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BOOK REVIEWS 237 kept Dilthey from applying his insights about the human studies to the natural sciences. Krausser's own extensions of Dilthey's views to a cybernetic conception of all the sciences, while interesting, run the risk of diluting Dilthey's hermeneutics. In the preface to his book, Krausser intimates that it is not always possible to differentiate a new interpretation of an old theory from a new theory (cf. p. 20). In this case, however, the issue is clear. By making central what was only peripheral for Dilthey, Krausser has presented not so much a reinterpretation of Dilthey as a hypothesis derived from certain parts of his thought. By reducing the hermeneutic circle to the classificatory circle, Krausser makes it difficult to do justice to the totality of Dilthey's philosophy. RUDOLF A. MAKKREEL University of California, San Diego Historical Spectrum o/Value Theories. By W. H. Werkmeister. (Lincoln, Neb.: Johnsen Publishing Co., 1970. Pp. xxviii+453, $8.50) This is an extremely valuable book, not only for those interested in general value theory but also, because of the central position of ethical problems, for all students of ethics as well. It is the first of two volumes on the history of the general value theory from its beginning in about 1870 to our own times. The present volume covers the movement among German writers where the movement started. A second volume will follow dealing with the Anglo-American group. The present volume will be particularly informative to English-speaking philosophers, few of whom will have read as deeply into the literature on the subject as Werkmeister. He has a remarkable gift for clear and concise analyses of complicated theories. Having himself worked through a general theory of value he knows just what to look for as the focal concepts and just where the weaknesses of a theory are likely to show through. In this book he gives detailed analyses of fourteen writers who have done important work in the field, and brief summaries of six or eight lesser men. There are some names even among the important ones that, I am sure, will come up as a surprise to even those of us who have given a good deal of attention to the field. In his Introduction, Werkmeister runs over the prominent role the concept of the "good" has played in the history of philosophy from Plato's time down to the modern. But for detailed work he finds most of it confined to special studies in ethics and economics. He devotes a chapter to the precursors of the general theory of value with particular attention to Bentham, Nietzsche, and Lotze. He points out with keen insight that Bentham's dynamic use of pleasure and pain as "two sovereign masters" determining "what we ought to do as well as . . . what we shall do" in morals and legislation and economics, amounts to a general theory of value though much oversimplified. And Nietzsche's transvaluation of all values has the same effect. But it was Lotze who, according to Werkmeister, first "envisioned the possibility of a general theory of values and is always given credit for having done so" (p. 27). Lotze's point of departure was a teleological metaphysics from which he was led to say (and let those of us who seek to derive the 'ought' from the 'is' or to eternally separate the two, take note), "I am convinced that I am right in seeking the ground of what is in what ought to be" (p. 16, Lotze's italics). For Lotze to deal with values in general was thus to be expected. But his thought passed through several stages, which Werkmeister outlines, 238 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY and ended, surprisingly enough, in a position that justified a direct empirical treatment of values in terms of affective-connative experiences. At this point Brentano comes in with just such an empirical treatment, and general theory of value as a serious comprehensive study gets off to a strong start. Meinong, yon Ehrenfels, and Kreibig follow closely overlapping one another. The point of origin for all of them is a careful introspective analysis of a person's experiences of value...

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