The First Function Of A Book Review

Words Signify Man's Refusal To Accept The World As It Is.

The Refusal To Belong To Any School Of Thought, The Repudiation Of The Adequacy Of Any Body Of Beliefs Whatever, And Especially Of Systems, And A Marked Dissatisfaction With Traditional Philosophy As Superficial, Academic, And Remote From Life-that Is The Heart Of Existentialism.

There Is Thus A Certain Plausibility To Nietzsche's Doctrine, Though It Is Dynamite. He Maintains In Effect That The Gulf Separating Plato From The Average Man Is Greater Than The Cleft Between The Average Man And A Chimpanzee.

It Was Also Hegel Who Established The View That The Different Philosophic Systems That We Find In History Are To Be Comprehended In Terms Of Development And That They Are Generally One-sided Because They Owe Their Origins To A Reaction Against What Has Gone Before.

The First Function Of A Book Review Should Be, I Believe, To Give Some Idea Of The Contents And Character Of The Book.