Reseña de Choise

Reisch (Northwestern Univ.) and Tuboly (Hungarian Academy of Sciences) present a previously unpublished philosophical opus by the physicist and logical positivist Philipp Frank, member of the Vienna Circle, and friend and biographer of Einstein (see Einstein: His Life and Times, translated by George Rosen, 2nd ed., 2002 ) who in 1938 immigrated to the US and finished his career at Harvard University. An introduction by the editors provides a detailed account of Frank's life--his years in Prague (1912--1938) and major intellectual collaborations within the German Physical Society--finally situating his work within the intellectual and institutional context of American philosophy during the years following WW II. Frank's largely forgotten manuscript (discovered in a desk drawer after his retirement) attempts to reconcile positivist philosophy with postwar--in other words post-nuclear--demands to integrate the philosophy of science with a robust understanding of human values. American pragmatism influenced Frank, and his treatise offers a fascinating historical window on the intellectual currents of mid-century American philosophy. Thanks to the archival research of these editors, the work is now available and likely to be of particular interest to historians of science and philosophy. Because Frank's manuscript lay unpublished and never became an influential text, its greatest appeal will be to readers with strong historical interests. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students and faculty. General readers. --Joseph D. Martin, Durham University