The word “objective” is of course the trouble–maker here, Miss Smith assumes that if an aesthetic statement is held to be objective (or to have an objective reference) then it is the physical existence of the work of art (the picture or the sound of the music) that constitutes the objectivity: i.e. if a work of art is exteroceptively perceivable, then an aesthetic statement involving it is objective. Some writers, however (usually philosophical idealists) have held that in genuine works of art there is manifested an ultimate spiritual Reality (it might be called God) which we apprehend when we appreciate such works. On this theory, an aesthetic statement (“This picture is beautiful”) has an objective reference if the subject of it (the work of art) succeeds in expressing or communicating such a supersensible Reality: if it fails to do so, then the statement is subjective, i.e. it can be analysed completely into a statement about our feelings or emotions (e.g. “I like this picture”).

The most surprising development of philosophy in recent years has been the sudden interest, friendly or hostile, in theology—or at least in the philosophy of religion. Hence the present volume, Faith and Logic, appears at a propitious time. As a series of essays composed by teachers of theology or philosophy in the University of Oxford it follows in the succession of Essays and Reviews (1860), Lux Mundi (1890), and Foundations (1912). Like all of these works it endeavours to adjust Christian, and more specifically Anglican, doctrines to the changing intellectual problems of the contemporary world. Yet perhaps it is the differences that are most striking.

If we ask what are the problems which have to be dealt with when the subject of art is being discussed in a philosophical manner, we shall no doubt receive a variety of answers: but there will be in one respect a considerable measure of agreement, viz. that the main problem consists in discovering (a) what is the common property in all works of art which distinguishes them from things that are not works of art, and (b) what is the common property in all good works of art which distinguishes them from bad or mediocre ones. Certainly an immense amount of labour has in the past been devoted to this purpose. Recent philosophical practice, however, has implied some dissatisfaction with this type of approach, and the purpose of this article is to try to show that the dissatisfaction is justified.

I would like to make some further clarifying remarks about the nature of learning machines, or finite automata as they are more generally known these days. It is clear from much that has recently been written on this subject that there are still many misunderstandings about their capacity and significance.

IN “What Morality is Not”, Philosophy, XXXII (1957), Mr. Alasdair Maclntyre argues against the view, now common, “that universal–izability is of the essence of moral valuation”. On page 331 he uses an argument which is an adaptation and extension of Moore's naturalistic fallacy argument, and which is generalizable. As Moore's argument, if cogent, holds against all definitions of “good”, “right”, etc., so Maclntyre's argument, if good, holds against all definitions of “moral” and “morality”. For this reason I shall examine his argument, as I once examined Moore's.1 I wish to do this partly because I should like to go on looking for definitions or elucidations of words like “moral” such as are contained in the uni–versalizability view, and partly in order to air some general questions which are raised by what Maclntyre says.

Before taking this book with the seriousness which at least parts of it deserve, it is necessary to dispose of a criticism which is basically frivolous but has already been made too often to be ignored. “Contemporary British Philosophy”—the title conjures up the names that everyone is currently bandying about (“this is going to be another Flew book,” you feel, “only on a grand scale”); and then you find with a jolt that you are being served with fare by such cooks as Ewing, Findlay, Kneale, Mabbott, Price, and—of all people—Paton. People, clearly, who for the most part wouldn’t even pretend to be “contemporary” in the ordinary use of this word, and who indeed in these very papers subject the real “contemporary” philosophers to endless sniping and sharp-shooting. Almost the only contributor one can imagine wishing to be thought “contemporary” is Ryle; and even he—well, did Freud really think of himself as a Freudian? Ayer might be put up as another exception, but that would be shallow— there's no one so completely and hopelessly out of date as the conductor of the bandwagon that's just gone past. Even from the point of view of crass physical age, the baby of this bunch (Hampshire), works out (from the biographies at the back) at about 43.

Encounter is one of the magical keywords of our time which seems to open up new vistas. Rencontre, Encounter, Begegnung, the Festschrift dedicated to Professor F. J. J. Buytendijk (Spectrum, Utrecht) is noteworthy for several reasons. First, the meanings of the three terms are by no means identical. In encounter the negative sense “meet in a hostile manner”, prevails in Begegnung the affirmative sense, whereas rencontre is neutral and can be used in both senses. Secondly, whereas Festschriften tend to become a nuisance, occasionally arranged by the recipients ad majorem auctoris gloriam, this one is well-deserved and well-arranged. Buytendijk is a leading Dutch biologist, physiologist and psychologist of European stature with an excellent resistance record. Since the contributors were asked to refer to his paper, La phénoménologie de la rencontre (Eranos Jahrbuch, XIX, 1950), the most important papers are contributions to a psychology of rencontre. Thus the volume becomes representative of an important trend in European biology and psychology. The collaboration of biologists, psychologists and psychiatrists with philosophers is exemplary and fruitful. A non-behaviourist and non-materialist experimental psychology, a personalist counterpart to a behaviourist stimulus-response psychology, emerges in outlines. It has transcended the isolated individual and isolated impressions and ideas, and regards man as a being-within-the-world together with other persons. the influence of Husserl's phenomenology and of Heidegger's Sein und Zeit is outstanding. New categories are used, such as “authentic” and “inauthentic” rencontre, and new problems arise, e.g. the smiling of a child interpreted as a primitive mode of rencontre (M. Chastaing, K. Goldstein), and that of “Se fermer et s’ouvrir” (H. C. Rumke). It is quite impossible to discuss here single contributions. It must suffice to say that they confirm Buytendijk's central conception that somehow mind is already present within the organism, and that on the other hand, blind necessity penetrates human affairs.