Being, Nothing and God, A Philosophy of Appearance by George J. Seidel (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 809 it makes possible a sort of mental diastasis, i. e., a separating without fracturing of factors that are in actuality never separate. But, at this point, the project comes to an abrupt halt, and it is here that my sole negative reaction to the book is lodged. What seems shortcircuited is the movement forward into the realm of thought, not as the mere non-completion of the book but as something not allowed. Everything stops short of philosophy and metaphysics, and we are left only with a prologomena, albeit a good one. In the end, Richmond's "post analytic natural theology " is fearful of venturing too far from its parent, from analysis philosophy. The most that can be sought are explanatory models. The metaphysics that Richmond would wed to Revelation is in the final analysis " logic," a therapeutic analysis of the way we use words, which contends with Wittgenstein that thinking not only involves speech but is speech. We are left with analytic talk about talk and never succeed to discourse about reality. But is there not an a priori structure to human being as intelligent, something activated only through experience and exercized only upon what is there " given," but which is more than an interpretative grasp of experience? Something which, while unable to start other than from experience, has a constitutive role to play in knowing and rules over experience in accord with the rules of being? Do not the attempts of Richmond and others to investigate the linguistic origins of metaphysics lead, in fact, to the opposite discovery that metaphysics is the creative ground of language? The force that lies in the argument of Richmond's book is that, while it leaves this latter country of the mind unexplored, it nevertheless brings us to its very frontiers. The Catholic University of America Washington, D. C. WILLIAM J. HILL, o. P. Being, Nothing and God, A Philosophy of Appearance. By GEORGE J. SEIDEL. Assen (The Netherlands): Royal Van Gorcum Ltd., 1970. Pp. 118. Hfl. 16. In this, his most recent book, Father Seidel presents his own account of the nature of metaphysics. It makes for heavy reading, not only because of the inherent difficulty of the problems treated but also because, as the author himself allows, the style is " at times overly ponderous and technical." The subtitle of the work, A Philosophy of Appearance, is aptly chosen, for the primary aim of the study is the development of ontology from an analysis of the appearance of being in things. Without having explicitly 810 BOOK REVIEWS committed himself to the task, Father Seidel seems to be attempting to bring to completion Heidegger's transcendental phenomenology. Seidel leaves the reader with the impression that by carefully picking his way one can manage to break fresh forest trails beyond those blazed by Heidegger himself. Seidel seems confident that the faithful extension of the phenomenological inquiry to its natural limits can lead to the headwaters of being. The work is divided into five parts rather unequal in length. The first, which is an introduction into the nature and function of philosophy, seeks to establish philosophy as "a synthesis between science and theology." The second part, really the core of the book and constituting approximately one third of its length, discusses being and its relation to things, and to truth. The third part provides a thumbnail sketch of the history of "nothing" from the Pre-Socratics through Heidegger. In all, seventeen philosophers or schools are treated. While the sketches have historical interest, they are not essential to the main argument and might better have been relegated to an appendix. The fourth part discusses " nothing " and its relation to things, being, time, and non-being. The fifth part turns to the problem of God. Here the author indicates why his philosophy of appearance leads to the existence of God and briefly alludes to some of the divine attributes, viz., timelessness, goodness, personality, transcendence, etc. A brief, adequate summary of this work does not seem possible. Too many intricate problems are broached and treated, and the elusiveness of an ever technical terminology made more elusive still by the abundant use of metaphor makes...