Philosophy Alive
Locke, Alain
Philosophy Alive The Cleavage in Our Culture, studies in scientific humanism in honor of max otto. Edited by Frederick H. Burkhardt. Beacon Press. 201 pp. $3. Reviewed by Alain Locke IT IS...
...with a restrained but deeply perceptive biographical sketch of Otto...
...the late John.Dewey with an incisive paper on the special differentials of the "modern" philosophy, of double significance as his valedictory utterance...
...So, although the contributions range widely over a number of disciplines besides philosophy proper, the authors have been enabled, by focussing their thinking in terms of Otto's life interest in scientific humanism, to project a whole movement, to emphasize its constructive general trends, and thus present it more completely than ever before as a challenging and promising contemporary interpretation of life...
...Responsible in the first instance was careful planning and editing to coordinate a most thoughtful and devoted collaboration of a dozen friends and colleagues...
...Even 50 years after their movement's start with Charles Pierce and William James, they consider it still a young contender that has not yet reached its prime, and considering the centuries of dominance of the older rationalisms, whose chronic dualisms they seek to resolve, this optimistic perspective is plausible and perhaps warranted...
...Certanly this book makes a strong, readable case for a philosophy interpreting life mainly in terms of process, function, cumulative adjustment and integration rather than in terms of essence, absolute values, preordained purpose and design...
...This has produced a book with an exceptional unity of theme and cumulative effect...
...Horace M. Kallen with a trenchant and closely reasoned exposition of the functional doctrine of truth, and George Geiger with a cogent plea for a realistically integrated science of ethics...
...George Sellery concludes WILLIAM B. HESSELTINE is a professor of American history at the University of Wisconsin and an authority on the Civil War period...
...The methodological path to this, they think, is to extend the scientific method and temper beyond the domain of science in the narrower sense to all other intellectual domains...
...ALAIN LOCKE is professor of philosophy at Howard University...
...Philosophy proper is represented by Boyd H. Bode, whose lead-essay sets the general theme...
...C. Lindeman for social philosophy, Norman Cameron for social psychology and psychiatry, Arnold Dresden for the social sciences, and C. E. Ayres for economic theory...
...But behind and beneath that, and basic to it all, was Max Otto's own nearly 50 years of intellectual activity and the singular consistency with which he has maintained and matured in scholarship, teaching, and social action his own progressive principles and all their moral and social corollaries...
...A. Eustace Haydon and Harold Taylor defend the case for functionally realistic theories of religion and education...
...Editor's Note: Copies of The Cleavage in Our Culture are obtainable through The Progressive at $3 per copy...
...Instead, therefore, of the traditional laurel wreath celebrating the past and merely detailing Max Otto's long and valuable contributions to scientific humanism, they have more wisely chosen to plant, so to speak, in his name a seed-garden that promises a rich perennial yield as it sprouts new growth and generates new vitality for the movement itself...
...ARTHUR SCHLESINGER, JR., professor of history at Harvard, wrote "The Age of Jackson" and "The Vital Center...
...All of these men, more than half of whom at one time or another were Otto's colleagues at the University of Wisconsin, have sensed the sort of tribute that would be most appropriate and acceptable to their friend...
...Others follow with pioneering suggestions of the implications of the new humanism for other disciplines —E...
...The various contributors make an impressive roll-call of the chief exponents of scientific humanism stretching over more than two generations of this important school of American thought...
...Only the happiest combination of circumstances could have made it so...
...Reviewed by Alain Locke IT IS rare indeed when a volume of academic tribute is as completely in key with the personality, character, and philosophy of the man it honors as is this brilliant group of essays in honor of Max Otto...
...Their consensus can be briefly stated: it is their confident belief in and optimistic advocacy of a pragmatically functional type of philosophy, to serve as a guide to life and living rather than what Dewey calls "busy work for a few professionals' refining the techniques and polishing the tools of rational analysis...
...RALPH S. FLANDERS, is a Republican U.S...
...The late Horace S. Fries, lamentably cut off at the height of his powers, has stepped over the philosophical borderline in a most constructive essay on social planning based on Max Otto's concept of "creative bargaining...
...Senator from Vermont...
...Harold Taylor aptly characterizes this as a "new philosophy which accepts human nature as a part of a growing and changing universe," stating succinctly the main issue which scientific humanism poses over against traditional idealistic rationalism...
Vol. 17 • February 1953 • No. 2
