Book Notes

308 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY (not always successfully) in the face of the competition and clamour of one-sided extremism (pp. 63-64). HFam~aTW. SC'~NF~Ea Claremont Graduate School Claremont, Cali]ornia Knowledge, Mind and NatuTe. An Introduction to Theory o] Knowledge and the Philosophy o] Mind. By Bruce Aune. (New York: Random House, 1967.Pp. xv ~- 296. $525) This book is hardly an introduction to the subjects mentioned in the subtitle, though it might do as a propaedeutic to the philosophy of Wilfrid Sellars, or, more generally, to the philosophical school of what might be called the Minnesota-Pittsburgh axis. The typical views and problems of that group axe all here: Knowledge neither has nor requires foundations. Being acquainted with or identifying something presupposes conceptual schemes, reflecting various forms that linguistic capacities may take. The job of philosophy is to reconcile the common sense view of the world with the scientific "world picture." And the method appropriate to these endeavors is that provided by logical empiricists. The problems for Bruce Aune are those generated by this cluster of views. How are we to reconcile a physiological account of perception with the claim that we perceive objects? How can we account for our knowledge of other minds? How explain the nature of pain? These questions must be perplexing to a beginner at philosophy, for he is not apt to recognize the views attributed to him as those of common sense. For those views, it turns out, have a distinctly verificationist flavor, coupled with a dose of phenomenalism and a reverence for brain physiology. It is in this way that pain becomes a problem, for eT,mple, since reports about pain give the verificationist nightmares. But surely the "nature" of pain and its place are starting points in common sense. To find the place of pain or its occurrence puzzling reflects the prior adoption of a complicated philosophical theory. The general question whose answer is aimed at throughout the book is vitiated by the same covert identification of common sense or everyday experience with the mentality of a logical empiricist. Aune asks: how is everyday experience to find its place in the nervous system? The form of the question seems to demand an answer that would make everyday experience dependent on scientific theories and would in addition covertly identify "everyday experience " with a phenomenal~tic interpretation of it. The possibility that everyday experience need not find a place in the nervous system does not occur to Aune at all. These are severe limitations on a book that purports to be an introduction to epistemology and the philosophy of mind. The best that can be said for it is that it gives a less convoluted version of the views of Sellars than Sellars seems capable of giving himself. This is not to compliment Aune's style, however, which, in line with his general attitude, emulates the jargon-ridden talk of psychologists, physiologists, and eyberneticians. On the whole I should not have much hope for the future philosophical interests of those introduced to the subject by this book. A, R. LovcH Claremont Graduate School Cloremont, CaliJornia BOOK NOTES A Discourse o] Free-Thlnking. By Anthony Collins. Institut International de Philosophie, Philosophie et Communaut~ Mondiale series. (Stuttgart-Bad Connstatt: Fromman Verlag, 1965. Pp. 232) This excellent edition contains not only a photoreproduetion of the original 1713 London text of this important Deist work, but also a German translation of it on facing pages by BOOK REVIEWS 309 Gfinther Gawlick. Julius Ebbinghaus has written a foreword on the significance of Anthony Collins' work, and Gawlick has done a biographical and bibliographical introduction (in German), and added 47 pages of valuable notes to the text. This edition will be a great aid to eighteenth-century scholars. --R. H. POPKIN Christianity Not Mysterious. By John Toland. (Stuttgart-Bad Connstatt: Frommann Verlag, 1964. Pp. 184) Letters to Serena. By John Toland. (Stuttgart-Bad Connstatt: Frommann Verlag, 1964. Pp. 239) These volumes are facsimiles of two of John Toland's major works : the first is a photoreproduetion of the 1696 London text, the other of the 1704 London text. They also contain introductory essays by Giinther Gawlick (in...