, miracles, and the concept of God. Moreover, at the end of the book, Jodock moves beyond his account of biblical authority and into the territory of biblical hermeneutics. There he links his theory of authority to its practical implications for the project of "recontextualization," what he regards as the most fruitful way of interpreting and utilizing biblical texts. In the process of achieving these multifarious goals the book reveals something of its author's own complex identity, as Christian teacher, pastor, theologian, and intellectual historian. The first three chapters of the book represent a... (shrink)

We applied the moral dissonance reduction framework, used to explain the maintenance of a positive self-concept in dishonest behavior, to understand self-justification of prejudice. Participants identified ambiguously negative intergroup behaviors, then evaluated those behaviors when performed by others and themselves. As predicted by moral dissonance reduction, participants were less critical of their own behavior when considering others’ behaviors before their own. In a third study directly comparing prejudiced and dishonest behavior, participants’ responses showed the greatest self-justification in the initial question (...) about their behavior regardless of the content of the question, whereas subsequent questions showed more stability, consistent with the idea that participants adjusted their initial self-reports to avoid damage to their self-concepts. (shrink)

JOHN STUART MILL by R. J. Halliday. (Political Thinkers, 4.) Allen & Unwin, 1976. 151 pp. £5.95 cloth, £2.95 paper.

The article by Academician P. L. Kapitsa published below is devoted to problems of the utmost importance, which have come to be termed "global." The Twenty - fifth Congress of the CPSU pointed to the need to study them scientifically and solve them practically, emphasizing that they touch on the interests of humanity as a whole and will exercise an increasingly marked influence on the lives of every people and on the entire system of international relations. In their social philosophical (...) aspects they have been discussed more than once in the pages of Voprosy filosofii. Discussions of these problems took place at the round tables entitled "Man and His Environment" [See translation in our Fall-Winter 1974 number. — Ed., Soviet Studies in Philosophy], "Social Philosophy Problems of Demography," and "Science and Global Problems of Our Time," and numerous articles have been published in such series as "Science and Social Progress," "The Peace Program and the Dialectics of International Relations" [See translation in our Fall 1975 issue. — Ed., Soviet Studies in Philosophy], and "Man — Society — Nature." The editors of the journal, guided by the directives of the Twenty-fifth Party Congress on the need for further investigation of such global problems of our time, are inclined to continue the discussion of them in the future; another round table devoted to these problems is being planned now. The article by Academician P. L. Kapitsa, it seems to us, will provide fruitful stimuli for discussion at this round table, which will probably be published in several installments. As the author himself emphasizes, certain positions in his article are debatable and require discussion. The journal invites philosophers, demographers, economists, and representatives of the natural sciences to take part in discussions of the problems posed. Certain questions examined in Kapitsa's article are also treated in articles by Howard L. Parsons, A. D. Ado, and Iu. A. Kirshin published in this issue of the journal. (shrink)

In his paper “Has Austin Refuted the Sense-Datum Theory?” A. J. Ayer contends that the argument from illusion calls attention to perspectival distortion, perceptual misidentification and elusive perceptual belief only in order to establish the possibility of perceptual error. Pointing to our occasional perceptual failures reminds us that perceptual error is always logically possible—that any particular perceptual belief to the effect that one is perceiving a physical surface could be mistaken. This in turn is thought by Ayer to show that (...) the ordinary belief that we perceive physical surfaces requires qualification—along lines urged by sense-datum philosophers—to the effect that even in those situations properly described for non-philosophical purposes as perceptions of physical surfaces it cannot be physical surfaces that are literally present to one's senses. Ayer believes that this can be established, for any given case, by the possibility of perceptual error alone. (shrink)

In Britain doctors and others concerned with the treatment of offenders in prison may consult the Butler Report (see Focus, pp 157) and specialist journals, but these sources are concerned with the system in Britain only. In America the situation is different, both in organization and in certain attitudes. Dr Peter L Sissons has therefore provided a companion article to that of Dr Paul Bowden (page 163) describing the various medical issues in prisons. The main difference between the treatment of (...) offenders in prisons in America and in Britain lies in the nature of the federal system which means that each state may operate a different system in a variety of prisons and prison medical services are as various. Nationally, the prison systems are 'structured to treat and cure the offender'. Therefore it follows that the prison medical officer is only one of the professionals concerned with this 'cure' of the offender. This principle also applies to any form of research: medical research in prisons is part of a programme which covers a wide field of social and judicial research. The prison medical officer (where there is one) has of course to look after sick prisoners, and the American idea of 'cure' is also expressed in the need for more corrective surgery where, for example, it is necessary to remove physical impediments to social rehabilitation. But a doctor is only found on the staff of those institutions which are large: in the smaller prisons there may be only first-aid facilities, and no specially appointed doctor in the community. Moreover medicines are often dispensed by medical auxiliaries who are sometimes prisoners themselves. Finally, in America prisoners are regularly invited to volunteer as subjects for medical and social research for which they are paid. In short, although it is hoped to 'cure' a prisoner he is a criminal first and a patient second. (shrink)