First published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This volume comprises a collection of manuscripts by or relating to T. R. Malthus, recently discovered in the estate of a distant nephew, and previously unpublished. They consist of correspondence, sermons, essays and lecture notes on political economy and history. The manuscripts provide insights into Malthus' personal life - especially his relationships with his parents and his tutors. They also give details of the books he studied as a student, and suggest hitherto unknown influences on his intellectual development. (...) They suggest a solution to the question of who or what influenced him to omit the controversial theological chapters from later editions of his Essay on Population, and his sermons present further evidence of his religious views. The manuscripts represent a remarkable discovery, more than 150 years after Malthus' death, of his correspondence and other unknown writings. (shrink)

Published in two volumes, these books provide a student audience with an excellent scholarly edition of Malthus' Essay on Population. Written in 1798 as a polite attack on post-French revolutionary speculations on the theme of social and human perfectibility, it remains one of the most powerful statements of the limits to human hopes set by the tension between population growth and natural resources. Based on the authoritative variorum edition of the versions of the Essay published between 1803 and 1826, (...) and complete with full introduction and bibliographic apparatus, this edition is intended to show how Malthusianism impinges on the history of political thought, and how the author's reputation as a population theorist and political economist was established. (shrink)

This is the second and final volume of manuscripts by or relating to Thomas Robert Malthus that are now held at Kanto Gakuen University in Japan. Volume I contains 75 items of correspondence, while Volume II contains transcriptions of further original manuscripts, including: four of Malthus' sermons; his diary of a tour of the Lake District; an extensive set of calculations in the bullion trade, suggesting that he was giving serious thought to becoming a bullion trader on his (...) own account; lecture notes on European history from the fifth to the tenth century; his wife's diary of their holiday in Scotland in 1826 and an essay on foreign trade. These previously unknown and unpublished manuscripts promise insights into his intellectual development and the events and circumstances of his life, as well as glimpses of the lifestyle of his wider family and contemporaries. (shrink)

Published in two volumes or as a set this provides a definitive scholarly variorum edition of Malthus's Principles of Political Economy. It contains the full text of the first 1820 edition, including Malthus's own invaluable 70-page summary, and contains details of all the additions, omissions and emendations that occurred between the first and the second, posthumous, edition of 1836. The first edition is extremely rare, and for over 150 years confusions and disagreements have inevitably occurred in the interpretation (...) of Malthus's economics because of the absence of any systematic record of the differences between the two editions. The editor has written a lengthy and authoritative introduction giving an account, derived mainly from contemporary correspondence, of the events and circumstances surrounding the publication of the two editions. It shows the relationship between the Principles and Malthus's other writings and activities as a political economist. There is also an editorial commentary that aims to explain the significance and origin of the alterations. (shrink)

Published in two volumes or as a set this provides a definitive scholarly variorum edition of Malthus's Principles of Political Economy. It contains the full text of the first 1820 edition, including Malthus's own invaluable 70-page summary, and contains details of all the additions, omissions and emendations that occurred between the first and the second, posthumous, edition of 1836. The first edition is extremely rare, and for over 150 years confusions and disagreements have inevitably occurred in the interpretation (...) of Malthus's economics because of the absence of any systematic record of the differences between the two editions. The editor has written a lengthy and authoritative introduction giving an account, derived mainly from contemporary correspondence, of the events and circumstances surrounding the publication of the two editions. It shows the relationship between the Principles and Malthus's other writings and activities as a political economist. There is also an editorial commentary that aims to explain the significance and origin of the alterations. (shrink)

This set provides a definitive scholarly variorum edition of Malthus's Principles of Political Economy. It contains the full text of the first 1820 edition, including Malthus's own invaluable 70-page summary, and contains details of all the additions, omissions, and emendations that occurred between the first and the second, posthumous, edition of 1836. The first edition is extremely rare, and for over 150 years confusions and disagreements have inevitably occurred in the interpretation of Malthus's economics because of the (...) absence of any systematic record of the differences between the two editions. The editor has written a lengthy and authoritative introduction giving an account, derived mainly from contemporary correspondence, of the events and circumstances surrounding the publication of the two editions. It shows the relationship between the Principles and Malthus's other writings and activities as a political economist. there is also an editorial commentary that aims to explain the significance and origin of the alterations. (shrink)

This essay examines the intellectual origins of Tocqueville's thoughts on political economy. It argues that Tocqueville believed political economy was crucial to what he called the ‘new science of politics’, and it explores his first forays into the discipline by examining his studies of J.-B. Say and T.R. Malthus. The essay shows how Tocqueville was initially attracted to Say's approach as it provided him with a rigorous analytical framework with which to examine American democracy. Though he incorporated important aspects (...) of Say's work in Democracy in America, he was troubled by elements of it. He was unable to articulate clearly these doubts until he began studying Malthus. What he learned from Malthus caused him to move away from the more formalised approach to political economy advocated by Say and his disciples and move towards an approach advocated by Christian political economists, such as Alban Villeneuve-Bargemont. This shift would have important consequences for the composition of Democracy in America. (shrink)

This contribution analyses the scientific and political meaning of the concept of ‘population’ within Thomas Robert Malthus’ thought. It is here argued that by encapsulating ‘population’ in a scientific principle, the author not only aimed at contrasting radical and revolutionary theories of his time; he was also looking for a renovation of the role principles hold in scientific reasoning. He considered this crucial for delineating a plausible science for such an elusive political object as society. Through an examination of (...) key passages of Malthus’ theoretical production – his critique of previous definitions of ‘population’, his reassessment of the natural history of society, and the use of selected metaphors to explain his political thought – it is possible to observe how the author attempted to naturalize society and the inequalities arising from its historical laws. As shown in the conclusions, Malthus’ scientific and political effort was directed towards questioning possibilities to reduce the history of social relations to a path of rational progress, which is consistent with the way he re-conceptualized ‘population’ as regarding the fate of the people and their chances to transform the future in the plausible outcome of their political action in the present. (shrink)

The attack on perfectibilism in T. R. Malthus's Essay on Population (1798) is methodologically hollow. Malthus presents himself as a Newtonian empiricist, yet his analysis of equalitarian society is entirely abstract. Godwinian equality is debunked by means of a thought experiment. Malthus fails to take note of a variety of historical instances of equalitarian social practice (Sparta, the Moravians, and so on), thus undermining his empiricist posture. This deficiency in the critique of equality is remedied, to some (...) degree, in the fifth edition of the Essay (1817), where Malthus finally cites some of the historical evidence relevant to an assessment of equalitarianism. (shrink)

Various attempts have been made in recent years to present Christianity in such a way that no use is made of the traditional dichotomy between the ‘natural’ and the ‘supernatural’. Braithwaite, Hare, and van Buren, for instance, appear to have no use for the dichotomy; and I think that, without too much distortion, one can say the same of Bultmann, Tillich, and Robinson. I am not, however, concerned in this paper with the work of any one thinker as such, but (...) rather with a general climate of opinion. What I want to do is to examine the grounds on which it might be argued that belief in the supernatural is discredited. The issue seems to me of special importance at the present time, since, if these grounds are inadequate, programmes of reform under the general heading ‘Christianity without the supernatural’lose much of their point; if, on the other hand, the grounds are compelling, then reform of some kind is forced upon us whatever the accompanying difficulties. (shrink)

In this paper I shall examine a variety of situations in which human agents make use of force. Section I will be concerned with the use of force in medical contexts, Section Ii with the use of force in defence of property, and Section in with the use of force in resolving international disputes. I shall argue that the boundary between what is and is not morally permissible needs to be, drawn more stringently than is commonly supposed. While agreeing that (...) in some medical contexts and in some situations where defence of property is involved the use of force may be necessary and even morally required, I shall suggest that in the absence of any suitably constituted world court the use of force in attempting to resolve international disputes creates a morally different situation. (shrink)

The key points in Meynell's argument seem to me to be as follows: It is logically absurd to say of an action or of a state of affairs that it is good unless at least some or other of the qualities w, x, y, z, etc. are present. Similarly it is logically absurd to talk of human flourishing unless some or other specifiable features are present in a person's life. The Heimler questionnaire shows us the sorts of ways in which (...) the notion of human flourishing might be ‘unpacked’, viz, in terms of satisfaction through friendship, etc. I am in full agreement with him over and I shall simply add some further comments on the notion of ‘evaluating’; but as far as is concerned I shall voice some doubts and reservations. (shrink)

Originally published in 1955. The Madhyamika philosophy is, in the author's view, the philosophy which created a revolution in Buddhism and through that in the whole range of Indian philosophy. This volume is a study of the Madhyamika philosophy in all its important aspects and is divided into three parts: Historical: this traces the origin and development of the Madhyamika philosophy. The second part concentrates on a full and critical exposition of the Madhyamika philosophy, the structure of its dialectic, its (...) conception of the Absolute and its ethics and religion. The last part of the book compares the Madhyamika with some of the well-known dialectical systems of the West (Kant, Hegel and Bradley) and undertakes a short study of the different absolutisms (Madhyamika, Vijnanavada and the Vedanta). (shrink)

What is sexual orientation? The contemporary consensus among philosophers is that it is a disposition. Unsurprisingly, recent debates about the metaphysics of sexual orientation are almost entirely intramural. Behavioral dispositionalists argue that sexual orientation is a disposition to behave sexually. Desire dispositionalists argue that it is a disposition to desire sexually. We argue that sexual orientation is not best understood in terms of dispositions to behave or dispositions to desire before arguing that dispositions tout court fail to illuminate sexual orientation. (...) We then introduce and defend the idea that sexual orientation is best understood in terms of categorical phenomenal properties of sexual arousal. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.2 (2000) 223-240 [Access article in PDF] The "Survival of the Fittest" and the Origins of Social Darwinism Gregory Claeys * In late September 1838 a young man, aged 29, a former medical student and amateur naturalist, who had spent several years in the South Pacific studying plant and animal life, but who remained puzzled as to why "favourable variants" of each species (...) survived while "unfavourable variants" were destroyed, sat perusing a book, as he later recalled, "for amusement." 1 The work which provoked Charles Darwin was T. R. Malthus's Essay on Population (1798), which he later claimed first suggested to him the idea that "on the whole the best fitted live." This idea Darwin would popularize through the notion of the "struggle for existence," a phrase which he famously claimed to use as a "metaphor" but which meant simply "the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms." 2 That application resulted in the publication [End Page 223] of the Origin of Species in 1859, an occasion hailed as "the greatest event of Queen Victoria's reign," 3 even "by far the most important... in the history of the modern West." 4 It is well known, too, that Darwin's appreciation of Malthus was not unique even among naturalists. The year before the Origin of Species appeared another young man, Alfred Russel Wallace, aged 25, encountered the very same book. "There suddenly," he later recalled, flashed upon him "the idea of the survival of the fittest." 5 We know Wallace today, thus, as the codiscoverer of theory of natural selection, who presented a paper jointly with Darwin at the Linnean Society on that momentous evening of 1 July 1858 to mark their brilliant achievement. 6This curious coincidence has often been noted, but its ramifications require further assessment. This article examines some crucial nineteenth-century sources of the idea of the "survival of the fittest," which came to underpin many of the social and political doctrines later associated with the theory of natural selection, and also what were regarded as some of the limits of this idea. 7 It contends that there was in fact far more than mere coincidence in the obviously provocative role played by Malthus's Essay for both Darwin and Wallace. 8 It argues, [End Page 224] therefore, against the presumption of tacit causality--logically implicit in the concept of "Social Darwinism" 9 --that much of the social and political theory which nominally invoked Darwin was fundamentally derived from, as opposed to being reinforced by, the principles of natural selection. It challenges the view that the logic of discovery in the natural sciences, in other words, induced parallel or derivative concepts in the social sciences and that the "survival of the fittest" emerged first as a natural, and then mutated into a social concept. Instead it suggests that what was specific about much of Social Darwinism resulted from several shifts in thought in mid-Victorian Britain to which Darwin himself also responded and which therefore also vitally influenced his own development.No doubt, of course, this assertion of causation contains some truth. Darwin was extraordinarily widely read and extraordinarily influential. We are all aware of the great theological debates associated with his name in late Victorian Britain, of the counter-attack against Darwin begun by Bishop Wilberforce in June 1860, and of the tenacious war of attrition conducted by "Darwin's bulldog," T. H. Huxley, who coined the term "agnostic" in 1869 to define the lack of scientific evidence for the existence of God. 10 Much has been written of the moral panic and growing loss of religious faith, paralleling the course of Darwin's own "reluctant agnosticism," which followed the conclusion that human beings had been levelled to the status of animals and deprived of a special Providential creation as well as any divine purpose in the perpetuation of their species. In history a tremendous impetus was given to the search for certain laws of social development. In social... (shrink)

Although the declaratory theory is arguably a central feature of common law adjudication, it is widely disparaged: either the law never changes, which is implausible, or it is changed retrospectively, which is unfair and contrary to the rule of law. These common objections are rooted in misconceptions about the nature of law. When we distinguish more clearly between the sources of law, whether in statute or precedent, and the corpus juris, shaped by general principles of justice, the declaratory theory is (...) vindicated. Structured by familiar precedents and principles, the common law offers a framework within which the rule of law is sustained by moral reflection and argument. There is a close analogy with Rawlsian reflective equilibrium. It is only in virtue of an inquiry into justice, guided but not irrevocably bound by past practice, that there is any law to be declared. Legal judgment is precisely a determination of the requirements of justice as they apply in all the circumstances. (shrink)

This volume is concerned with the concept of rationality and the interrelations between rationality, belief and desire in the explanation and evaluation of human action. The book is conceived and structured to represent some of the most important general differences of approach to these problems, and also to connect them with problems about the relation of individual to social behaviour which are of central interest to historians, social theorists and economists as well as to philosophers. The essays have all been (...) commissioned for this volume and have not appeared elsewhere. The idea for the book arose from the meetings of philosophers and social scientists sponsored by the Thyssen Foundation, and is therefore a continuation of the informal series begun by C. Hookway and P. Pettit Action and Interpretation. (shrink)

Quassim Cassam closes Self and World by quoting Kant’s claim that Descartes was mistaken in thinking that self-consciousness reveals us to ourselves as immaterial objects. He does this to set the stage for his own conclusion, that Kant was himself equally mistaken in thinking that self-consciousness does not reveal us to ourselves as objects at all. Instead, according to Cassam, “self-consciousness... is intimately bound up with awareness of the subject as an object,... as a physical object in a world of (...) physical objects.” It is no accident that Cassam juxtaposes his own conclusion in this way alongside Kant’s discussion of the self, for the whole book is a critical meditation on Kant’s conception of the self. Furthermore, as Cassam is well aware, the thesis he examines and rejects, that the thinker cannot coherently conceive of itself as an object in the world of which it takes itself to have experience, is central both to Kant’s transcendental idealism and to the thought of his many successors. So Cassam’s critical argument goes to the heart of a whole tradition of philosophy. (shrink)

T. R. Miles; IV—The “Mental” - “Physical” Dichotomy, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 64, Issue 1, 1 June 1964, Pages 71–84, https://doi.org/10.1.

Gestures are often categorized into types: iconics, metaphorics, and pantomimes (having representational relationships with spoken semantics), deictics (i.e., pointing), emblems (having their own conventional meaning), and beats (temporally coinciding with spoken content for emphasis). These originate from research often involving unnaturalistic paradigms where participants’ gestures during responses (e.g., retelling a narrative) are recorded. Approaching these types implicitly requires a stance on why we gesture; a conscious aim to communicate or an unconscious effort to orchestrate speech. Focus on them has led (...) to the understudying of the interactive role gestures can play, where intersubjective acknowledgment and information transfer are central. This paper has two main aims: to profile the interactive role of gesturing as a proportion of all gesturing and to investigate its relevance for why humans gesture. We report data from 48 28‐min dyadic conversations with a naïve participant and a confederate, varying interlocutors’ gesture visibility and conversation complexity. Our first, preregistered, analysis coded for the six traditional gesture categories, which resulted in ∼28% being uncodeable. Our second analysis asked whether these were interactive, which accounted for nearly 90% of uncoded gestures and a quarter of the entire database. Occluding gesture visibility significantly decreased the amount of interactive gestures participants made, resulting from a drop in interactive gestures made during simple conversations; complex topic interactive gesture frequency is stable between visually available and occluded conditions. Our data support both philosophies, but advocate for a subconscious account: that we gesture for the intrinsic motivations to express ourselves and to be understood. (shrink)

This article examines overpopulation as a basis for historical interpretation. Drawing on the ideas of T.R. Malthus, Elizabeth Kolbert, John Lovelock, Lynn Margulis, and Edward O. Wilson, I make the case that the only concept of ‘progress’ that accurately describes the human enterprise is the uncontrolled growth of population. I explain why a Malthusian/Gaia interpretation is not a historicist or eschatological narrative, like Hegelian idealism, Marxism, fundamentalist religion, or ‘end of history’ neoliberalism. My article also includes a discussion of (...) the ideas and prescriptions of contemporary commentators like physicist, Adam Frank, and the philosophers, John Gray, and Roy Scranton. What makes my article distinctive is bringing together ideas of population theory through a lens of sociobiology and post-humanist philosophy. Through this interpretive synthesis, I form a basis for recasting history as the record of the growing imbalance of our species in light of the unprecedented crises of the environment that are its byproduct. I conclude with the idea that regardless of whether the world is dying or simply going through a fundamental chaotic transformation, the role of the critical-rational historian remains the same: to tell the truth as best as she or he can know it. (shrink)

This chapter provides a historical overview of the “eclipse” period in evolutionary biology, covering early pre-Darwinian theories and then Charles Darwin’s theory, influenced by T. R. Malthus, C. Lyell, and A. von Humboldt. Other Darwinists such as A. R. Wallace and A. Weismann are also discussed. The chapter examines three strands of anti-Darwinian theory. The first, neo-Lamarckism, is divided into teleological creationism, orthogenetic evolution, and environmentalism. The second, orthogenesis, is examined through the theories of C. von Nägeli, T. Eimer, (...) H. F. Osborn, and L. Berg. The third, Mendelism, includes mutationism and saltationism and discusses the views of H. de Vries, T. H. Morgan, W. Bateson, and J. Lotsy. The chapter concludes by tracing how these theories were superseded by the synthetic theory of evolution. The chapter concludes with an examination of the modern synthesis, highlighting T. Dobzhansky’s work in Genetics and the Origin of Species. The contributions of the naturalists G. G. Simpson, G. Ledyard Stebbins, E. Mayr, and J. Huxley, who adopted Dobzhansky’s ideas, are also discussed. (shrink)

The outline of modern macroeconomics took shape in Britain in the early nineteenth century thanks, in part, to David Ricardo, one of the most influential economists of the time. Britain was challenged by monetary inflation, industrial unemployment and the loss of jobs abroad. Ricardo pointed the way forward. As a financier and Member of Parliament, he was well versed in politics and commercial affairs. His expertise is shown by the practicality of his proposals, including the resumption of the gold standard, (...) which was essential given the destabilizing policy of the Bank of England. Ricardo's expertise appears also in his debate with T. R. Malthus about whether an industrial economy can suffer a prolonged depression. Say's Law of Markets and the Quantity Theory of Money figure prominently in his works, but not in an extreme form. He was instead a subtle theorist, recognizing the non-neutrality of money, trade depressions and unemployment. (shrink)

Samuel Hollander is widely recognized as one of the most important and controversial historians of economic thought. This second volume collects together essays extending beyond classical economics, the subject with which he is most associated. This collection includes: * studies in Scholastic, Smithian and Marshallian literature * papers on the Corn-Law pamphlet literature of 1815, the post-Ricardian dissension, and the marginal revolution * essays on T.R. Malthus, including four bibliographical studies The volume also includes an autobiographical section and reviews (...) of a broad range of important books published in the last thirty years. (shrink)

This latest volume in the series Cambridge Studies in the History and Theory of Politics is much more than a reassessment of humanist themes in Karl Marx. It is a rereading of the entire Marxian corpus from the viewpoint of alienation taken to be core concept of Marx's thought at every stage of its development. By underscoring the conceptual primacy of "the acting and acted-upon individual" in capitalist society throughout Marx's writings, Ollman counters Feuer, Fromm and others who defend what (...) Alasdair MacIntyre has called "the myth of the plastic figure," i.e., the image of a young Marx, Hegelian and humanist, who later abandons his concern with alienation for socio-economics. In using the Grundrisse to prove his point, Ollman joins those scholars who insist that these writings, virtually unavailable until recently, are indispensable for a balanced view of Marx's thought. But Ollman's principal contribution to current discussion lies in his locating the theory of alienation in Marx's metaphysic of internal relations. This position justifies a redescription of Marx's other theories and concepts in terms of "alienation." This approach does clarify several ambiguous terms in the Marxian vocabulary, and the novelty of the interpretation restates questions which, in the West at least, had been put aside as settled. The labor theory of value, for example, is revived and given a new meaning: "Value is the relations of alienated labor, transmitted by such labor, as they appear in the product." The basic unity of Marx's and Engels' thought is likewise defended, and the dialectic of nature is exhibited as an instance of their fundamentally relational ontology. Even if one is not moved to accept all or any of these interpretations, he should not ignore the challenge which Ollman's scholarly volume presents. It is an important contribution to the ongoing debate on the meaning of Marx.--T. R. F. (shrink)

This pioneer work in comparative political analysis manifests once more the growing influence of behavioral approaches on the study of politics. In this case the general topic is the voting pattern of justices on the highest courts of several Pacific nations and India. Various heuristic and explanatory models are employed to determine the influence of such variables as age, culture, and political orientation on the adjudicative behavior of these men over a determinate period. Although the articles by twelve different authors (...) are not all of the same analytic caliber as those contributed by the editors themselves, they collectively offer an insight into the possibilities as well as into the pitfalls of behavioral studies of the judiciary. As the editors note, such a work is necessarily hypothetical and exploratory, raising more questions than it answers. Philosophers will be interested mainly in the methodological problems of concept formation and explanation which this book raises and seeks to resolve. The article by Edward J. Weissman, "Mathematical Theory and Dynamic Models," is particularly valuable from that point of view. Moreover, by classifying and comparing the other contributions to this volume, Weissman's article furnishes a certain unity which the book as a whole sorely lacks. Geared primarily for those who are familiar with such techniques as smallest-space analysis and the use of recursive causal models, this work nevertheless can be read with profit by social philosophers, philosophers of law and those interested in general questions of methodology.--T. R. F. (shrink)

After a condensed and lucid summary of Classical Psychoanalysis, this Indian philosopher applies the criterion of self-referential consistency to criticize Freud's application of psychoanalytic categories to the phenomenon of religion. Professor Masih argues that Freud's account of religion fails to account for other religions than Monotheism. He interprets this desire to dethrone the God of Monotheism as a consequence of Freud's repressed father-hatred and extends this technique of psychoanalyzing Freud to see in his metaphysics of materialism a subconscious love of (...) the mother. There are elements of experience that transcend any psychoanalytic account of that experience. Whereas neurosis is necessarily infantile, the infantile aspects of such adult experiences as religion is not necessarily neurotic. Freud's genius in developing the psychoanalytic method is a case in point. Masih then argues that Freud's mistaken application of this method of treating individuals to social phenomena involves regression into a neurotically determined prejudice. The final irony is that even Freud's psychoanalytic method has the religious dimension of a humanistic concern for man's salvation from illness.—T. R. H. (shrink)

This is the first English version of Geymonat's work since its publication in Italy in 1957. As the title suggests, it is more than a biography, for it records the vital interplay between the world of Galileo's thought and his vibrant personality. What gave direction to his life, according to Professor Geymonat, was the devotion to the task of "cultural propaganda," of making his radical discoveries palatable to the intellectual elite of the Catholic Church. That he took up this task, (...) testifies to the scope of Galileo's imagination and to his understanding of the deep moral and cultural implications of the new science he was initiating. Professor Geymonat sees in Galileo's belief that experience and mathematical reasoning are commensurable and in his attachment to experiment more an Aristotelian reaction against the Church's perversion of Aristotle's thought, than a reversion to Platonism. Besides the complexity of Galileo's thought, the nobility and strength of a genius, struggling in his early years with financial and familial burdens, silenced in his prime by the censure of the Church, and incapacitated during his old age by sickness, shine through the pages of this book. There are extensive notes and two appendices on the as yet mysterious course of Galileo's second trial.—T. R. H. (shrink)

This is one of the best written and most comprehensive studies of the development of Sartre’s thought yet to appear in English, which is not to say that it covers every facet of his variegated career. Written by the former editor of Yale French Studies and current chairman of the Department of Romance Languages at Wesleyan University, Connecticut, it emphasizes Sartre’s literary works and thus belongs most properly in the category of literary criticism or the history of ideas. Still, McMahon (...) does not ignore Sartre’s philosophical writings. Indeed, he gives particular attention to The Critique of Dialectical Reason, a volume often avoided by authors who approach Sartre from a literary tradition. But the philosophic sources are usually consulted to explain or illustrate the literary, which provide the object of the author’s prime concern. McMahon underscores three concepts which measure Sartre’s intellectual growth, viz., freedom, love, and history. Regarding freedom, Sartre has "completed" the unfinished analyses of Being and Nothingness with their excessive individualism by his growing awareness that freedom is more than the ability to say "No" to the Other; it has a positive content and requires collective action to be maintained. Likewise, love is now conceived as a bond of promises which envisages the achievement of common projects. McMahon labels this rather cold-blooded concept "pragmatic love." Finally, history, which emerges as Sartre’s absolute, is now understood as a force conditioning men and limiting the availability of their choices. Sartre has come under the sway of Engels’ dictum: "Men make their history themselves, but they make it within a given milieu which conditions them." Sartre relies heavily upon the power of dialectic to keep individual choice afloat in a sea of historical forces. Whether or not he succeeds is a current question. McMahon believes that he does not. Because what he calls the "shift of emphasis" in Sartre’s thought from the individual to the social involves a growing interest in the sciences humaines, McMahon’s failure to consider Sartre’s political writings at any length is the chief disappointment of this excellent study. And then there is that stepchild of Sartriana, Existentialism is a Humanism. Following Cumming and others, McMahon chooses to ignore this essay, probably because Sartre himself has repudiated it. But if anyone is to portray Sartre "warts and all," and McMahon does not hesitate to expose the blemishes, then the reckless and inconsistent statements of this short lecture are most revealing. They indicate the freewheeling motions of a "shift" underway. Each chapter is followed by a short but helpful discussion of related themes and works. To capture the world of Jean-Paul Sartre is a most ambitious project. McMahon has met this challenge with insight and style.—T. R. F. (shrink)

Professor Morgan styles himself an amateur in his investigation of the theme of love and in this work he lives up to this role in the best senses of the term. With an inspiring enthusiasm for the theme, he brings to bear a critical analysis of the central concepts in each area. In Plato's assimilation of love to moral and intellectual striving, in the Bible's orientation of the law around love, and in Freud's genetic account of personal and social norms, (...) Professor Morgan discerns similar attempts to reconcile reason and passion. The author is equally concerned to note the differences between the three theories of love and to resist the reduction of one to the other. Plato's Eros is fully teleological and finds its culmination in the rational impersonality of perfect form. The Bible teaches that love has no other end than its own perfection in the living, personal God. Freud sets himself against both these traditions by his materialistic bias, his emphasis on the efficient causes of love, and the irreducible dualism of Eros and Thanatos.—T. R. H. (shrink)

In a highly conscious break with what is termed "orthodox Darwinism," i.e., evolution by natural selection of individual adaptive character, the author presents his forceful and suggestive attempt to recast evolutionary theory by taking Darwin's later concept of the reproductive mode of genetic groups as fundamental. The goal of this reorientation is a "descriptive behavioral science" of evolution from the most primitive clusters of inorganic matter to human societies. The book is "Blakean" in its scope and tone of vision, but (...) suffers from heaviness of style and its misplaced messianic pretensions and prophetic wrath. However, in arguing for a continuity of cosmological, natural and human evolution, and in suggesting a synthesis of the insights of Darwin and Freud, the book is powerful and convincing.—T. R. H. (shrink)

The Sartre volume in the Doubleday Anchor series, "Modern Studies on Philosophy," is a judicious blend of expository and critical articles. It covers many areas of Sartre’s professional concern from his early studies of the imagination through art and literary criticism to recent controversies over the role of the individual in social wholes. Though several of these essays are readily available elsewhere, four were written especially for this work. Of the latter, Anthony Manser’s "Praxis and Dialectic in Sartre’s Critique" is (...) particularly fine. In it, he faces the objection of Levi-Strauss that Sartre’s distinction between analytic and dialectical reason is vitiated by the very writing of the Critique in "analytic" terminology. Of the reprinted articles, two excellent historical studies are included, Ian Alexander’s "The Phenomenological Philosophy in France" and George Kline’s "The Existentialist Rediscovery of Hegel and Marx." Since the series contributes to contemporary debate as well as to the history of philosophy, the articles by Hide Ishigure [[sic]] on imagination and by Frederick Olafson on authenticity and obligation are apt choices. No collection of essays on Sartre would be complete without a piece by Francis Jeanson. Included is a selection from his Sartre par lui-même, "Pessimism and Optimism in Sartre’s Thought." The chief weakness of an otherwise superior volume is the heavy dosage of untranslated French which must be taken with the Alexander and the Wardman articles. This is especially distressing in the case of Wardman who wrote specifically for this edition. This collection meets the high standards of the series as a whole. It makes first-rate Sartrean scholarship available to a wide audience.—T. R. F. (shrink)

Although the number of articles on Sartre’s aesthetic is great, book-length treatments of the subject in any language are rare. In English, we have been practically limited to Eugene Kaelin’s important study of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty published ten years ago. This work by George Bauer provides a valuable complement to Kaelin’s theoretical analysis. The book consists of seven chapters and an appendix which treat of Sartre’s pronouncements on art and the artist as expressed in his novels and plays as well (...) as in his art and literary criticism, genre by genre and artist by artist. Philosophically, the most interesting portion of the book is probably the introductory chapter presenting an eleven-page synopsis of the elements of Sartrean aesthetics: the separation of prose from poetry with its attendant problem of committed literature, the work of art as imaginary object, and the aesthetic significance of Sartre’s distinction between existence and being. It is this last element which Bauer exploits as he examines Sartre’s repeated strictures against artists who confuse the being of the art object with physical being or who flee the responsibility of human existence for some "project of being." If art is not "reality" for Sartre, neither is it a legitimate means of escape. Because his evaluations involve reference to content as well as form, Sartre’s criticism has assumed a sociopolitical posture from the very start. The overall impression left by Bauer’s work is that Sartre’s art criticism involves the often inconsistent application of relatively few criteria to quite select works of the artists in question in accord with a general theory of human freedom. Despite the occasional brilliance and unfailing intelligence of the judgments so produced, Sartre’s method leaves him vulnerable to the charge of unfairness and inadequacy. Readers desiring an extended analysis of Sartre’s general aesthetic theory will still find Kaelin’s book indispensable. Physically, this is a most attractive volume, featuring thirty-two prints as well as a Calder cartoon of Sartre on its cover.—T. R. F. (shrink)

This monograph offers a crisp, comprehensive summary of the discoveries to date in the field of pre-biological evolution. Supported by extensive references to recent research and quite technical in treatment, the work is comprehensible to any reader with a beginner's knowledge of organic chemistry because the author is careful to focus his discussion around three hypothetical stages of abiotic evolution. The author's argument that the histories of the universe, of the earth, of nature and of man form a continuous evolutionary (...) thread is persuasive, although admittedly an extrapolation based on his conviction in the uniformity of chemical function. The book provides an impressive glimpse into the scope, power and imagination of Soviet scientific research.—T. R. H. (shrink)

A sign of Sartre’s belated "coming of age" in professional, English-speaking philosophical circles is the recent shift from exposition to dialogue as analytic authors regard his contribution to current Anglo-American philosophical discussion. One of the interests, not to say obsessions, of analysis has been the philosophy of mind. The literature is vast, and alternative positions have been charted in detail. It is a virtue of Professor Morris’ book that she has mastered a respectable portion of the analytic terrain. Her treatment (...) of Sartre is limited to the writings up to and including Being and Nothingness. The statement of the question is analytic, the response Sartrean. Her assessment of the exchange is that "the concept of a person to be found in Sartre’s early work is not only intelligible but significant. He has led us away from some of the idle considerations in much contemporary analytic discussion of persons qua perceivers and has offered important and probably correct solutions to some of the most pressing and central problems connected with persons considered as moral agents". Thus the standard criteria for reidentification of persons, viz., memory, character, and bodily continuity, are viewed in terms of accountability, thereby underscoring Sartre’s "new criterion of personal identity," fundamental project or ideal self. Crucial to her general thesis is the ambiguity of the "I" for Sartre. The term denotes the body-subject of conscious relations and possessor of physical properties, on the one hand, and a free unification of acts and experiences over time, on the other, like a melody synthesizing individual notes—a standard simile in nonsubstantial theories of the self. She argues that both aspects of the "I" are required to resolve the matter of accountability as we understand it. The question of other minds is raised in the context of Sartre’s claim that "there is nothing behind the body. The body is wholly ‘psychic'." This problematic assertion not only makes his concept of shame-consciousness appear less ad hoc but helps warrant, as well, her claim that he is leaning toward a physicalism "broad enough to include the intentional properties of consciousness". An indication that analysis may be heading in the same direction is taken as an added sign of Sartre’s relevance. (shrink)