International Phenomenological Society

Du Temps et de L'eternite. by Louis LavelleReview by: Charles Jacques BeyerPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 10, No. 4 (Jun., 1950), pp. 601-603Published by: International Phenomenological SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2103437 .

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REVIEWS 601

Whether explanation must be causal and what sense must be given to ''proximate" and "ultimate" are the questions deliberately left unsettled. The chapter on Philosophical Problems is quite properly studded with question marks. Its aim is to arouse in the beginner a sense of the difficulties facing one in each of the philosophical disciplines. The problems are ob- jectively stated and do not try to decide matters ahead of time under the guise of leading questions. An exception is the treatment of axiology. Neither Thomists nor Kantians will be satisfied with the way in which the speculative and practical parts of philosophy are distinguished. Little room is left for a distinctive practical approach, and hence the theory of values has little standing in its own right. Its content is parcelled out among metaphysics and philosophical anthropology. The author does not have sufficient regard for the influence of right appetite and the demands of moral and artistic good in working out theories of practical life.

Despite its tea-party title, the third part of this Introduction is not pri- narily hortatory and inspirational. It gives a sober listing of the various philosophical departments, academies, societies, and congresses. Quite useful to beginners is an exceptionally complete bibliographical essay of sixty pages, providing basic information about philosophical ency-clo- paedias, dictionaries, histories, general collections, journals, and other tools of research. Finally, those who have followed the discussion on Thomism and theology between Professors Cunningham and Anderson in this journal (Vol. X, pp. 251 ff.), will be interested in De Raeymaeker's authoritative handling of two delicate questions: the meaning of Christian philosophy (pp. 20-26), and the Catholic Church's position on the authority of St. Thomas (pp. 167-75). The following conclusions are noteworthy as bearing upon the American dispute. "Philosophy in itself is by no means Christian but remains by definition simply rational and purely human" (p. 24). "The Church does not impose the system of St. Thomas, nor any of his theories, upon the faithful. In no way does she claim infallibility for the Angelic Doctor. Nor does she declare that the period of scientific and philosophic progress was definitely closed at the death of the Angel of the Schools" (p. 172).

JAMES COLLINS.

ST. Louis UNIVERSITY.

Du temps et de 1'eternite, LOUIS LAVELLE. . (Philosophie de lEsprit) Paris, Aubier, Editions Montaigne, 1945. Pp. vii, 446. Louis Lavelle is, with Rene Le Sennel, one of the leaders of the move-

ment, "Philosophie de l'Esprit," and editor of the collection of publications

1 Cf. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. X, No. 1, pp. 149-152.

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602 PHILOSOPHY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL RESEARCH

bearing the same title.2 He started his career as a philosopher with a thesis on "La dialectique du monde sensible" and a minor thesis on "La perception visuelle de la profondeur." Having thus studied the meta- physical problem of the relationship of sensation and idea, he em- barked upon the most ambitious enterprise of his life, the "Dialectique de l'eternel present," of which "De l'6tre" and "De l'acte" were already published when the volume under consideration appeared. Pertaining to the same order of ultimate metaphysical questions, but presented in a less technical form, is "La presence totale." Lavelle has also to his credit works which he calls "moral," such as the beautiful "Conscience de soi," "L'erreur de Narcisse," "Le mal et la souffrance" and "La parole et l'ecriture." His "Philosophic chronicles" comprise titles such as "Le moi et son destin" and "La philosophie francaise entre les deux guerres."

"Du Temps et de l'eternit6," the third part of the "Dialectique de l'eternel present," is divided into four books of three chapters each: I. Time and Participation (1. The Deduction of Time; 2. Time and Space; 3. Time and Individuation); II. The ideality of Time (4. The Sense of Time; 5. The Relations of Presence and of Absence; 6. Time and Ideation); III. The Phases of Time (7. The Present and the Instant; 8. The Future; 9. The Past); IV. Time and Eternity (10. The Becoming; 11. Duration; 12. Eternity).

Lavelle's metaphysics is mostly concerned with the preservation of the unity of the absolute being, while maintaining the essence of the human personality. Thus, in this work, he attempts to transcend the classical opposition between phenomenal Time and absolute Eternity. He calls his philosophy one of "participation," in which time is conceived, not as an outside object, nor a mere form inherent in the mind, but as the essential activity itself of the mind.

it is the mind which, through the limitation to which participation subjects it, places the objects in Time, and, to the extent that it has a rep- resentation of them, situates them in the becoming of temporal conscious- ness.

The mind always goes beyond the present object, but by going beyond, it shows that it is not itself engaged in Time. It creates Time not only in order to situate the object in it, but to overcome the boundaries in which any object threatens to imprison it, and to draw from the object its truly non- temporal significance. This is why the object is for the mind the test of a possibility, which receives only through it, i.e., at once through its event and through its disappearance, its true fulfillment. Then, the future and the past, far from excluding one another, call for each other, and out of their union is formed this eternal operation of the mind which is the idea itself....

The mind, finally, never ceases to create Time as the very condition of its activity: it is the mind which produces in Time the sensible and perish-

2 Cf. Philosophy and Phenomnenological Research, Vol. VII, No. 1, pp. 7-8.

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REVIEWS 603

able presence, both as an expression of its limitation and as an ever renewed contact with the totality of being, for which its subjective life never ceases to call in order to be confronted with it. All its operations are accomplished in Time, but by their accomplishment, they abolish Time and the gap which Time has made between being and myself, i.e. between myself and mind itself. It is in Time that the mind pursues its own life, and there is Time only for it: but the Time of the Mind, far from being a constraint like the time of the object, is, so to speak, the very career of liberty. If it seems to drag the mind out of itself, it is only in order to enter the mind in turn; thus, it is more true to say that time is in the mind than to say that the mind is in time."3

Time originates in "the fundamental operation through which is con- stituted our own existence as part of a whole which surpasses it, but in which it participates.... This operation is a constant experience, ... it is such as to bring about Time as the very means by which it realizes itself and without which we would be unable either to acquire within the whole an independent existence, nor continue to participate in it."4

It is not possible to summarize the various aspects of this profound integration of Time and Eternity. The method followed by the author is a rather direct approach to the problems themselves, with little reference to the 'history of philosophy; Kant and Bergson are, the most frequently mentioned, with greater praise for the former, although he considers Time only as a form. The analysis of the problems is always exhaustive on both the logical and the psychological level; Lavelle is true to the conception of philosophy as a "description of experience," so that his persuasive force stems less from argumentation than from mere presentation of the'ideas. It must be pointed out also that the thesis of our "eternization" through Time and in Time has ethical and even religious aspects, which are stated with winning intelligence and without spirit of controversy.

Independent as Lavelle's work is from the trends in American philosophy, it is of great importance and richness, and deserves careful'study by all those interested in a philosophy of the Mind.5

CHARLES JACQUES BEYER. THE UNIVERSITY OF BUFFALO

Daemonie des Willens. FRITZ-JOACHIM VON RINTELEN. Mainz am Rhein, Verlag Kirchheim & Co., 1947. Pp. xix, 186. Joachim von Rintelen wrote in the years 1941-1945 an extensive opus

of which Daemonie des Willens is the first part. The following sections will

3 Translated by this reviewer from Chap. VI, "Time and Ideation," paragraph 3 "Time, or the Career of the Mind," pp. 197-198.

4Translated by this reviewer from the introduction to Chap. I, "The Deduction of Time," p. 10.

5 This book of Lavelle has also been reviewed, in French, in Les Etudes Philoso- phiques, by J. Paliard (Jan.-Mar. 1946), pp. 34-39.

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