PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS: AN INTRODUCTORY BOOK OF READINGS.

Edited by Maurice Mandelbaum '29, FrancisW. Gramlich, and Alan Ross Anderson. NewYork: Macmillan Company, 1957. 762 pp.$6.25.

Philosophical Problems is a book of readings designed for an introductory philosophy course and edited by three Dartmouth professors: Mandelbaum, Gramlich, and Anderson. (Mr. Anderson is now teaching at Yale University.) The book is divided into eight major sections, each of which contains a number of sub-sections. Each major section is preceded by an introduction written by the editors which explains the nature of the problems discussed in that section. Each sub-section is also preceded by an introduction written by the editors which not only explains the specific problems discussed in that sub-section but also, more important, explains how the various papers in the sub-section are related to one another.

The first section is introductory, containing papers by Bertrand Russell and C. D. Broad, among others, on the genesis and nature of philosophic problems. The second contains papers concerned with methods of obtaining knowledge - papers on the method of science, the problem of induction, and the nature of mathematics. There is a sub-section containing selections from Descartes, Bergson, and James on methods of obtaining empirical knowledge other than the method of experimental science. The third section is a group of closely related papers which discusses the problem of our knowledge of the external world by means of the senses. Life and mind are the topics discussed by the papers in the fourth section, with sub-sections on purpose and law in biology, the mind-body problem, and the free-will controversy. The fifth and sixth sections contain papers on value theory; the fifth on ethics, the sixth on social ideals. Religion is the topic of the seventh section with sub-sections on the nature of religion, the proofs of the existence of God, the nature of mysticism, and the relation of faith and knowledge. The last section contains papers which outline competing "world-views" - that is, integrated views on the major problems of philosophy.

Philosophic Problems has a rather large number of competitors. It has all the virtues of any of the other collections of readings intended for use in an introductory course. Moreover, it exemplifies some virtues to a higher degree than any of its competitors. First, it focuses attention primarily on philosophic problems and various proposed solu- tions. Philosophic systems ("world-views") are then treated as the integration of solutions to those problems. Nothing tends to make philosophy seem more obscure or artificial to the beginning student than the study of philosophic systems independent of the puzzles which give them their point. Second, the problems selected for attention are, on the whole, those which the discerning student will have noted in his study of the sciences and the humanities. Third, the readings in each section have been selected either because they state clearly and concisely the problem to be discussed in that section or because they outline a solution to that problem which has some plausibility for contemporary thinkers and not simply because they are philosophic "classics."