Truth and the Historicity of Man. Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, Volume XLIII (review)

196 BOOK REVIEWS powers) to that which is known. For, when one purports any of these other theories of truth stating that truth consists in some other relationship of the mind to its object, the proponents of these theories are in fact claiming that their theory of truth is the result of an adequation of their intellect to the real operation of the human knowing powers, etc. Notwithstanding the above, if I have understood the intentions of the editors and what they hope to present, they seem to have adequately accomplished their goal. Nevertheless, I do believe that the presentation of a well-written introduction to each of the three segments of the book would make a significant improvement in this book as a source-book in epistemological reading from Anglo-American philosophy. St. John's University Jamaica, New York JosEPH CALIFANO Truth and the Historicity of Man. Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, Volume XLIII (Washington, D.C.), 1969. The endeavor of the 1969 convention of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, as reflected in its published proceedings, was directed toward working out an understanding of truth adequate to the requirements of contemporary thought with particular attention to religion and morals. The theme was set by W. Noris Clarke's presidential address, which proposed the challenge of "facing up to the truth about human truth" and emphasized the relevance of conceptual and linguistic frameworks in an effort to explain how truth can be characterized by both " absoluteness and relativity, permanence and mutability, universality and cultural peculiarity." Further epistemological studies were offered by Edward MacKinnon ("The Role of Conceptual and Lingustic Frameworks ") and David Burrell (" Truth and Historicity: Certitude and Judgment"); the former was concerned especially with applications in the philosophy of science and theology, while the latter, stressing the objectivity-subjectivity problem, was oriented toward ethical considerations . The other three major papers were devoted specifically to moral philosophy. Leo Ward, recipient of the Aquinas Medal from the Association , addressed himself to the problem of moral norms, particularly the love-versus-law issue raised in different ways by existentialist and situationist ethicians. James M. Gustafson's paper, "What Ought I To Do?," pointed up the factors which particularize the prudential judgment BOOK REVIEWS 197 and make for relativity in certain moral decisions; Ralph Mcinerny's complementary paper, "Truth in Ethics: Historicity and Natural Law," offered basically a summary of Thomistic teaching on the permanent and the flexible aspects of natural law. In the panel discussions also the most voluminous material was devoted to ethics. The first paper, "Authority and Morals," by R. L. Cunningham, relied upon an exclusively naturalistic and functional view of authority in order to dismiss the binding force of papal teaching on moral matters, specifically contraception. Gerald Dalcourt, who some years earlier had proposed wisdom instead of prudence as the primary cardinal virtue (International Philosophical Quarterly, 1968), here suggested somewhat analogously that agape rather than justice should be listed as the principal moral virtue; actually his description of agape approximates what conventional Thomists would have called " justice and the allied virtues." The final paper in the ethics section, which is also the longest of all the panel discussion offerings, is John N. Deely's "Evolution and Ethics." The author argues that evolutionary thought has not reduced all ethics to relativity and that it has, in fact, served to vindicate the classical insistence on the continuity between the philosophy of nature and ethics. St. John's University Jamaica, N. Y. BRUCE A. WILLIAMS, 0. P. Jean-Paul Sartre: His Philosophy. By Rene Lafarge. Tr. by Marina Smyth-Kok. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1970. Pp. 208. $6.50. One more book has been added to the already densely crowded literature on Sartre. In less than 200 pages, widespaced with generous margins, Notre Dame University Press has translated Rene Lafarge's book, originally published in French two years ago. The author gives us a bird's eye view of Sartre's philosophy, covering everything from Nausea through the Critique de la Raison Dialectique with special emphasis upon Being and Nothingness. Since that road at that speed has been covered many times before, one cannot help wondering if...