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NONTHEMATIC / Vol. 29, No. 3 (Fall 1962)


[U]ntil we understand for ourselves the classical conception of ‘nature,’ the rejection of which has led us into our present difficulties, we can no more than pretend that the conception of nature embedded in modern theory is anything like a solid foundation on which to rest all our hopes and expectations.

The explanation of population changes relies on three basic variables--fertility, mortality, and migration (the latter will not be discussed in this article)--for any factors affecting the numbers and distribution of people must operate through one or more of these variables; a population cannot change in any other way.

Detection and censure of the genetic fallacy is one of the most securely established of contemporary philosophic practices. Perhaps the most frequently encountered formulation of the fallacy is of this type: to claim that the genesis of a proposition or belief is relevant to, or has bearing on, its validity is to commit the genetic fallacy. The principle violated is that genesis has no bearing on validity.

Perhaps Captain Ahab, in Moby Dick, furnished the first account of the normal, largely painless amputation phantom, though the carpenter’s remarks indicate that there must have been some popular knowledge concerning this phenomenon. In the pages to follow I would like to explore what these things ‘wondrous strange and prodigious’ can teach us about human reality.

Recent discussion of the causes of inflation again bring out the tendency of a majority of economists to jump on the current model-building bandwagon, no matter how rickety its theoretical and empirical underpinnings may be...The purpose of this paper is to examine the Joint Economic Committee’s contribution to our understanding of inflation and its control.

Extended discussion of Henry Rosovsky's Capital Formation in Japan, 1868-1940 and Alexander Eckstein's The National Income of Communist China.

Discussion of Nicolas Spulber's The Soviet Economy: Structure, Principles, Problems and Alec Nove's The Soviet Economy: An Introduction.

Review of book by Daniel M. Holland. A Study by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Princeton: Princeton University press. 1962. 189 pp.

Review of book by John Maurice Clark. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. 1961. 501 pp.

Review of book by Joost A. M. Meerloo. Great Neck, NY: Channel Press. 1961. 190 pp.

Review of book by Sidney Hook. New York: New York University Press, 1961. 333 pp.

Review of book edited by Ralph B. Winn. New York: Philosophical Library. 1960. 122 pp.

Review of book by W. Stark. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 1961. 214 pp.

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