Studies in the Philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce ed. by Philip Wiener, Frederic H. Young, and: Peirce and Pragmatism by W. B. Gallie (review)

576 BOOK REVIEWS religions is denied, if a dramatic end-catastrophe some time in the future is affirmed. All this is a supernaturalism against which my theology stands." (p 341) Who can find the traditional concept of supernaturalism in that jejune presentation of it? While the Thomist will reject many of Tillich's position in both philosophy and theology, there is still the challenge of his example, his courageous attempt to correlate the " message " of divine revelation with the " situation ' in which men find themselves today. In What Present-Day Theologians are Thinking the author attempts to document his conviction that there is a theological rennaissance today. One sign of this, he points out, is " that such Biblical words as Creation, Redemption, Resurrection, and Last Things have come to appear as more indispensable for us than was recognized in the modern period.... No other words seem able to bear the weight of meaning which Sin, Reconciliation , and Atonement have. The core of faith seems intimately bound up with the original language which expresses it." (pp. 1~-13) If there is a return to original words in Protestant theological teaching today, this book shows that the meaning of these words is still at the mercy of the various theologians. The vital problems of theology are discussed under four headings: The Bible and Christian Truth: Christian Ethics and Society: Jesus in History and Faith; the Church. The Catholic position on these questions is also presented, but an unfavorable impression is created by pitting the Encyclical Humani Generis against hasty opinions expressed m certain " liberal " Catholic periodicals. On the whole, though, we may be grateful to the author for a clear presentation of the thought of Protestant theologians on these questions. Manjgrove College Monroe Cam'{fUII Monroe, Mich. JAMES M. EGAN, 0. P. Studies in the Philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce. Edited by PIULIP WIENER and FREDERIC H. YouNG. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 195~. Pp. 406 with index. $5.00. Peirce and Pragmatism. By W. B. GALLIE. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 195£. Pp. £47. $.65. In philosophy, as in other pursuits, the man who strikes the spark may be overshadowed by him who fans it into a flame and thus brings it to the notice of the public at large. H W. James tended the fire of pragmatism and placed the brazier in the market-place, it was Peirce who first lit that BOOK REVIEWS 577 :lire, as, of course, James explicitly recognised. Not that Peirce was entirely original or unaided in this venture; he himself regarded Nicholas St. John Green as the grandfather of pragmatism, in that he urged the importance of applying Bain's definition of belief as "that upon which a man is prepared to act." But it was Peirce who first made that application, and so gave the first precise and reasoned expression to the idea that was later adopted and developed and made both central and popular by James. If James, by his gifts of extensive application and lucid expression of an idea, quite overshadowed Peirce, he also interpreted and developed that idea away from Peirce's understanding of it. And now that attention to his brand of pragmatism has lessened there has been growing, over the last twenty years, a renewed interest in Peirce the pioneer, who may be said to be at last coming into his own. This interest is not due primarily to Peirce's connection with pragmatism, though this motive is not absent. More recent trends in logic, semantics, methodology and the philosophy of science find much that is congenial in his work, and stress both his importance and actuality. This interest has found expression in many studies published about him, especially since Hartshorne and Weiss edited his collected papers (1931-35), and has led to the foundation of a Peirce Society, in 1946. It is to the initiative of this society that we owe the present volume of essays by scholars engaged in special studies of Peirce's work. The fact alone that there are twentyfour contributors to the volume indicates how wide spread is the interest now being taken in one who has been as strangely neglected until recently as he was during...