The Nature of Philosophical Inquiry (review)

BOOK REVIEWS can hardly call it less-that is shown for the ordinary graces of verbal communication. Jargon of the most pedantic and unnecessary kind-we hear of " capacitating an entity " and are treated to such hideous terminology as "autotelic" and "heterotelic "-does little to commend the process of philosophical enquiry. Who can be interested in a "punishee" or can want to share in a "concomitant subsumption "? And if French quotations are necessary, then decourager les autres is surely what Professor Baylis intends on page 45. Encourager is what he says: we hope it is not what he means. Saint Albert's College Oakland, California lLLTUD EvANs, 0. P. The Nature of Philosophical Inquiry. Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. Vol. XLI. Washington, D. C.: National Secretariate, Catholic University, 1967. Pp. 273. This volume contains the addresses, papers and panel discussions for the forty-first annual meeting of the ACPA, March 28-29, 1967, at the Center for Continuing Education, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Ind. The lively and perceptive presidential address by Ernan McMullin raises the question of the identity and purpose of this group after forty years of organized effort. The founding fathers were fully convinced of the need for a separate group of philosophers sharing a goal and content which they considered both distinctive and worthwhile. They were agreed that they had at their disposal the essential and permanent conceptions and principles which constitute the firm foundation of all philosophy and human science. There may seem to be a gulf, more apparent than real, between such views and those presented at the current meeting. In recent years the philosophy curriculum in Catholic colleges has been undergoing rapid and profound changes, with requirements decreased and both methods and contents broadened, but we are a long way from having a clear picture of what we are trying to do for the under-graduate in philosophy. The sound parts of our tradition should be preserved, and the new methods of analytic philosophy in particular should be more fully employed. New problems such as those of process, subjectivity, and pragmatism must be faced, and cooperation with other philosophers is needed. The papers and discussions which follow explain various methods of philosophical inquiry and treat of a wide variety of problems according to different methods. Martin C. D'Arcy, who was awarded the Cardinal Spellman-Aquinas medal, considers the immutability of God. Not content BOOK REVIEWS 203 with former explanations which distinguish between the simplicity of the divine perfection and our way of understanding it, he suggests that we have done with the word "necessity " when speaking of God and attribute all to freedom and love. An Aristotelian view of philosophical inquiry is offered by George P. Klubertanz (St. Louis U.). There are various starting points, goals and methods of elaborating philosophy, and a set of philosophic disciplines. A philosopher should become acquainted with the major options and problems of philosophy, but he cannot pursue all paths that are open to him and so must choose among them. Philosophy is not necessarily pluralistic, but it has developed along many lines which cannot at present be totally unified. In a comparison between analytic philosophers and metaphysicians, Richard Rorty (Princeton U.) argues that they disagree not so much in matter and method as in the notion of wisdom and how it is to be pursued. Metaphysicians hold that through experience and argument we can attain truth about the ultimately important things, whereas for analysts wisdom is the articulation of a vision based on the sciences and arts. Errol Harris (Northwestern U.) also views metaphysics as related in method and explanation to the sciences and arts but differs from these in scope. Metaphysics is an attempt to organize comprehensively the deliverances of the sciences into a single world view in which all the sciences can be integrated: metaphysics is metascience. Inquiry is defined by Robert Johann (Loyola Seminary, Shrub Oak) as man's effort to integrate his experience as a responsible agent. It is what the agent does, the operations he performs to meet tension between environmental demands, and the agent's equipment to meet them. The goal of philosophic inquiry is pragmatic...