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VOL. XLVI, NO. 9





ARDMORE and BRYN MAWR, PA., WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1949

Copyright, Trustees of
Bryn Mawr College, 1949

PRICE 15 CENTS



Quine Analyzes
Characteristics
Of “Identities”

Genesis of Symbolism,
Universals Sifted
By Quine .

Specially contributed
by Hugues LeBlanc

The De Laguna lecture in Phil-
osophy was given Monday night in
the Music Room of Goodhart by
Dr. W. V. Quine.

Entitled: “Identity”, it was an
analysis of the part played by ‘=’
doth in the. genesis of universals
and the genesis of symbolism.
Quine opened his talk with a ref-
erence to Heraclitus and his al-
deged saying that one cannot bathe
_twice in the same river. He stress-
"ed the fact that. concrete entities
or particulars, like rivers, are
time-consuming processes of which
we perceive only momentary
stages. To restore continuity with-
in our experience, we postulate
that these various stages merge;
we integrate them into a single
spatio-temporal whole and then de
fine this whole by ‘ostension.

Quine then underlined the fact
that many so-called universals, like
red, can be manufacttired by the
same process. The integration,
this time, is a conceptual one; it
is the summation of all the in-
stances of a given universal; in
our example, the summation of all
red patches. Red thus explains
away as the scattered total of all
red parts, and is ostensively de-
fined by our pointing to a given
part of the sum. In our framing
both of particulars and of uni.
versals, we rely on Leibniz’ prin-
ciple of the identity of the indis-
cernibles. In framing particulars
a river, for example, we disregard
the temporal discontinuity of the
various stages of the event; in
framing universals, red, for ex-
ample, we disregard the special
discontinuity of the various in-
stances of the property.

Quine mentioned that for Frege

identity was the criterion of de-
notativity, since ‘=’ can be flanked
only by names, and names denote





Mr.

Artists Perform
Mozart, Debussy
At First Concert

by Frances Shirley, 53

The first of this year’s series of
five Young Musicians’ Concerts was
held on Sunday afternoon, Decem-
ber 4th, at the home of Miss Ely.
The concert was well-attended, and
Mr. Silverstein and Anthony di
Bonadventura, the performing art-
ists, both students at the Curtis
Institute, played a diversified pro-
gram that leaned to the classical.
Mr. Silverstein was especially to
be commended, for he substituted
for Jean Sandbank, the scheduled
violinist, on about twenty-four
hours’ notice. .

Mr. Silverstein’s appearance
necessitated some changes in the
planned program. The first of these
was the substitution of Mozart’s
lovely first Sonata in A major for
piano and violin for the Chausson
Poeme. In the playing of the son-
ata, which is divided into an Al-
legro and a Theme and Variations,
Mr. Silverstein seemed a _ bit
strained. However, his technique
and intonation were good and
though the higher register of his
playing was at times a bit strident,
the over-all effect was good. Hap-
pily, in the second movement the
artists were more at their ease,
and the lightheartedness of Mozart
came through the music. Mr. di
Bonadventura supplied the same
exemplary pianistic support here
as he did in the reading of the
Mendelssohn “Concerto.”

The Bach “Chromatic Fantasy
and Fugue” was Mr. di Bonad-
ventura’s first selection, and he

Continued on Page 6

Jose Ferrater Mora





Continued on Page 2

Schrecker Commentary Applies
To Fall Issue of Counterpoint

by Anne Greet, ’50

Counterpoint’s fall issue is stim-
ulating, diversified, and promises
well for the year. The balance of
prose to poetry is about right and
a fairly good level of writing is
maintained from beginning to end.
Dr. Paul SchrecKer’s excellent es-
‘say “What’s Wrong With College
Writing” is in fact the best crit-
icism that can be made of the issue
as a whole, for many of the poems
and stories “echo the avant-garde
of yesterday, leaving a papery
taste.” Mr. Schrecker suggests
two closely-allied standards that
editors of college magazines might
keep in mind when choosing their
material; one, that what is accept-
ed should “aspire to a validity in-
dependent of the age and condition
of the writer,” and, two, that col-
‘lege writers should take care to

preserve their own integrity when |

using what they have read as a



model or source of inspiration.
“When you read the authons you
admire, their world becomes yours.
But when you sit down to create
yourselves, the world is no longer
the same.”

If Rat and Mole had ever read
Plato the resulting conversation
might have sounded like that of
A and B in Gwynne Williams’ “Dis-
perse!” the most original contri-
bution in this issue. Her ideas on
dispersal are delightful and the
dialogue is adeptly managed. Of
the stories, Herbert Cheyette’s
“Hallowen” is the best. In spite
of a slow beginning, an unneces-
sary last sentence, and a tendency

towards arty description, his story.
of a lunatic is believeable, imagin- |

ative, and very appealing, with an
underlying meaning which is un-
obtrusively made clear.
The remaining prose contribu-
Continued on Page 5

opher with sly-humor is Mr. Jose

in, Mexico in 1941.

‘under the auspices of a Guggen-



Scholar, Professor, Philosopher
Gives NEWS 5 Star Cigarette

by Joan McBride, ’52

Scholar, professor, and_philos-

Maria Ferrater Mora, new lecturer
in the. Spanish department. When
we ventured into his office, he was
looking -over some _ publisher’s
proofs of his third edition of a
“bulky” dictionary of philosophy.
“It is much bulkier than the sec-
ond edition,” which was published

“This‘is Mr. Ferrater Mora’s first
year in an American college. He
came to the United States in 1947,

heim Fellowship, and spent most
of his time doing research in New
York, Princeton, and Baltimore. |
“I like it very much in New. York,”
he said with a smile, “where it is,
quiet, pleasing, restful, and the
tools of research are numerous.
There you seem to be without a



Schrecker Traces
Physics Principle
Of “Least Action”

Park, December 6: Speaking on
the Early History of the Principle
of Least Action at this year’s first
Sigma Xi Meeting, Dr. Paul
Schrecker. emphasized
prineiple is the only one which has
survived all theoretical revolutions
in physics since its conception. The
history of science is incomprehen-
sible without this principle, which
certainly existed _in embryonic
form long before its actual formu-
lation and can be traced back as
far as to Leukippos in the fifth
century B.C. Aristotle, stating it
teleologically, said that “God and
nature do not do anything in vain”.
The emphasis on the qualification
“in vain” remains in the scientific
proofs of the Alexandrians.

The principle, first applied by
the Greeks to the science of optics.
was adapted to geometry; it later
emerged in dynamic form and as
a principle of determination rather
than as one of teleology. Aquinas
subsequently interpreted it as a ra-
tional principle, stressing the ef-
ficacity of secondary causes when
stating that the actions of natural

Continued on Page 3



CALENDAR

Thursday, December 8

4:00 p. m., Bryn Mawr Sum-
mer Camp Tea, Common Room.
Friday, December 9

8:30 p. m., Drama Guild Pro-
duction, “Elizabeth the Queen,”
Roberts Hall, Haverford.
Saturday, December 10

8:30 p. m., “Elizabeth the
Queen.”
Sunday, December 11

8:00 p. m., Christmas Con-

cert, Goodhart.
Monday, December 12

7:15 p. m., Current Events:
Guicharnaud, Van den Heuvel
“Politics in France,’ Common
Room.

8:15 p. m., German Club Play,
“Urfaust,” Music Room.
Tuesday, December 13

8:30 p. m., French Club Play,
Wyndham.

Wednesday, December 14

8:30 p. m., Spanish Club Par-
ty, Wyndham.

Thursday, December 15

Christmas Dinner.

that. .this |.









problem, though you know there
are problems all around you.” Then
he.added, “But at Bryn Mawr, you
are not obliged to travel in a sub-
way, which ‘is the end of all re-
search, except for the social
sciences, where you can watch
how people behave in the sub-
ways.”

At that point, Mr. Ferrater Mora
offered us a Five Star cigarette,
long, flat, and mild, sold only in
Philadelphia. “It gives me my only
excuse to make a trip into Phila-
delphia,” he smiled self-indulgent-
ly.

He was born in Barcelona and
educated at the University of Bar-
celona. He taught for five years
at the University of Chile, then
lectured for two years in Cuba.
He is interested rather in the pro-
blems and history of philosophy
than in a specific field. “Philosophy
is like a nucleus, around which one
may study many. fields, such as
biology, the Bible, literature.” One
of his problems for investigation
was Death, which he treated in El
Sentido de la Muerte. He also
wrote Sobre el Espiritu, and ex-
plained that the word “espiritu”
may be interpreted in two differ-
ent ways: psychologically as mind,
and historically as spirit. This last
book is “particularly appealing be-
cause of its bright green cover.”

Continued on Page 5

White Discusses

Quaker Proposals

specially contributed by
Isabel Witt and Jean Theis

“We felt we did not deserve the
Nobel Prize for Peace, of which
we were,the partial recipients in
1948, so we began to search for
some project that would better ful-
fill our conception of the signifi-
cance of such an award.” Thus
President Gilbert White of Haver-
ford explained the genesis of the
report: The United States and the
Soviet Union, Some Quaker Pro-
posals for Peace.

President White served as chair-
man of the Working Party on
American-Soviet Relations of the
American Friends Service Commit-
tee, which prepared and drew up
this report. Summarizing its con-

Continued on Page 3

Experimenters —
(Offer Amusing
Barrie, Langner

Actresses Anonymous
Presents Students
In Two Plays

by Judith Konowitz, ’51

In its first program, two one-act
plays which were presented in the
Skinner Workshop on Friday,
Actresses Anonymous was full of
surprises. The cast was neither all
actresses nor all anonymous, and
what one might have expected to
be a serious experimental evening
turned out to be a highly enter-
taining, if dramatically unpreten-
tious performance.

The double-bill opened with J.
M. Barrie’s classic “The Twelve
Pound Look”... a subtle commen-
tary on the emancipation of wo-
men. Molly Allen handled the
tongue-in-cheek characterization of
Kate with ease and charm. Elspeth
Winton was convincing as_ the
‘dominated, passive wife of a stuffy
Sir Harry. The latter part, un-
fortunately, was over-acted by J.
N. Smith, whose heavy, almost
slap-stick interpretation was out
of place in Barrie’s delightfully
light comedy ... a lack of polish
probably due to the one-week pro-
duction limit.

The second play, “Another Way
Out” by Laurence Langner... &
comedy of “Immorals” was an
amateur actor’s delight. The hu-
morous characters and their un-

Continued on Page 6



CHRISTMAS CONCERT

The Christmas Concert will
be given at 8:00, December 11,
in Goodhart. After the Invo-
cation, delivered by the Rever-
end Andrew Mutch, the Bryn
Mawr College Chorus will sing
three Czech carols: Harken To
Me; Sleep, Baby, Sleep; Strang-
ers Say A King is Born; and
Zoltan Kodaly’s Angels and the
Shepherds. The orchestra will
play Manfredini’s Sinfonia; the
Haverford Glee Club will sing
three carols, and the mixed
chorus will sing a group of tra-
ditional carols.











West Point Conference Seeks
Solution to European Problems

by Emily Townsend, 50

“Let me urge you to remember
that this is not just an idle gath-
ering under pleasant auspices and
with gracious hosts, to pass a few
days in friendly intellectual inter-
course. On the contrary, it is an
institution, and I am referring to
this method of conference, which
lies at the very heart of our Amer-
ican democratic political process.”

The West Point conference on
U. S. foreign policy lasted from
Wednesday to Sunday ,and taught
us that planning foreign policy is
an almost hopelessly complex pro-
cedure, that even slightly favor-
able compromise agreements are
miracles to be prayed for, and that
all the delegates suffered from lack
of adequate information. The ca
dets were probably the best-train-
ed in security problems which is
all I can answer for. Hanna Hol-
born, the other Bryn Mawr dele-

‘gate, was impressed with the mod-

eration of the political groups.

After four days of really hard
work we came to realize that there
is no immediate answer to the
European situation, that every
move must be made with extraor-
dinary delicacy and balance, and
is likely to backfire dangerously.
We were disappointed at our in-
ability to come to any conclusions
which were compatible among out
three groups on politics, econom-
ics, and security, but West Point
was pleased: “If you had found an
answer, you would have been
wrong,” said Colonel Beukema,
who directed the conference.

The Army was a superb host,
and brought us a number of distin-
guished men for help. Grayson
Kirk, Provost of Columbia, part of
whose opening speech I quoted at
the start, Admiral Davis, who



Continued on Page 2