Philosophical Review

Philosophy: An Introduction by Archie J. Bahm Review by: Paul Welsh The Philosophical Review, Vol. 64, No. 1 (Jan., 1955), pp. 159-160 Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical Review Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2182259 . Accessed: 28/03/2012 01:05
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Duke University Press and Philosophical Review are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Philosophical Review.

http://www.jstor.org

REVIEWS OF BOOKS

knowledge of "what may be called value facts." By value facts he means facts about values. His function is not to judge by standards, but to explainstandards. "Explanation" here means "knowledge why." The "why" of a standard is the "why" of a "why." Garvin recognizes that his chosen task will not be accomplished by any ordinary scientific verification. It never becomes quite clear how skepticism as a method will lead to the desired knowledge. Although the author states the conflict of individual and social interests, for example, as a general problem, the discussion is inconclusive. The failure to arrive at a conclusive and evidential "why" will not bother a dialectician. Nor will it disturb a pragmatist who is less interested in justifying general standards than in justifying particular actions. But Garvin's program seems to call for validating methods that are not specified in this book. Garvin's style of writing is pleasant and lively, and there is scarcely an unintelligible sentence in the book. The documentation is adequate. The appendix, as befits a "modern" introduction to ethics, is the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
WAYNEA. R. LEYS

Roosevelt University

ARCHIE J. BAHM. New York, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., I953. PP. xiv, 44I. $4.50. Mr. Bahm attempts in this introduction to cover all the areas of philosophy except logic. He takes up epistemology, metaphysics, value theory, aesthetics, ethics, philosophy of religion, social philosophy, political philosophy, economic philosophy, and the philosophy of education. These he treats briefly, except for epistemology and metaphysics. Bahm's method here is to pose a problem and to give the answers put forward by a number of philosophers. In most instances he presents the solutions of these writers in the form of excerpts from their works. The plan of the book is obviously too inclusive. It is impossible to say in seven pages anything that can be a useful or even intelligible introduction to a subject. His method in the more detailed treatments of epistemology and metaphysics is awkward. He uses both the problem method and the historical approach. Somehow, neither succeeds. The problems are lost in the explanations of the historical view, while the historical expositions are often nothing more than selections taken

PHILOSOPHY: AN INTRODUCTION.By

'59

THE PHILOSOPHICALREVIEW

from secondary sources, held together by a minimum of comment, and followed by a brief criticism of each position. It is hard to see how such a dual approach could succeed. As an introduction it is too much a scissors and paste job to be readable (the section on Whitehead will be unintelligible to a beginner); as a history it is too brief to give a good statement of the position he discusses, and sometimes, as in the section on Hume, is downright misleading. Bahm felt it necessary to have a sample of every possible view. I suggest that that is the function of an encyclopedia, rather than an introduction. The book has one singular feature. Bahm has included a section dealing with his own metaphysical view-organicism. He argues that "if an author holds a distinguishable type of view which he considers demonstrably superior and which is not held by others, he has not only a right but a duty to express such a view." It was probably diffidence, then, that kept Bertrand Russell from taking up in the History his own views.
PAUL WELSH

Duke University

i6o