Freedom and the Rule of Law takes a critical look at the historical beginnings of law in the United States, and how that history has influenced current trends regarding law and freedom. Anthony Peacock has compiled articles that examine the relationship between freedom and the rule of law in America. The rule of law is fundamental to all liberal constitutional regimes whose political orders recognize the equal natural rights of all.

The use of computers and the role of women in radio astronomy and X-ray crystallography research at the Cavendish Laboratory between 1949 and 1975 have been investigated. We recorded examples of when computers were used, what they were used for and who used them from hundreds of papers published during these years. The use of the EDSAC, EDSAC 2 and TITAN computers was found to increase considerably over this time-scale and they were used for a diverse range of applications. The (...) majority of references to computer operators and programmers referred to women, 57% for astronomy and 62% for crystallography, in contrast to a very small proportion, 4% and 13% respectively, of female authors of papers. (shrink)

A straightforward presentation of Plato's views on the nature of mathematics, with special attention to the status of mathematical objects and to the method of mathematical thinking. Mr. Wedberg has summarized his interpretations of Platonic doctrines in a clear and well-organized fashion, devoting one chapter to Plato's views on geometry, one to his views on arithmetic; he then supports these interpretations by a close examination of the relevant passages, not only in Plato's Dialogues, but in Aristotle as well. A comprehensive (...) and useful study.--V. C. C. (shrink)

The Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) is a measure of analytical reasoning that cues an intuitive but incorrect response that must be rejected for successful performance to be attained. The CRT yields two types of errors: Intuitive errors, which are attributed to Type 1 processes; and non-intuitive errors, which result from poor numeracy skills or deficient reasoning. Past research shows that participants who commit the highest numbers of errors on the CRT overestimate their performance the most, whereas those with the lowest (...) error-rates tend to slightly underestimate. This is an example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect (DKE). The present study examined how intuitive vs. non-intuitive errors contribute to overestimation in the CRT at different levels of performance. Female undergraduate students completed a seven-item CRT test and subsequently estimated their raw score. They also filled out the Faith in Intuition (FI) questionnaire, which is a dispositional measure of intuitive thinking. Data was separated into quartiles based on level of performance on the CRT. The results demonstrated the DKE. Additionally, intuitive and non-intuitive errors predicted miscalibration among low, but not high performers. However, intuitive errors were a stronger predictor of miscalibration. Finally, FI was positively correlated with CRT self-estimates and miscalibration, indicating that participants who perceived themselves to be more intuitive were worse at estimating their score. These results taken together suggest that participants who perform poorly in the CRT and also those who score higher in intuitive thinking disposition are more susceptible to the influences of heuristic-based cues, such as answer fluency, when judging their performance. (shrink)

A reprint of the English version of Croce's illuminating essays on history and historiography. The Italian edition was published in 1938.--V. C. C.

A collection of essays, German and English, including some not previously published. There are papers on ancient, medieval and modern philosophy as well as a number dealing with problems of contemporary interest, especially in the philosophy of religion. Frank's general position is strongly reminiscent of that of the Existenz philosophers who were his friends, and whom he influenced. A long "Appreciation" by the editor describes Frank's achievement and relates it to the milieu, intellectual and personal, out of which it grew.--V. (...) C. C. (shrink)

A new edition of the Introduction to the Philosophie der Weltgeschichte, one of a number now being published in the Neue kritische Ausgabe of Hegel's works. The editor has made a comprehensive review of the scattered sources from which Hegel's text has been reconstructed, and of the previous editions. The result is the most complete and best arranged text yet to appear, marking a considerable improvement upon the 1930 edition of Lasson.--V. C. C.

The main object of this impressive study is to lay the groundwork, in contemporary terms, for a systematic and philosophically respectable "apology for poetry." The author finds that most of the so-called New Critics agree in rejecting both the "sugar-coated pill" and "l'art pour l'art" views of poetry; their efforts to formulate a workable third view form the basis for his elaboration of the requirements of an acceptable theory, one which will accord with--and do justice to--the unique and irreducible aesthetic (...) experience to which poetry gives rise. The details of such a theory, unfortunately, are never made entirely clear, owing in part to the diverse and often conflicting demands which must be met, but its main points are as follows: poems, though mainly self-contained, their meanings determined contextually rather than referentially, yet "reveal life," "illuminate human experience"; in poetic creation, though the poet's intentions somehow control the outcome, yet the language of the evolving poem itself determines its own final nature; and poetry, though it neither merely instructs or informs nor merely pleases, yet does provide a kind of "truth" and does produce an experience in some sense pleasurable. The strength of Mr. Krieger's study lies in the clarity and force with which he states the various issues, and in the scholarly care with which he examines the views of individual critics. The book, however, lacks tight organization and sustained, clearly directed argumentation, and its final outcome is rather inconclusive.--V. C. C. (shrink)

A close study, paragraph by paragraph and often line by line, of a work crucial to the understanding of Heidegger's thought as a whole. M. Wahl is a conscientious reader and careful interpreter; he exhibits a sympathetic understanding of the Heideggerian method while dissenting at various points from its results, particularly as regards the important Seinsfrage. In general, it is suggested, Heiddegger's Einführung is to be taken not as doctrine or a set of conclusions, but as an exercise, like Plato's (...) Parmenides.--V. C. C. (shrink)

The first two volumes of a four-volume study, destined surely to become the standard work in its field. Literary criticism in the broadest sense is the book's subject, but the author tries to avoid purely philosophical aesthetics at one extreme--Kant is given 3 pages to Schiller's 24--as well as unsubstantiated judgments of taste at the other. Since he tries to see the past as bearing upon and productive of the literary theory of the present, the book might be said to (...) be more an account of the sources and growth of contemporary thinking about literature and criticism than a "history" in the usual sense. Professor Wellek has a rich store of scholarly knowledge at his disposal, and his interpretive generalizations are well supported by references and texts; yet the argument moves easily and clearly. A fine piece of creative scholarship.--V. C. C. (shrink)

The second new translation-commentary of the Phaedo to appear in a year. Professor Hackforth's translation is not quite so economical and smooth at that of Mr. Bluck --he tends sometimes to prolixity and archaic constructions--but the two versions seem equally accurate. Hackforth's notes are less philosophically assertive than Bluck's, and less systematic; his interpretation of the dialogue generally is more orthodox and less polemical than the latter's. The present edition seems superior as regards the division of the dialogue into chapters, (...) organization of the translation, notes, and commentary, and in the general elegance of its printing and design. But both editions are excellent, and it is hard to choose between them.--V. C. C. (shrink)

Known as the founder of the phenomenological movement, this book examines Husserl's various phases of phenomenology during his realist, transcendental, static, genetic, and post-Crisis (of European Sciences) periods. Consisting of ten carefully researched and thoroughly examined essays, this book describes Husserl's concepts and ideas through numerous examples and diagrammatic representations, in a bid to elucidate the nuances of phenomenology for its readers. Valuable insights into Husserl's realist phase are made in the chapter on Meaning, and the chapters on Natural Attitude, (...) Epoché and Phenomenological Reduction, while the chapter on Noesis & Noema symbolizes the transcendental phase. Thomas points out Husserl's transition from static to genetic phenomenology in the chapter on Lived Body, with the chapters on Lifeworld, and the Notion of the Other, later focusing on this perspective. Husserl's entire phenomenological space, including his pre-phenomenological period, are covered in the chapter on Lived Time. However, the chapters on Phenomenology: The Study of Self and Beyond, and Consciousness and Intentionality are the fulcrums upon which the edifice of phenomenology turns. The final chapter on Presuppositionlessness in phenomenology expresses Thomas' personal enquiries into Husserl's contention that phenomenology is a presuppositionless science. This book will be of particular interest to research scholars and post-graduate students in the areas of Philosophy and Social Sciences, as well as those interested in contemporary Western Philosophy, and the history and development of Ideas. (shrink)

A compact edition of Mr. Beck's excellent translation of the second Critique, slightly revised, together with a helpful short introduction and a bibliography.--V. C. C.

The distinctive feature of this new edition is its inclusion of the handwritten marginal notes in Hegel's own copy of the Rechtsphilosophie. These were published separately by Lasson in 1914 and again in 1930, but have been re-edited for the present volume, with a number of mistakes corrected. A second volume, now in preparation, is to contain a re-edited set of the Zusätze to Hegel's lectures on Rechtsphilosophie, gathered from the notes of his students. The two volumes together will certainly (...) stand as the definitive source of Hegel's teaching in this area for a long time to come.--V. C. C. (shrink)

Mr. Berlin offers, with characteristic brilliance and insight, a compelling indictment of the modern tendency to deny the relevance of moral considerations to history: to minimize the influence of human individuals upon--and their responsibility for--historical events, as well as to eliminate evaluation and moral judgment from the writing of history. History, it is maintained, neither can be nor should try to be "objective," i.e., free from evaluations, in the way that physics is "objective." Mr. Berlin's points are not always clearly (...) organized, but they are sensible and telling; his running critique of the prevalent naive "scientism" of contemporary social scientists is especially effective.--V. C. C. (shrink)

A Sartre sampler, showing the range of its author's interests as well as the subtlety and inventiveness of his thinking. Most of the "literary" essays--seven short pieces on individual authors and books--have a decidedly philosophical turn despite their disjointedness; a discussion of The Sound and the Fury, e.g., becomes an examination of Faulkner's "metaphysics of time." The three philosophical pieces, including the anti-Marxist "Materialism and Revolution," are longer and more systematic. There are also three essays on America, arising out of (...) Sartre's 1945 visit, which are perceptive, fresh, and sometimes profound.--V. C. C. (shrink)

Ibsen's epic drama rendered, not altogether successfully, into English verse. The idiom is sometimes unnatural and the verse tends to be rigid and sing-song.--V. C. C.

A welcome addition to the series of translation-commentaries initiated by the late F. M. Cornford. Mr. Bluck's English Phaedo reads smoothly and naturally; it is, like the original, a work of literature as well as of philosophy. The running commentary is clear, well-informed and helpful, being mainly designed to get the reader through the text. More detailed pieces of analysis and interpretation are placed in an Appendix; here Mr. Bluck argues that Plato's Forms are not merely abstract logical universals, but (...) substantial "things," which "cause" the appearances in the material world. He also defends, in opposition to the majority view, the validity of the crucial proof of the soul's indestructibility at 105E ff.--V. C. C. (shrink)

An attempt to account for the shift in Plato's ethical views from the Socratic ideal of personal decision in the early Dialogues to the institutionalized morality of the Laws. The author's interpretations are fresh and illuminating, and his central thesis--that the shift in Plato's view is a function of a growing attention to the conditions, social and natural, imposed upon moral man by the actual world--is well-supported. One of the best features of Mr. Gould's work is his attempt to recover (...) something like the original senses of crucial Platonic terms. He is able to make much better sense of the Socratic "virtue is knowledge," for example, by interpreting, with considerable justification, ἐπιστήμη as technique rather than science, as a species of "knowing how" rather than of "knowing that."--V. C. C. (shrink)

An effective demonstration that the techniques of Oxford analysis can be put to constructive as well as to critical philosophic use. Mr. Geach considers a number of connected topics--among them the nature and formation of concepts, judgment, and sensation--advancing positive theses while rejecting views he holds to be false. He is particularly opposed to the "abstractionist" doctrine of concept formation. Concepts, he holds, are not capacities for recognizing recurrent features in experience, but "mental abilities, exercised in acts of judgment, and (...) expressed in the intelligent use of words," though not, he adds, "exclusively in such use." Despite the connections among the topics dealt with, the book remains somewhat episodic, and many of its points are sketched or suggested only, rather than fully developed. But Mr. Geach's arguments are elegant, and what is worked out is compelling. One curious feature of the book is its frequent citation of St. Thomas Aquinas--Mr. Geach seems as anxious to be on the side of the Angelic Doctor as he is to be in tune with Wittgenstein.--V. C. C. (shrink)

Two-thirds of this book are devoted to an examination of the variants in "the" Christian attitude towards sex, from the "essentially positive" Biblical view, through its replacement by the negative views of the early Church Fathers, influenced by Hellenistic dualisms, to the positions of certain contemporary theologians, both Catholic and Protestant. The book's concluding section makes a strong case against the rigidity and artificiality of much modern theological thinking about sex, and urges, on the basis of the discoveries of psychoanalysts (...) as well as of good sense, a return to a naturalism more in keeping with the Biblical spirit. Mr. Cole's writing is graceful and sensitive, his points generally sound and well taken, and his arguments compelling. --V. C. C. (shrink)

The original French edition of this book has won a number of literary prizes, and been extravagantly praised. Its theme is man's changing conceptions of, and attitudes towards, time and the experience of time in its various aspects, as revealed in the writings of French poets, essayists, dramatists, and novelists from Montaigne to Proust. M. Poulet's analyses are imaginative and subtle, and his transitions from point to point are often breathtaking in their brilliance; the book's scope and sweep, too, are (...) impressive, as an author or age is summarized in a few terse yet highly packed phrases. Prosaically-minded philosophers interested in conceptual clarity may find such phrases difficult to unpack, but the book's literary virtues outweigh its purely philosophical deficiencies; as a piece of literary literary criticism its impact is considerable. --V. C. C. (shrink)

An unabridged republication of the Elwes translation of Spinoza's works, made in 1883, but still highly regarded for its accuracy and lucidity. The present edition, compact and yet clearly presented, includes a bibliographical note by Francesco Cordasco.--V. C. C.

Marx's extended reply to Prudon's Philosophy of Poverty. The translation is based on the first edition of 1847, but embodies the corrections made by Engels for the German editions of 1885 and 1892. Engels' two prefaces, together with other material relevant to the book's occasion and content, are also included.--V. C. C.

A new collection of philosophical journal articles in the contemporary Oxford manner, at least the sixth such collection to appear in the last few years. The twelve papers in the present volume deal with subjects comprised by the Oxford "logic" examinations--e.g., meaning, explanation, validity, probability, and time. All are clear, calm, and careful, and all are illuminating, even if only over a small area. The collection's title is particularly apt; "conceptual analysis" surely better describes what the Oxford philosophers have actually (...) been doing than the imprecise and often misleading "analysis of language."--V. C. C. (shrink)

The Essay concerning Human Understanding was published at the end of 1689.1 It sold well, and within three years Locke was planning revisions for a second edition. Among those whose “advice and assistance” he sought was the Irish scientist William Molyneux. Locke had begun a correspondence with Molyneux a few months before, after the latter had lavishly praised the Essay and its author in the Epistle Dedicatory of his own Dioptrica Nova, published early in 1692. Here was a man, Locke (...) concluded, whose judgment one could trust. He returned Molyneux’s compliment in the Essay’s new edition, calling him “that very Ingenious and Studious promoter of real Knowledge, ... whom I am proud to call my friend”. (shrink)

The second in a series of scholarly monographs designed to collect and organize source material for the interpretation of the thought of St. Augustine, this work contains a list of the occurrences of the word auctoritas in Augustine's writings, an anthology of representative passages in which it is discussed, and a number of indices.--V. C. C.

A more significant indication of the revived interest in Whitehead, however, is the number of first-rate studies of his philosophy which have been produced in recent years. Three have been published; each is superior in scope, depth, and philosophic insight to the studies hitherto available. In addition, two more works are announced for early publication, one of which at least is of the same high caliber. The authors of these recent books are neither apologists nor detractors, neither loyal disciples nor (...) ideological enemies of their subject. In the main they are themselves philosophers, concerned to understand and to help others understand the constructions of a philosophic master builder, one who, unfortunately, did not himself do all he might have done to facilitate such understanding. We have long needed studies of the sort now appearing. More work is needed for our comprehension to be complete, and our assessments sure. But these recent books have brought these goals within striking distance. (shrink)

Maritain's first book, published in France in 1913, and now translated into English for the first time. It marks, historically, one of the earliest expressions of that revived Thomism which has played such a large part in the intellectual life of contemporary France; and it represents, systematically, one of the most detailed and persistent "intellectualist" answers to the Bergsonian critique of "intellectualist" philosophies. The translators have done about as good a job as is possible in rendering what Maritain himself calls (...) the book's "turgidity, the uncompromising bombast of its style."--V. C. C. (shrink)

Santayana's delightful classic, concentrating mainly on William James and Royce and their American milieu, in an attractive reprint. The work first appeared in 1920.--V. C. C.

A hard-cover reprint of the first collection of Peirce's works, so tragically neglected during their author's lifetime. Cohen's selections comprise the Popular Science Monthly papers of 1877-78 and five of the Monist papers of 1891-93. The volume also includes an essay by Dewey on Peirce's pragmatism, still well worth reading.--V. C. C.

A new translation of Parmenides' poem, preceded by a long introduction. M. Beaufret's attitude towards, and interpretation of, the Parmenidean fragments have been influenced heavily by Heidegger, as has, in some cases, his choice of readings. The Greek is included, however, on pages facing the translation, and departures from the standard text of Kranz are noted.--V. C. C.

A critical yet informed and sympathetic look at metaphysics by a group of British "analytic" philosophers, all but one from Oxford. The positivistic "elimination" of metaphysics is repudiated; on the other hand, the authors agree that some of the metaphysician's traditional claims must be rejected, or at least brought up to date. The writing is semi-popular, and those acquainted with recent Oxford philosophizing will find little here that is unfamiliar.--V. C. C.

A hard-cover reprint of Royce's "Essay in the Form of Lectures." Royce discusses modern philosophy both historically, by describing the views of some of its chief figures--mainly Germans of the nineteenth century--and systematically, in terms of some of its central ideas--e.g., evolution, freedom, and the reality-ideality dichotomy. The result is both a survey of modern thought and an introduction to the thought of Royce.--V. C. C.

Ontology was never Hume's main interest, but he certainly had opinions as to what there is, and he often expressed these in his philosophical works. Indeed it seems clear that Hume changed his ontological views while writing the Treatise, and that not just one but two different ontologies are to be found there. The ontology of Parts I, II, and III of Book I is more or less Lockean. There are minds and their operations and qualities. There are physical entities, (...) bodily actions and qualities if not bodies over and above these. And there are further entities, called ideas by Locke and perceptions by Hume, that represent things other than themselves, both physical and mental, while existing in and being dependent upon minds. In Part IV of Book I, however, and especially in Sections 2 and 6, a new ontology appears, one that differs not only from the doctrine of the earlier sections of the Treatise but also from any that previous philosophers had held. According to this new ontology, there are only perceptions: all other sorts of things are absorbed by or reduced to these, or else simply eliminated. Berkeley had indeed assimilated bodies and the properties of bodies to perceptions, but he had kept minds as a distinct category of entity. Hume went the whole way, making everything perceptions. We might characterise this new ontology as trans-Berkeleyan, or call it, on account of its similarity to later doctrines so named, phenomenalism or neutral monism. (shrink)