Persons, Privacy, and Feeling. Essays in the Philosophy of Mind ed. by Dwight Van de Vate, Jr.

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS 707 our sins are forgiven. The only limitation to sacramental forgiveness comes from the penitent's lack of sorrow. An excellent chapter on the communal and ecclesial aspects of forgiveness fills in the lacunae left by the heavy emphasis on personalism in the first part of the work. The chapter on the history of penance, however, is too brief to do justice to the extensive historical research which has been done by Poschmann, Vogel and others. Deferral of first confession is advised on the strength of recent studies which claim that a child is incapable of mortal sin until the age of eleven or twelve and on the statement of Aquinas that one cannot commit venial sin until he is capable of committing mortal sin. Examination of conscience for today's Christian, it is proposed, ought to embrace three broad areas: vocation, charity and omissions. The final chapter " It is the Lord! " could have been more effective if it had included reference to the central place of the Eucharist in the mystery of God's pardon. Father Bausch displays an admirable talent for selecting key texts from incisive theologians and for translating scientific theological research into the language of the layman. The Sacrament of Penance could be saved from its present state of confusion through judicious application of the suggestions which this book has for both confessor and penitent. Dominican House of Studies Washington, D. C. JoHN M. DoNAHUE, 0. P. Persons, Privacy, and Feeling. Essays in the Philosophy of Mind. Ed. by DwiGHT VAN DE VATE, JR. Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1970. Pp. 14~. This book is a re-edition of seven essays on various aspects of the philosophy of mind which were published originally in "The Southern Journal of Philosophy." The authors are E. M. Adams, Douglas Browning, Charles Hartshorne, Donald Gustafson, Erwin W. Straus, Edward H. Madden and Dwight Van de Vate, Jr. The good points of the collection are many: the general topic is of perennial interest not only because it seems forever to present problems almost too subtle and intricate to be solved but also because the solutions seem always to promise an insight into man " where he lives "-into the division of spirit and marrow, or, perhaps, where engram and percept intersect. These essays do not purport to solve all the problems, but they make their contribution. They are characterized, as is to be expected, by professional philosophical expertise. The analyses of many word-usages and 708 BOOK REVIEWS concepts, and the exposition of many varieties of opinions on different points, are handled very well and are instructive. If any complaint is to be made it is that there is sometimes a little too much of philosophical gymnastics, too much of logical complexities and intricate verbalizings. Not too much for professional philosophers, in essays written by and for members of the guild, but too much for the average educated man without a major in philosophy. And when philosophy of mind is being discussed, could it not be argued that the average man is a potential listener and one who is eager to hear something revealing about himself? If philosophy is to be more than a game for philosophers, it has to gear its discussions to the idiom of common language as far as possible and, when common language cannot carry the message, to handle its technicalities in a way that will not confuse the non-professional. This would not only bring the work of philosophy to the ears of a wider audience but give the professional a test of his own ability. What is hard to explain to the average intelligent person is perhaps not too well understood yet by the expert. One of the concepts I would have liked to see more fully explored is that of God as the ideal knower (in Professor Hartshorne's essay, p. 41), especially as this provides a limit in the epistemological problem. Some of the anguish generated by the epistemological problem could, it seems, be alleviated if the certitude required for human knowledge could be gauged somewhat lower than that appropriate to ideal knowledge. Another concept worth considerably greater attention-it may be...