Existence, Existenz and Transcendence: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Karl Jaspers by Oswald O. Schrag (review)

726 BOOK REVIEWS realism, the epistemology, and the ontology, as well as other Thomistic suppositions are viable while proposing the desirable effect of updating Thomistic language and range of inquiry. This is exemplified in the following fields: in political economy as present in Nicholas Rescher's "Welfare: Some Philosophical Issues"; in linguistics by Adam Schaff's: ' Language and Human Behavior " which argues that " Human behavior is often conditioned by mental suggestion owing to the orientation of the mind ... by language " (p. 297) ; in legal philosophy by Luigi Bagolini's: "Time and the Concept of Ought in Legal Experience"; in Aesthetics by John William Davis's" A Defence of Unique as an Aesthetic and Value Predicate"; in History of Philosophy by FritzJoachim van Rintelen's: "Philosophy of the Living Spirit and the Crisis of Today." Incorporation of these insights into the Thomistic synthesis can benefit its contemporary intellectual pursuits. A caution should be indicated, however. Since the speculation being done by these authors requires time, criticism, and thorough reflection before it can be judged as " thoroughly convincing," Value and Valuation is far from being a definitive work or final statement. But this is what gives to the Thomist opportunity for development. The essays launch the ship of axiological science out of port, but the destinations frequently are being finalized during the expedition . Or to switch the image, the utility of the work can be expressed in the statement that it is a moderate advance in building the edifice of axiological science to which R. S. Hartman claims to have set the foundations . The bibliographical list of Hartman's works updated to 1972, the index helping to unify disparate areas of inquiry in the articles and its overall content, lead to the recommendation that Value and Valuation is a necessary work on the book shelf of all those who are attempting axiological investigation in our day. GEORGE L. CoNCORDIA, 0. P. Providence CoUege Providence, Rhode Island Existence, Existenz and Transcendence: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Karl Jaspers. By OswALD 0. ScHRAG. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1971. Pp. fl40. $8.95. It is only since the mid-fifties that English translations of Karl Jaspers' T'ernunft und Existenz, Allgemeine Psychopathologie, and the three volume Philosophie have been deemed publishable. Yet the ambivalent character of much in Jaspers' thinking-blamed by some on his inability to dismiss once for all Cartesian dichotomies and Kantian inhibitions-is offset by the BOOK REVIEWS 7'27 key role it is possible to allot him, especially in the philosophical and psychological life of Germany in the pre-Second War period. True, his verbosity remains a problem, but it is difficult to see how his emphasis on description, on the various tonalities of human existence, could be conveyed otherwise. This situation gives rise to the need for commentaries to accompany the translations; Schrag's joins those of Wallraff (1970) and Samag (1971) in meeting the need. Because he reflects the temper of his time and that of existentialist origins in Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, Jaspers is now emerging as a focus thinker along the existential-phenomenological axis in its German version. Although his is too synthetic a thought to grant him a pivotal position in Continental metaphysics, Jaspers still touched upon all strands of this development and thus provides us with a smoother entranceway to the trend as a whole than could a major figure such as Husserl or Heidegger. At the height of his achievement Jaspers was working in a verdant vineyard. Schrag divides his study into three Parts, one each for the notions of existence, Existenz and transcendence; for each there is an introduction and the whole work is preceded by a generous historical orientation. Although we might wish for critique in addition to exposition, the author may have judged the latter as a more basic requirement at this stage of AngloAmerican familiarity with Jaspers, and he cannot be scored for such a position. In Jaspers' observation that "... solitude always became painful after I had indulged it a while " we have echoes of both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. However, the difference between these two thinkers, and that between Kant and Hegel, two other influences on Jaspers, might well...