THE CASE FOR MODERN MAN

by Charles Frankel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 18, 1955

Professor Frankel, the editor of The Uses of Philosophy (page 530, 1955), has stepped forward to defend liberalism on the four major philosophic fronts where Maritain, Niebhur, Mannheim and Toynbee have attacked it. He returns fire summarily but in a sound, well thought out pattern. Maritain scorns contemporary society for detaching man from enduring, absolute, values outside him. His morality, centered within himself, becomes mere opinion; his ideals, suppositions. Frankel replies that human values are by no means, to the liberal, indefensible or inadequate for being relativistic. Niebhur believes that man, finite in nature, must never cherish the liberal's illusion of perfectibility for the illusion plunges man ever deeper into original sin; it oversteps the intended limits of man's capacity. Frankel feels the freedom to choose, act, desire in no way removes man from the causal laws of ""reality"" surrounding him. Mannheim throws overboard the potential validity of reason, which is hopelessly part of the total social consciousness. Frankel argues the mind and numbers of minds confront reality with tests and, unless science is humbug, reason is not totally a victim of mass deception. Toynbee gloriously unrolls the pageant of civilizations, all ending at the fateful moment when their inspiring religious core dies away, and underlines that such is today's plight, fostered by liberal intellectualism. Frankel retorts that the evidence Toynbee adduces is made to serve his conclusions by sheer arbitrariness. he book smacks of the cavalier at times but it is constructive and its points well taken. Intellectuals of any stamp should approve even while they disagree.

Pub Date: Jan. 18, 1955

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harper

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1955

Categories: NONFICTION