The Integrating Mind by William F. Lynch, S. J. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 141 Nobody can ever be in .a position to be aware that any given particular is related to any given [Platonic] form. . . . An eternal mind can have knowledge only, not mere belief. . . . A particular mind can only imperfectly participate in knowledge, [yet] it is not possible to have an imperfect knowledge of a form (pp. 41-42). If the particular is to participate in the form, there must also be a converse relation (p. 43 ) . Either there can be no interaction at all between God and man-and then God cannot play the religious role which is his sole raison d'iltre-or else he turns out to be just one finite being among other~, ... [though] one with remarkable properties (p. 49) . That is all. No mention whatever of more sophisticated defenses of dualism: no proof of the basic, oft-repeated assertion. Little heed is paid to the profound differences between religious, ontological, and epistemological dualisms. No reference is made to Aristotle's defense of epistemological dualism or the Thomistic defense of ontological and religious dualisms. In other words, Passmore has selected the most vulnerable forms of naive dualism and destroyed them, believing that he will be able thus to dispose of any and all dualisms. What reason can there be for this illogical procedure in an otherwise quite logical work? Blindness, perhaps, to the fact that more sophisticated defenses have been proposed; prejudice, perhaps, a pre-judgment that all dualisms must be naive. In short, although Passmore, in Philosophical Reasoning, presents a work that is worthwhile as well as logical, nevertheless one of the arguments he offers as a logical one will not stand up-the case for dualism may be debatable, but not by ignoring the best arguments in its favor. The Integrating Mind. By WILLIAM F. LYNCH, S. J. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1962. Pp. vi, 181. $3.95. It is a good thing indeed to see a Catholic devoting himself to the broader concerns of our twentieth-century world. It is better still to see a priest and theologian come to grips with some of the major problems of the American intellectual-problems of conformism and divisiveness, of freedom and authority, of the individual in the community, and problems of the role of art in the larger public scene. All these are topics to which Father William Lynch turns his attention in this collection of essays. The collection is more, however, than merely the stringing together of unconnected discussion; there is, to the extent possible where the themes are so varied, a unifying thread. The essays are grouped around the central theme of the "interpenetration of contraries." The solutions pro- 142 BOOK REVIEWS posed to the problems discussed are in terms of complementarities rather than alternatives, in terms of the "both/and" rather than the "either/or." This central theme is a valuable one. It may even be a necessary one if any permanent answer is to be found for the problems of our contemporary world. And Father Lynch handles the essays in a way that could only be called extraordinarily stimulating. Yet the work has shortcomings as well. Some of its broad generalizations stand in need of the statistical or sociological grounding that has come to be (rightly) expected in secular discussions of these same topics. More serious to the trained theologian, Father Lynch's discussion of analogy-he equates it quite explicitly with connaturality and " the gift of sensibility, or awareness" (p. 118, italics his) -can only appear as a disservice to theology and philosophy. It is true that he makes his remarks in a context of existentialism, but even when that allowance is made one must carefully distinguish between the scientific use of analogy and poetic analogies. Another small criticism is that the reader is led to expect more (p. 1~8) in the discussion of a "theatre of public action" than is actually forthcoming. Nevertheless, in spite of these reservations, it can be said again that this is a thoroughly stimulating book. Perhaps it will serve its best function, as Father Lynch himself suggests, if it encourages others to take up the same topics in the same genuinely inquiring...