Direct Acquaintance Research Articles

Marcello Malpighi, Physician and Scientist

A triumph of American scholarship, this massive study 1 of Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694) represents an achievement truly stupendous. Actually the work comprises several monographs held together by inner logic. The central core is the embryological discoveries of Malpighi, but to make the analysis meaningful, Adelmann has constructed a vast framework. Realizing that no work can be understood apart from its environment, the author placed Malpighi in a historical context of tremendous scope and thereby contributes profoundly to our understanding of the 17th century. Since Adelmann wants the reader to have direct acquaintance with the first-hand records, he aimed to make these records accessible and comprehensible. He presents the sources to provide not only illumination at the focus but also a diffusion of light from it in all directions. To achieve his goal Adelmann has combed virtually every record which bears on the life of Malpighi— his published works and those of

Philosophy and Poetry

Professor Brett has some direct acquaintance with a Joint Honours Degree in English Literature and Philosophy: and it is therefore on the basis of his own experience (as well as Coleridge's) that he warns us that poetry and philosophy are “difficult pursuits for any man to combine” (p. 79). This book has an introductory chapter and a short epilogue which deal in a philosophical way with meaning in poetry and in imaginative literature generally and with the nature of critical interpretation.In the four middle chapters the author gives his account of four well-known and much discussed poems: Lycidas, the Essay on Man, the Ancient Mariner and the Four Quartets. One could imagine these chapters presented independently as interpretations and discussions of the literary and historical background of the poems: but they certainly illustrate Mr. Brett's theory of meaning in poetry and this provides a certain unity. Parts of Chapter I were first published by the author in Philosophy (July 1952). What is new is the particular application of the theory to didactic and discursive poetry. To this is now added a discussion of rival theories of interpretation: first, the view expressed by Wimsatt and Beardsley in “The Intentional Fallacy” (Sewanee Review, 1946 and 1949); and, second, the views expressed by Miss Kathleen Raine in her essay on Blake (British Book News, Supplement, 1951).

Universals and Particulars an a Phenomenalist Ontology

A phenomenalist philosophy which employs the Principle of Acquaintance (PA) plus the Principle that what exists are the referents of certain meaningful terms, defined by PA, cannot include either universals or particulars in its ontology, but is limited to instances of universals as constituting the range of ontological existents. Universals must be omitted since they are repeatable and, hence, never wholly presented or contained, whereas the objects of direct acquaintance are wholly and exhaustively presented. Furthermore, no entities beyond characters (qualities and relations) are given in direct acquaintance; hence, particulars, too, must be omitted for the phenomenalist who relies on PA.

The Mystery of the Mahbhrata

IT may not be unknown to most readers that the Mahabharata, or Great Bharatiana (that is, things about the Bharat clan, as the title is usually understood), is to Indian literature what the Iliad is to that of Greece, only immensely longer, the long period of its compilation being of equally indefinite date. The only portion of it with which they are likely to have any direct acquaintance is the episode known as the Bhagavadgita, or Song of the Blessed One, best known to us in the translations of Edwin Arnold, Dr. L. Barnett and that in the sacred books of the East. The Mystery of the Mahbhrata By N. V. Thadani. Vol. 1: A Vision of the Vedas. Pp. lxiv + 432. 12 rupees. Vol. 2: The Systems of Hindu Philosophy and Religion. Pp. xviii + 371. 8 rupees. Vol. 3: The Story and the Essence of the Epic. Pp. lii + 462. 8 rupees. Vol. 4: The Explanation of the Epic, Part 1. Pp. xlvii + 378. 8 rupees. Vol. 5: The Explanation of the Epic, Part 2. Pp. xvi + 379–924. 8 rupees. (Karachi: Bharat Publishing House, 1931–1935.) £4 the set.

DO WE KNOW OTHER MINDS MEDIATELY OR IMMEDIATELY?

IN the October number of MIND there was an article by Mr, Joshua C. Gregory, criticising my paper on 'Our Knowledge of Other Minds' in the Aristoteictn Proceedings for 1918-19, and I should like to say something by way of a belated reply to him. Mr. Gregory disputes my contention that we know other minds as directly and immediately as we know physical things, and defends the orthodox view that minds can only know one another indirectly, via the material world. The truth of this view seems to him obvious from the consideration of such facts as the following: a person's thoughts, feelings and desires are conce?led from public inspection; absence of bodily signs makes it impossible for us to perceive a person's mental states; our knowledge of other minds depends upon our own previous experience and upon their resemblance to ourselves, some mental lives altogether elude our apprehension. Mr. Gregory then concludes that the existence of other minds is inferred and not perceived; but the inference, he insists, is implicit and spontaneous. It is the work of primary, unconsciously acting memory, and is made by us in our infancy, so that in mature experience the recognition of other mental lives appears to be immediate. It does not seem to me that the facts upon which Mr. Gregory bases his conclusion are all of them equally certain; thus, e.g., I should be prepared to argue that our knowledge of other minds is not limited to mental states similar to' those experienced by ourselves. But even granting that all Mr. Gregory says is correct, the facts he refers to in no way conflict with the ' direct acquaintance' theory. It is perfectly true, of course, that other people's thoughts do not lie exposed to our view and that even their emotions may be difficult to discern; but this is not a reason for denying that what little we do perceive of other minds Its perceived and not inferred. The fragmentary character of our acquaintance with other mental lives could only be regarded as an argument against the view I am defending if bv 'immediate' knowledge were meant a knowledge that is exhaustive and infallible. But 'immediacy' in this connexion simply means that when the act of discrimination is directed upon a mind, then what we apprehend is a mind and not something that intervenes between us and it; it does not mean that the discrimination is either perfect or attained without any trouble. Certain.conditions such as the similarity of a mind to our own may help us to discriminate it more perfectly, while under other conditions we may completely fail to detect the presence of a

Sir Oliver Lodge's British Association Address

The list of Sir Oliver Lodge's writings is long and varied, ranging from school text-books in elementary science through The Ether of Space, School Reform, Life and Matter, Reason and Belief, to The Survival of Man. With most of these writings I have no direct acquaintance, but on the mere evidence of their titles one may with reasonable safety venture certain particulars toward an estimation of their author. He must have intellectual vigor, he must have an instinct for vital questions, he must have the power of popular exposition, and, finally, he cannot be overcautious in the formation and expression of his opinions. All of these particulars would, I believe, be found also in any consensus of judgment that his fellows in science might pass upon his scientific work. This, if not unmixed praise, is much to say for a man, and it may be added that in general he speaks out from a sense of well-being natural to one of cheerful and sturdy temper who has achieved fame, station, ten children, and the confident hope of immortality for all of us. Is it then to be wondered at that he says things which multitudes are glad to hear, and holds a position almost unique in the esteem and confidence of the public at large?

Various Works in the Pergamene Style

The chief object of this paper is to record and classify the various monuments which on the ground of subject-matter or style may claim to be connected with Pergamene work. It may be well also to notice by way of introduction what we can gather from ancient testimony.Of most of the existing works that I shall mention I have had personal knowledge, and where I have had to rely merely on published representations of them, I can only bring them forward for the purpose of suggesting to those who have direct acquaintance with them to consider them from this point of view. The theory which I wish to work out—a theory already suggested by others—is that certain fields of Greco-Roman and late Roman art have received a deep and abiding impress from Pergamon. That this should be a priori probable does not need elaborate proof; Rome was the heir of the Pergamene kingdom, and had always friendly intimacy with it, and we hear of many Pergamene works being transferred to Rome by Nero (Dio Chrys. 644 R.): between certain Roman and certain Pergamene myths there was a close analogy, which coloured the artistic representation of them: the struggle of the Pergamene kingdom with the Gauls, or—to speak perhaps more correctly—with Antiochus Hierax supported by Gallic mercenaries, was the most recent counterpart to the struggle of Rome with the barbarians: it was the Pergamene school—as Professor Brunn was the first to demonstrate—who idealized and fixed for artistic representation the type of the northern barbarian and really created historic sculpture, and I think that it can be shown that their rendering of this type became conventionalized and remained traditional throughout many centuries.