The main objective of Science and the Philosophy of Organism is a discussion of the philosophy of organism. The larger part of the work is devoted to providing the reader with the scientific background required to approach this main objective, which Driesch hopes will ultimately show not merely a loose connection between science and philosophy, but rather their close connection under a particular understanding. Nature is analysed as the Givenness of the One, and philosophy is understood as an endeavour to understand this Givenness. '[W]hether nature is studied with regard to what it actually is, that is to say, what really happens in it, or whether we try to discover which elemental parts of our mental organisation come into play in conceiving nature and what "nature" means in the sphere of metaphysics' (374-75) is of little difference – 'the first is generally called science, the latter philosophy. But in the last resort there is only one kind of human knowledge' (375). The philosophy of living nature is expounded on the basis of a thoroughgoing exposition of biological organism centred around three essential features: its form, metabolism and movement. Driesch sees the most important part of his philosophical account as the analysis he makes of the direct justification of entelechy.

Hobson’s series of twenty lectures are concerned with establishing how the relation between the complex of knowledge and ideas denoted by the term Natural Science ought to relate to the other factors of human experience with which religion and philosophy are concerned. Hobson first gives a general account of what is essentially involved in the scientific outlook, surveying its methods as a means to establishing its domain.

In The Sciences and Philosophy Haldane discusses in 20 lectures the relation between the sciences and philosophy. The first part of the book, “The Sciences”, gives an account to the axioms or general conceptions of different parts of knowledge or science. In the second part “Philosophy” the different and apparently contradictory conceptions of the sciences and religion are discussed, focusing on their relations to each other.

Taking as his first premise that man’s attitude to nature is intimately connected with and powerfully influences his conception of God, an examination of man’s attitude towards nature is therefore a prerequisite in any study of religion. In the first series of lectures, Raven examines man’s attitude toward nature from the time of the early Church to the present.

Heidi Poon
University of Edinburgh