Dimensions of Mind ed. by Sidney Hook (review)

Abstract

medicine . . . better understood or more successfully practiced than in the United States." The lectures "Medical Thought and Practice" and "Health and Disease" further describe the period from 1660 to 1820. The final and longest lecture, "Medicine and Society in Transition," develops allmedical aspects ofthe subsequent fortyyears, when American medicine began to form its own pattern. During this period the few medical periodicals published in this country changed from their earlier practice ofreprinting foreign articles to accepting American contributions, and the intellectual ties with England were transferred to France, where not only did medical advances excel, but also the nostalgic American student enjoyed a "Ungering Revolutionary feeling." They took home from France a strong interest inthe study ofpathological anatomy, and the practice ofmaking autopsies became widespread in the United States. With the introduction ofanesthesia in 1846, America made its first major contribution to world medicine. The founding of the American Medical Association in 1847 led to the first cautious attempts to standardize medical training, licensing, and practice. Yet, in general, the scientific lag between American and European medicine was still emphatically manifest. By i860, the terminal date ofDr. Shryock's study, American medicine had begun to show characteristics ofmaturity. The picture was far from encouraging, however, and not even the most fervent optimist could then have foreseen that less than a hundred years later American medical institutions were to become the Mecca offoreign doctors and medicalscientists. Dr. Shryock's convincing pitture ofthe early, fumbling beginnings as the roots ofcontemporary developments makes this book, far from an isolated study ofthe events oftwo centuries, an important Unk in the continuum ofmedical history. Ilza Veith University ofChicago Dimensions ofMind. Edited by Sidney Hook. New York: New York University Press, i960. Pp. xfii+281. $5.00. Here it is again—the mind-body problem, centuries old, and as tough and lively as ever. It was the general topic ofa symposium held in 1959 at the third annual meeting of the New York University Institute ofPhilosophy. This symposium supplied the materials which, under the editorship of Sidney Hook, have been assembled in Dimensions of Mind. The book consists oftwenty-nine papers, each by a different author. Most ofthe contributors arephilosophers, but among them arethreepsychologists, oneparapsychologist, one theoretical physicist, one cyberneticist, and one member ofthe staffofthe I.B.M. Corporation. The names ofsome ofthe contributors are listed on the dustjacket: Wolfgang Kohler, Norbert Wiener, Herbert Feigl, Stephen Toulmin, H. Putnam, S. Watanabe , H. H. Price, B. F. Skinner, J. B. Rhine, Michael Scriven, Ernest Nagel, Curt Ducasse, and Paul Weiss. As these names suggest, the problem is examined from a wide variety ofpoints ofview; this does not mean, however, that none ofits aspects has been 125 omitted. After all, it is not the function ofa symposium to cover its subject completely. And what (ifanything) does "to cover completely" mean when applied to the mindbody problem? Those aspects of the problem that received special attention in the symposium are mentioned in the editor's preface as especially deserving consideration. According to Hook, any adequate theory ofthe relations ofmind and body must meet at least three requirements , (i) It must accept as genuine empirical actualities the felt qualities sometimes called "raw feels"; it must neither ignore them nor try to explainthem away by calling them illusory or private. (2) It must take very seriously the role oflinguistic habits as determinants ofthe mind-body problem; it must face thepossibiUtythat at least some of the puzzles called by that name may be merely the outcome of conceptual confusions which have their source in unanalyzed linguistic practices. (3) It must also take into account, without making them mysterious and otherwise unintelligible, "the well attested results ofmodern brain physiology, psychology, and cybernetics" (p. xii). It would be impossible to give an adequate summary ofa book as rich and varied in content and as compactly written as this one. Besides, some ofthe most valuable features ofthe symposium would be lost in a summary, however adequate as such. Among these are the full-length, closely reasoned trains of argument that constitute some ofthe contributions . Among themtoo arebriefpassages, scattered throughoutthe book, noteworthy for the acute insights or criticisms they present. And a summary would do scantjustice...