Author: Michele Federico Sciacca

Publisher: Irvington Publishers

Published: 1964

Total Pages: 680

ISBN-13:

" "Previously published in Italian, Spanish and German, this study of contemporary philosophical thought now brings to English-speaking people a panoramic view demonstrating the "constant dynamic movement between the act of philosophical reflection and the history of philosophy." Throughout Sciacca's objective definition of all trends in contemporary Western thought runs his personal conviction that the principle of being is absent in modern philosophy. The author maintains that the humanistic quality of philosophy has given way to science so that philosophy becomes a sterile, quasi-technical discipline. In a clear effective manner he attempts to show humanism's proper place in the history of philosophy. Sciacca's polemical spirit against all movements which have departed from the metaphysical tenets that he wishes to see re-established is evident in his criticism of American philosophy. The translator, Attilio M. Salerno, warns the reader that he "may agree or disagree with Professor Sciacca's treatment of American thought; to some of us it may appear not only too astringent but even somewhat unfair. Be that as it may, the intentions if this author are constructive rather than destructive, for he clearly wishes to uphold, and possibly preserve, the philosophical and religious patrimony characterizing our Western civilization."Sciacca explores both narrow and wide paths leading to our contemporary philosophic milieu, offering analyses of historicism, relativism, phenomenology, existentialism, idealism, realism, naturalism, and neo-Scholasticism in the works of Nietzsche, Bergson, Unamuno, Croce, Kierkegaard, Spengler, Cassirer, Gasset, Husserl, Heidegger, Berdyaev, Barth, Marcel, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Benda, whitehead, Pastore, Maritain and many others, including Latin American philosophers."- Publisher