The Nature of Philosophical Inquiry ed. by Joseph Bobik (review)

186 BOOK REVIEWS rather clearly that the real issue is the Incarnation; not so much how the Incarnation can be fitted into a modern world view but how the modern world in all the exuberance of its hope and achievment as in all its experience of triviality and failure can be seen to stand already " in Christ." The question must be asked, " What is the reality of a world made in and through and for Christ? " . . . how does God claim our world as his Own? Redemptorist Seminary, Wendouree, Vic. Australia. A. J. KELLY, c. ss. R. The Nature of Philosophical Inquiry. Edited by Joseph Bobik. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1970. Pp. 312. $9.50. Four years ago, Notre Dame inaugurated a lecture series which yearly brings four or five outstanding philosophers to its campus, each for a week of lectures, seminars, and talk. The topic that year was the nature of philosophical inquiry, and the speakers were Stephan Korner, Martin Versfeld, A. J. Ayer, Stephen Pepper, and 0. K. Bowsma. The present volume, ably edited by Joseph Bobik (who contributed a helpful summarizing Introduction) , contains the public lectures, three from each philosopher except Korner, who condensed his three lectures into one. Perhaps the most useful thing a reviewer can do is to sketch a rough map of the ground covered by each of the lecturers. For Korner, the task of philosophical inquiry at its highest level, the task of the metaphysician, is to deal with " categorial frameworks," the categorization of what is and what is knowable, the a priori assumptions which underlie what we say. The metaphysician has the empirical task of exhibiting the frameworks proposed by various philosophers; and, in particular , Korner argues that neither the method of phenomenological analysis used by Husser! nor the method of philosophical analysis is autonomous , for each can be shown to employ unquestioned a priori framework assumptions. The metaphysician also has the job of modifying old, and proposing new categorial frameworks: there is none that is absolute, none is satisfactory for all human thinking at all times. Martin Versfeld, who describes himself as "most at home in the atmosphere of existential phenomenology," develops and subscribes to Platonic philosophy as he understands it. To philosophize is to come to know oneself , to grow in rational self-consciousness. The modern world adds to Plato's insight a stronger sense of history and of the significance of time; and so today we regard metaphysics as an essentially historical discipline BOOK REVIEWS 187 which matures progressively, not only in the individual but also in the human race. Versfeld also characterizes the philosopher as one whose desire is to know the truth about truth, a desire which, however, can never be fully satisfied since it is only in knowing being that he can know truth-and he can never know being fully. He concludes with a lecture in which he develops and defends the classical doctrine of truth as adequatio ; for if there is a discipline such as metaphysics, a search for the truth about being, it is only adequatio which describes its nature as metaphysical knowledge. A. J. Ayer proceeds to pin down the special province of philosophy by arguing against the tenability of the following current views: the philosopher deals with reality as a whole; or, is a sage good at telling people how they ought to live; or, is one who judges the pronouncements of those, ordinary men and scientists, who investigate the world at first hand. The philosopher is rather one who clarifies, one who analyses what we say. But this is not all. For the words we use carry a theoretical loading, and it is not clear that the common sense conceptual scheme underlying common usage is to be preferred to all other conceptual systems or theoretical backgrounds. The most preferred conceptual system or background or metaphysics is that which best meets the criteria of intelligibility, explanatory power, and convenience; such systems are judged as instruments rather than as ways of seeing more clearly into the nature of reality. Of the four theoretical backgrounds which Ayer considers, one, absolute idealism , has most difficulty in achieving intelligibility; another, divine agency...