Science and Sentiment in America: Philosophical Thought from Jonathan Edwards to John Dewey (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 277 form of titanischer Solipsismus (p. 130) and that truth can only be comprehended as temporal as long as man exists. Unfortunately, Kierkegaard's view that "truth is subjectivity" does not only refer to the comprehension (begreifen) of truth, but to its realization in existence, in the actuality of the authentic existence of an ethically existing individual. To be sure, as long as one is referring to eternal truth it is quite correct to say that Gas Wesen der Wahrheit ist in der Zukun]t verschlossen, solange das Dasein im Werden ist (p. 118). However, Kierkegaard also suggests that in the finite existence of an authentically existing individual truth comes to be in time. There is one final critical point which deserves mention because it deals with a crucial point in Kierkegaard's understanding of faith. In his careful reading of Kierkegaard , Wilde extracts the statement--Troens Gjenstand er derfor Gudens Virkelighed --from his writings without seeing that such a view (i.e., that "the object of faith is God's actuality") is directly opposed to Kierkegaard's concept of faith. While it is understandable that Wilde should quote this assertion with approval, it is clear, I believe, that Kierkegaard cannot consistently hold such a view. For, in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, it is said Faith is precisely the contradiction between the infinite passion of the individual's inwardness and the objective uncertainty. If I am capable of grasping [comprehending] God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe. [Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans, D. F. Swenson and W. Lowrie, Princeton, 1941, p. 182.] Now, if the actuality of God could be the object of faith, then faith would be unnecessary. For Kierkegaard, God remains a possibility or "ideality" for human understanding. To be sure, the man of faith believes that God is an actuality or believes in the actuality of God. But God, as Troens Gjenstand, is an objective uncertainty (i.e., a possibility). Faith is concerned with an ideality which is understood as a possibility, but which the individual relates himself to as if this ideality (God) were an actuality. Wilde's Kierkegaards Verstiindnis der Existenz is a conscientious and scholarly analysis of Kierkegaard's understanding of the meaning of Existents, one which points to all of the significant questions in Kierkegaard's writings, but which occasionally lacks philosophical insight and fails to dig beneath the surface of Kierkegaard's thought. Despite its weaknesses, this is a useful commentary on the notion of existence, one which follows the original sources conscientiously. And it is, incidentally, part of what is accurately described as a Kierkegaardrenaissance in Germany. It is hoped that this "renaissance" will yield a more definitive philosophical study of Kierkegaard's thought. GEORGE J. STACK State University of New York, Brockport Science and Sentiment in America: Philosophical Thought from Jonathan Edwards to John Dewey. By Morton White. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972. Pp. viii+358. $8.95) Morton White's book is selective in two senses. He discusses only those figures he considers intellectually superior, and he does not consider all aspects of their work. The philosophers who receive whole chapters are Jonathan Edwards, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Chauncey Wright, Charles S. Peirce, William James, Josiah Royce, 278 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY George Santayana, and John Dewey. White selects those aspects of the works of these men that can be conveniently grouped around the rubric of science and sentiment. This rubric is essentially a useful ordering and classificatory device and the notions of sentiment and science are not themselves the object of clarification. In addition to the chapters devoted to single figures, there is also a background chapter on the legacy of Locke, a chapter on the American Enlightenment, and a chapter on Transcendentalism in general. The title of the book should be taken more seriously than the sub-title. There are two extremes in approaching the history of philosophy, neither of which is probably ever realized in pure form. One is the approach that systematizes and clarifies conceptual developments, defines "movements," explains backgrounds and milieus, etc., while the other approach is concerned with what is still alive philosophically among earlier...