Gordon Clark Review of The Philosophies of F.R. Tennant and John Dewey by J. Oliver Buswell (The Southern Presbyterian Journal)

1951. Review of The Philosophies of F.R. Tennant and John Dewey by J. Oliver Buswell. Southern Presbyterian Journal. 14 Feb.: 14.

THE PHILOSOPHIES OF F. R. TENNANT AND JOHN DEWEY. by J. Oliver Buswell. Jr. Philosophical Library. $6.

Dr. Buswell, President of Shelton College, undertakes in 500 pages to show that the particular applications of empirical method by two philosophers prevent them from arriving at the Christian position. In this he is eminently successful. He also argues that the empirical method, if properly enlarged, would serve as a basis for Christian apologetics.

The work is of course intricate and detailed. Perhaps this necessary virtue is its chief fault. So many points are raised and so many incidental criticisms are made in the extended analysis that a unified impression is difficult to obtain. Sometimes a footnote steals the show; for example note 48 on pp. 309-313 is particular interesting and intrinsically important.

Of course, in a work like this, there are always questions of historical interpretation. For example, Dr. Buswell objects to Dewey's statement that "Descartes defined natural existence as extension" (pp. 365-366) ; and Dr. Buswell gives some reasons for his objection. None the less, Dewey's interpretation is the usual one. See Windelband, History of Philosophy (tr. by Tufts) pp. 405-406; and B. A. G. Fuller, History of Philosophy (1945) Part II, p. 65.

Or again. Dr. Buswell asserts (p. 181), "The fact that Descartes advanced an inductive form of the ontological argument is known to very few. Philosophy teachers of my acquaintance are inclined to deny it." And later (p. 185) "Descartes labels the argument an a posteriori one in so many words. It is truly amazing that the fact has not been more widely recognized.

There is really nothing amazing at all. Most philosophers agree that Descartes gave two proofs of God's existence, though some subdivided them and count the four. No one denies that the first of the two is an a posteriori. The point at issue is whether a posteriori argument, an inductive argument, one that proceeds from effect to cause, can properly be called ontological, as Dr. Buswell calls it. An inductive ontological argument, in my opinion at least, would be an a posteriori a prior argument; and I would conclude that neither Descartes nor anyone else ever produced such a monstrosity.

Dr. Buswell is to be commended for making a courageous attack on unbelief in the field of scholarship. May this book of his stimulate others to make a similar attempt. — Gordon H. Clark.