In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

BOOK REVIEWS 123 previously rejected B edition" (ibid.). Could it be that the later Heidegger had seen the errors of his earlier views and had come to a better understanding of Kant? Could it be that "Heidegger has not pursued his most brilliant insight" (p. 284) because he realized that it was derived from a misreading of Kant and was in itself untenable? Answers to these questions would indeed be a contribution to our understanding of Heidegger's position. W. H. WERKMEISTER Florida State University BOOK NOTES Studies in Medieval Philosophy, Science, and Logic. Collected Papers, 1933-1939. By Ernest A. Moody. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1975. Pp. xix+453. ~,20.00) The studies of Ernest Moody in the philosophy and science of the late medieval period of Western civilization are well known, some of them being minor classics in their subject. His pioneer work, Truth and Consequence in MedievalLogic (1953) for the Brouwer, Beth and Heyting series of studies in logic and the foundation of mathematics won the Haskins Medal of the Mediaeval Academy of America three years after its publication as well as the Nicholas Murray Butler Medal that Columbia University awards annually for the most distinguished contribution to philosophy by a former graduate. His collection of texts and translations in The Medieval Science of Weights (in collaboration with Marshall Clagett) was the first in the University of Wisconsin's valuable series of Publications in Medieval Science. He also has contributed to the critical edition of the philosophical and theological works in progress at the Franciscan Institute of St. Bonaventure University and to an edition of Jean Buridan's Quaestiones super libros Aristotelis De caelo et mundo for the Mediaeval Academy of America publications (1942). Current interest in the thought of Ockham led to a recent reprint of his doctoral dissertation, The Logic of William of Ockham (1935) that had long been out of print. His shorter articles, however, have been scattered in various scholarly periodicals not always readily available to the interested student. Consequently, we are indebted to Lynn White, Jr. and the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles for bringing out these essays in a single volume. Its value is further enhanced by the inclusion of Moody's hitherto unpublished master's dissertation (over 100 pages), William of Auvergne and His treatise De anima, and the author's short autobiographical account of his intellectual development and academic career roughly coeval with the revived interest in medievilia in American universities. --ALLAN B. WOLTER ll soggetto e la maschera: Nietzsche e il problema della liberazione. By Gianni Vattimo. (Milano: Vanentino Bompiani, 1974. Pp. 382. L. 5,000) The central concept here is that for Nietzschecivilization must be understood as a kind of"mask" that is continually produced by that force which is the unity of primordial being. The term "mask" (maschera) does not recur in Nietzsche's work as often as some other terms. However, many concepts such as "fiction," "illusion," "truth becomes fable," which are adopted in order to define and to discuss the problem of the relation of man with the world of symbols, can be related to his notion of mask. Thus the world of appearance, of definition, of form, of the Apollonian culture that finds its maximum expression in Greek statuary is an illusion or mask. For Vattimo, then, the concept of the mask forms "the leading thread" for the reconstruction of the entire philosophy of Nietzsche. By proposing"mask" as the main principle of interpretation Vattimo does not mean that Nietzsche expounds a "philosophy of the mask." More correctly Nietzsche's philosophy is a philosophy of the "superman." However an analysis of the two themes in The Birth of Tragedy, that of the liberationfrom the Dionysian and that of the liberation of the Dionysian from the constrictions of social rules and from the limitations of the world suggests that the metaphor of mask not only characterizes decadent man but forms the principle of interpretation for every civilization. The problem of the relation between being and appearance is a central one; and'for Vattimo, Nietzsche's concept of the mask expresses the being...

pdf

Share