Showing papers in "Journal of the History of Philosophy in 1973"

An Unpublished MS of Leibniz on the Allegiance Due to Sovereign Powers

Abstract: LEIBNIZ ) COMMENTARY ON WILLIAM SHERLOCK'S The Case of the Allegiance due to Soveraign Powers -wh ich is publ ished here, for the first time, through the generous permission of the Leibniz-Archiv at the Nieders~ichsische Landesbibliothek in H a n o v e r t d o e s not revolutionize one 's view of his political philosophy; but it does provide us with a \"new\" and wholly characteristic political letter which has the merit of helping to complete his mos t impor tant correspondence dealing with theoretical and practical politics, the Brielwechsel with the Scottish nobleman Thomas Burnett. This exchange of letters, which extended f rom 1695 to 1713, contains some of Leibniz ' mos t significant political passages. including one that has no parallel anywhere in his writings: \"The end of political science with regard to the doctrine of forms of commonweal ths , mus t be to make the empire of reason flourish . . . . Arbi t rary power is what is directly opposed to

The Mirror of Language: A Study in the Medieval Theory of Knowledge (review)

Abstract: over the earth); Astronomy; and Harmony. These highly deta i led sections will be of immense value to historians of these disciplines. In his \"Conclusion,\" Stahl argues that Lat in science was indeed in the D a r k Ages until the twelfth-century Renaissance. Since Roman society lost contact with original thinkers, living only on handbooks, it fell into intellectual decay. This decline of knowledge, Stahl argues, was largely the fault of textbook writers like Mart ianus, who gathered snippets of knowledge and put them into a pretty form, without caring about the logical connection between the ideas -and without even giving, let alone critically evaluating, the sources of the ideas. We may wonder whether blaming the decline of sc ience--a decline which was real enough, especially in the mathematical sciences---on textbook writers is not putt ing the cart before the horse. Textbook writers are always with us; why was this society content to accept the handbooks without criticism? Much more at tention is due the economic, social, and religious forces active in Mart ianus ' t ime than Stahl has provided. Several other questions also seem to me worthy of further consideration. How much, and how and when, did the existence of handbooks like Mar t ianus ' help promote the first translations of Greek science from the Arabic or Greek into Latin? In what ways did the rediscovered and translated Greek works interact with Mar t ianus ' book? What was the nature of Mar t ianus ' influence after the twelfth century? One last criticism: the several hands at work on this volume, together with Professor Stahl's untimely death, have somewhat decreased the book's readabil i ty and unity, though not its scholarly excellence. Stahl, together with Johnson and Burge, have produced a well-researched, valuable, and sometimes exciting book. A forthcoming second volume will provide a translat ion and commentary on the text of the De Nuptiis. Meanwhile, the present volume is an excellent historical introduct ion to Mart ianus Capella 's book, about which Stahl has so well said: \"Half classical, half medieval, his work may be hkened to the neck of an hourglass through which the classical liberal arts trickled to the medieval world.\" JUDITH V. GRABINER Claremont, Cali[ornia

The Historical and Conceptual Relations between Kant's Metaphysics of Space and Philosophy of Geometry

Abstract: IN THE \"TRANSCENDENTAL AESTHETIC\" Of the Kritik der reinen Vernun]t, K a n t formulates and argues for three related doctrines concerning space and geometry: 9 (1) Space is the pure a priori form of outer intuition. (2) Geometrical truth is a priori and synthetic. (3) The metric of humanly intuited space is Euclidean, and therefore the propositions of Euclid's geometry are a priori synthetic truths. The generally accepted view that the third doctrine somehow follows deductively from the first two, indeed, that Kant used it in their initial justification, has been the source of several apparently serious criticisms not only of the Aesthetic but also of Kant's entire epistemology and metaphysics, x In particular, three objections having their source in recent research in mathematics and psychology seem to cast considerable doubt on the defensibility of the second and third doctrines. The two criticisms stemming from mathematics, namely, that geometries other than the Euclidean are formulable with complete logical consistency, a fact many believe Kant could not have been aware of, and that some persons can actually visualize non-Euclidean spatial images, were most powerfully advanced by Hans Reichenbach. 2 The second of Reichenbach's criticisms is effectively generalized by the psychological research of R. K. Luneberg and A. A. Blank, the conclusion to be drawn from which, according to Adolf Griinbaum, is that \"although the physical space in which sensory depth perception by binocular vision is effective is Euclidean, the binocular r/suM space resulting from psychometric coordination possesses a Lobatchevskian hyperbolic geometry of constant curvature. ''s Because

Aristotle's Politics of Morals

Abstract: NOWHERE IN THE ARISTOTELIAN CORPUS is there any mention of a science (or art) of ethics or mora l philosophy. Aristotle expressly declares that the \" inqui ry\" of the Nicomachean Ethics is \"a political one\" ( g ~ 0 o ~ o q . . . lroLt~t~:r zig o6cra, 1094b11; cf. 1095a2, 15). The Eudemian Ethics takes it for granted that the reader (or audience) understands its \" inqui ry\" to be political (1216b35-39, 1218a33-35, 1234b22-24). The Great Ethics, an early peripatetic treatise ( though likely not by Aristotle himself) calls itself \"a political pursui t\" (1181b26-27; of. 1197628-29)? Yet even most of those scholars who note one or more of these facts proceed to dismiss them and treat the Nicomachean Ethics and Politics as if their respective subject-matters consti tuted two interrelated but distinct bodies of knowledge, investigated by two interrelated but distinct sciences or branches of p h i l o s o p h y ethics and political theory. It is usually noted t.hat the latter port ion of the tenth book of the Nicomachean Ethics is a transit ion from ethics to politics, for it is generally agreed that the subject-matters of the Politics are introduced and anticipated here. Often also we find statements to the effect that Aristotle combined (fused, confounded) ethies and politics into a comprehensive \" h u m a n ph i losophy\" (EN 1181b15) but a phi losophy which, as unders tood by these scholars, includes as its parts or its branches a science of ethics and a science of politics, in name perhaps the same but in effect two different sciences, arts, or fields of philosophical study. While opinions on this matter are found in several grades along the scale which would extend f rom unity to complete separatism, the bulk of scholars ' opinions clearly collect very near the separatist end, while the scholars themselves

Kant’s Critique of Berkeley

Abstract: This chapter shows that despite the superficial similarities to which Turbayne and others point, Immanuel Kant’s transcendental standpoint differs fundamentally from George Berkeley’s position, and that Kant’s criticisms are a legitimate and philosophically significant expression of this difference. The claim that Kant’s idealism, or at least certain strands of it. is essentially identical to that of Berkeley has a long and distinguished history. Since Kant viewed Berkeley’s “dogmatic idealism” as a logical development of Cartesianism, the task can best be accomplished by means of an analysis of that portion of the Critique wherein Kant most fully defines his transcendental idealism in opposition to the Cartesian theory of ideas, viz. the fourth Paralogism in the first edition. The argument of the fourth Paralogism: “Of Ideality.” constitutes the first version of the “Refutation of Idealism,” and was completely recast in the second edition.

Nietzsche and Nihilism

Abstract: WAS NIETZSCHE A NIHILIST. 9 I t is widely thought that he was; and Arthur Danto, in his book Nietzsche as Philosopher, 1 subscribes wholeheartedly to this view. Indeed, Danto claims that \"Nihilism\" is \"the central concept of his philosophy.\" 2 He attributes to Nietzsche \"a deep and total Nihil ism\" 3---one which \"is not an ideology but a metaphysics.\" 4 Nietzsche, he states, makes \"unbridled claims in behalf of this extreme Nihilism\"; s and he asserts that \"Nietzsche's philosophy is a sustained at tempt to work out the reasons for and the consequences of Nihilism . . . . \" ~ In short, according to Danto, \"Nietzsche's is a philosophy of Nihilism.\" 7 Is Danto right? There are several ways in which one might attempt to answer this question. First, one might examine Nietzsche's own assertions about the nature of nihilism, and see whether he explicitly subscribes to it as he himself conceives it. Secondly, one might consider the way in which \"nihilism\" as a philosophical doctrine is standardly defined, and then determine whether or not the definition is applicable to Nietzsche's philosophical views. \"Nihilism\" in the philosophical sense of the term may be defined either as the doctrine that nothing true can be said about reality, or (more narrowly) as the doctrine that there are no objectively valid axiological principles. Nietzsche might thus legitimately be termed a \"nihilist\" if it were the case that he subscribes to either (or both) of these doctrines. (Danto claims that he subscribes to both.) I t is my contention that, whichever way one chooses to approach the question, the answer is that Danto is wrong; and that Nietzsche (or, at any rate, the mature Nietzsche, i.e., f rom Zarathustra--1883--onward) was not a nihilist, either as he himself conceives of \"nihilism,\" or in either of the senses of the term mentioned above. I shall at tempt to show this, first by considering what he himself has to say about nihilism, and then by showing that his actual views are such that the term \"nihilism\" cannot be applied to them in either of the senses indicated, a

Descartes' Natural Light

Abstract: RENI~ DESCARTES BEGINS HIS MnDrrATmNS with the attempt to doubt all his former opinions--the existence of external objects, the existence of his own body, and what he sometimes calls the \"eternal truths\" of arithmetic and geometry. He can even suppose that God is a fable, and that the world is in the hands of an evil genius, who spends all his time deceiving Descartes. But there is, Descartes triumphantly announces, something about which he cannot be deceived: his own existence. The proposition 1 am, 1 exist is necessarily true, each time that I pronounce it, or that I conceive it in my mind. Before long, though, something strange has happened. Certain propositions have eluded the process of universal doubt, and they are said to be \"manifest by the natural light.\" These propositions, which Descartes elsewhere calls \"'axioms,\" \"first principles,\" or \"common notions,\" are absolutely essential in the proofs of the existence of God, and without God the whole Cartesian system would collapse. The natural light, whatever it is, thus plays a critically important role in Descartes' theory of knowledge. Until quite recently, however, the natural light has received very little attention from writers on Descartes. Even Anthony Kenny, in his discussion of what he calls the \"principles of natural light\" (putting the phrase in quotation marks, although it never appears in any of Descartes' writings), does not attempt to track down the precise meaning of this curious expression. 1 Kenny has, however, rescued the natural light from the mushy bog in which Norman Kemp Smith left it, in which \"natural light,\" \"reason,\" \"intuition,\" the \"power of knowing,\" \"understanding,\" \"cognitive awareness\" (Kemp Smith's expression) and goodness knows what else are all lumped together as a single faculty of the mind. 2 It is absolutely essential, if we are to understand Descartes at all, to reject Kemp Smith's attempt to identify all these terms with one another; instead, we must track down the meaning of each of them, see how their meanings differ, and avoid any effort to show that they are simply different names for the same mental entity. Although Gilson's Index Scolastico-Cartdsien lists some sixty page references to the lumen naturale in Descartes' writings, most of them appear in or after the

Locke's Theory of Ideas

Abstract: 1. IT Is COMMONLY AGREED both that \"idea\" is the key term in Locke's Essay and that Locke uses the word in divergent and confusing ways. Thus, there is more than a slight chance that one will misunderstand what is meant by \"idea\" and hence not even know what Locke's \"theory of ideas\" is about. One option in this situation is to claim that, as there is no consistent use of \"idea,\" so there is no consistent theory in the Essay. I shall make the opposite claim and try to show that by distinguishing a few basic senses of \"idea\", one can find a powerful and systematic theory in Locke. t I believe that the interpretation I provide both illuminates the text and makes comprehensible much of the subsequent development of the issues which Locke raised. My Locke is admittedly a reconstructed and idealized figure. He uses a different terminology from that of his original and is more concerned to mark distinctions, more worried about blurting them. Nonetheless, I think it will be found that my understanding of Locke is in many respects quite close to traditional views of his thought. I begin by distinguishing several senses of the word \"idea\" and the related phrase \"have an idea\" and then offer a general interpretive sketch of Locke's theory. This is followed by a fuller explanation of the interpretation, along with discussion of the evidence for it.

Hobbes's Theory of Signification

Abstract: ed all audiences from our fictional state; it is inconsistent with our hypothesis that there should be an audience. In brief, there is no real possibility of communication for our fictional man and he knows this. Accordingly he cannot be said to perform actions intending them to be such that should there be an audience, and so oil. Let us return now to Hobbes's own examples of non-linguistic signs (see B) . A man, by hypothesis deprived of the real possibility of an audience could use a bush to, say, mark for himself a source of drink, or place stones to remind himself of the boundary between two crops he had planted in his solitary world. But the bush and the stones are not signs, as they are for an innkeeper who expects an occasional audience, or the man marking a boundary, who does the same. Since Hobbes's account of the use of arbitrary, but non-linguistic, signs makes it close to our notion of signalling, and since communication with an audience is built into that notion, in the way indicated, thus far Hobbes's theory of signification is difficult neither to understand nor to accept. However, when he insists on the essential (definitional) connection between signification and intention to communicate with an audience in the case of vocal sounds that are words, there are obvious difficulties in the way of even comprehending his views. When, for the second time in Part First of de Corpore, Hobbes says that a man alone in the world \"may be a philosopher,\" (mentioning Adam as having this capacity) he presents us with a more detailed account than hitherto of the employment of names as marks. We are given a picture of a lone geometer, apparently muttering geometrical theorems to himself every time he sees a triangle or other geometrical figure. But, Hobbes maintains with no reservations, the language use of this man does not, and cannot, constitute speech, his words do not and cannot have signification. For example, if any man, by considering a triangle set before him, should find that all its angles together taken are equal to two right angles, and that by thinking of the same tacitly, without any use of words either understood or expressed; and it should happen afterwards that another triangle, unlike the former, or the same in different situation, should be offered to his consideration, he would not know readily whether the same property were in this last or no, but would be forced, as often as a different triangle were brought before him (and the difference of triangles is infinite) to begin his contemplation anew; which he would have no need to do if he had the use of names, for every universal name denotes the conceptions we have of infinite singular things. Nevertheless, as I said above, they serve as marks for the help of our memory, whereby we register to ourselves our own inventions; but not as signs by which we declare the same to others.4e We are so accustomed to the notion of a man speaking to himself (being both utterer and audience, as it were) that there is an air of extreme paradox in Hobbes's position here. One is tempted to ask whether Hobbes has got himself into the absurd position of denying signification (meaning) to any idiolect, and has done thi~ just because he arbitrarily employs \"significare\" in its sense of \"making known, or declaring something to others.\" The air of paradox is somewhat dispelled when we realize, first, that the lan46 De Corpore, I, vi, 11; E. W./, 79-80. H O BBES O N S I G N I F I C A T I O N 475 guage of a geometer, alone in the universe, would not be an idiolect in the ordinary sense of the term, a language that just happens to be spoken by one m a n m i t would be, in the state of solitude, a language that could be spoken (real possibility understood) only by one man. Moreover, Hobbes makes it plain in the following, very interesting passage, that the language of solitude (we shall refer to it as \"sol-language\" hereafter) differs in certain striking ways f rom language intended for an audience (\"aud-language\" hereafter) . But these words [these vocables of universality and particularity], all, every, some &c. axe not names, but parts only of names; so that every man, and that man which the hearer conceives in his mind, are all one; and some man, and that man which the speaker thought o[, signify the same. From whence it is evident, that the use of signs of this kind, is not for a man's own sake, or for his getting of knowledge by his own private meditation (for every man has his own thoughts sufficiently determined without such helps as these) but for the sake of others; that is, for the teaching and signifying of our conceptions to others; nor were they i n v e n t e d . . , to make us remember, but to make us able to discourse with others. 47 Unfortunately, Hobbes does not elaborate further, on the differences between soland aud-languages. However, it seems at least intuitively clear that the sollanguage, were it for example a version of English, would lack \"a\" and \" the\" along with the vocables listed and that it would have a kind of \"pidgin\" syntax, a minimum of contexture. Finally, and this is perhaps the most important consideration, in understanding Hobbes ' s theory, the soManguage, and its non-signifying use, is not confined to the state of solitude, but exhibited in the use and structure of the language of discovery in a world populated by at least two (see A and C) . The passage quoted above, in which the lone geometer is discussed and his language use related to the state of solitude, is taken f rom a context in which the general discussion concerns the method of intellectual discovery. 4s Taken as an empirical account of our use of language when we are discovering something, Hobbes ' s notion is no doubt unsatisfactory. However, there are two points to keep in mind. First, Hobbes in working with the concept of a rational man, assumes that the creature employs no more language articulation than he needs. Second, something of this kind of language, and this kind of use are found, we think, in those situations in which we are working out for ourselves, for the first time, some sort of problem. In the heat of discovery, we are apt to employ a kind of shorthand language, intelligible only to ourselves. Our mutterings, or jottings, here do seem to function to register and remind, and a bigger vocabulary, and a more articulated syntax, are required for communication. We can summarize the two 4~ Ibid, I, ii, l l ; E. W. I, 22 (voces illae universalitati~ et particularitatis). The translator gives the unusually unhappy rendering, \"But these words . . . which denote universality and part iculari ty. . . .\" Also, without any justification in the text he inserts, in the last sentence quoted, \"only,\" after, \"nor were they invented . . . . \" 48 It was a moot question in the tradition of the Paduan method, whether in writing a work in Science (or Philosophy), the compositivo (\"synthetical\") method or the resolutive (\"analytical\") method should be employed in the exposition. The first kind of exposition would be demonstrative, proceeding from first principles (the way favored by Hobbes); the second would give an account of the procedures which led to the discovery of principles (favored by Descartes). 476 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY points by saying that Hobbes, for the purpose of constructing his theory, thought of discoverers as each, in the moments of discovery, inhabiting a temporary and limited solitude within the populated world, a notion that has some empirical exemplification. The questions that now arise are: What is the relation between the use of sol-language in the state of solitude, and its use in a world where there are audiences? What is the significance of the belore and alter (see C) which Hobbes applies to the relationship between the employment of the sol-language and the aud-language, that is, the employment of names as marks and their employment as signs? In the state of solitude, speech is not possible (real possibility understood); in a world populated with more than one person, speech is possible, but a rational, economy minded man, employs the sol-language for his discoveries. Hobbes, we must remember, is concerned with constructing a theory, what today might be called an explanatory model, not with empirical generalizations or historical remarks. The supposition of the state of solitude, with its consequence that speech is impossible, functions, in the stage of analysis, to reveal a principle--the definitional connection between signifying and intention to communicate. There is a further analogy here with Hobbes's political theory. When the state of nature is \"ended\" with the establishment of the commonwealth, the state of nature, we have seen, does not disappear. It persists in those regions where natural law as interpreted by the sovereign in the form of civil law, is silent. Analogously, the sol-language and its non-signifying employment, do not disappear when the real possibility of an audience is re-introduced. The significance of the before and alter in question is double. F'trst, there is the methodological before and after, involved in the priority of the analytic stage of the Paduan method. Second, if we consider the relation between the notion of discovering something, that p, and that of teaching it, it is clear that there is a logical priority of the first--that is to say, that if one is to teach that p, one must first find out that p. (The sincerity of the teacher is taken for granted in this formulation.) Now that the significance of before and alter in Hobbes's theory has been explicated, we should look at another ease of the persistence of words employed as marks in a world of at least two people. Hobbes says (see C) that names \"standing singly by themselves are marks, because they serve to recall our own thoughts to mind; but they cannot be signs, otherwise than by being disposed and ordered in speech as parts of the same.\" What

Godfrey of Fontaines and the Act-Potency Axiom

Abstract: IN RECENT YEARS there has been considerable interest on the part of students of the history of medieval philosophy in the axiom or principle that whatever is moved is moved by another. For certain medieval thinkers this principle is not to be limited to the realm of purely physical change but applies to every reduction from potency to act. All such change implies dependence on some distinct source or cause. So understood this principle functions as an indispensable step in Thomas Aquinas' well known \"first way\" or first argument for God's existence ( S u m m a theologiae I, 2, 3). It enters into the efforts of many thirteenth century writers to account for the causality involved in human intellection and volition in particular and for the efficient causality of accidental being in general. At the same time, many were aware of difficulties that appear to militate against its universal application. On the physical level, for instance, how is one to account for apparent instances of self-motion such as the cooling of hot water, the motion of falling bodies, projectile motion, or the movement of animals? On a psychological and metaphysical plane, to what extent can this principle be applied to acts of human intellection? Can it be reconciled with the apparent self-motion involved in acts of human volition and, according to many, required for human freedom? Some, as will be seen below, were so impressed by certain of these difficulties that they would limit application of the principle to matters of purely physical causality, allowing for exceptions in the case of spiritual action such as volition. A Duns Scotus would restrict it even more, denying that it applies to certain types of physical change. Others insisted, however, that this principle must apply to every reduction f r o m potency to act, to every genuine change, all apparent difficulties notwithstanding. One outstanding advocate of this view was the late thirteenth century philosopher-theologian, Godfrey of Fontaines. 1

The First Socratic Paradox

Abstract: THE SOCRATIC PARADOXES MAY BE REGARDED as aphorisms that contain the essentials of the Socratic ethics. There are three Socratic paradoxes. They are: first, that no man desires evil, all men desire the good; second, that no man who (knows or) believes that an action is evil does it willingly--on the contrary, all the actions that a man does willingly he does with a view to achieving some good; and, third, that it is better to suffer injustice at the hands of others than to do unjust acts oneself. These paradoxes are related to psychological egoism and to the dictum that virtue is knowledge and vice is ignorance. In this essay I shall concentrate on the first paradox and the ways in which it relates to psychological egoism and to the dictum that virtue is knowledge and vice is ignorance. The doctrine that Socrates has in mind in connection with the first paradox can be more fully and less misleadingly stated if we begin by distinguishing four types of desires and the aversions corresponding to them: A type I desire is a desire for something in the mistaken belief that the thing is good. A type I aversion is an aversion for, or repugnance to, something in the mistaken belief that the thing is evil. A type II desire is a desire for something in the knowledge or in the true belief that the thing is good. A type II aversion is an aversion for, or repugnance to, something in the knowledge or in the true belief that the thing is evil. A type III desire is a desire for something in the knowledge or in the true belief that the thing is evil. A type III aversion is an aversion for, or repugnance to, something in the knowledge or in the true belief that the thing is good. A type IV desire (aversion) is a desire (aversion) for something in the absence of any belief about its goodness or badness. With the help of these distinctions, we may state the essential content of the first Socratic paradox as follows: in a man all desire for some evil and all aversion to some good is of type I. This is the core of the first paradox. It is the first paradox. From this it follows that in a man there is no desire for some evil and no aversion to some good that is of type HI or type IV. I shall formulate all the arguments in the Socratic dialogues that are offered in defense of this paradox. I shall explain what the conceptual and psychological assumptions of these arguments are. We shall then understand what Socrates means by the premises and conclusions of his arguments. This will put us in a position to evaluate the arguments for cogency. When all this is done, we should

Intuition and the Cartesian Circle

Abstract: WAS DESCARTES GUILTY OF cIRCULAR REASONING when he argued that those things which we clearly and distinctly conceive are true only because God exists? Arnauld, of course, thought that he was because, as he remarked, we cannot be sure that God exists unless we conceive it clearly mad distinctly. 1 And although he does not, he might have mentioned a statement Descartes makes in the third Meditation in the course of offering his first proof for the existence of God. For he says there that since the idea in question is very clear and distinct and contains more objective reality than any other one i t is also the truest. 2 In the light of such a seemingly straightforward recognition of the relevance of a clear and distinct idea to the proof for God's existence one would have expected Descartes to plead guilty to the charge of circular reasoning. Or, if such Moorean candour is beyond our philosopher, one would at least have expected him to address himself to the charge as stated. Instead, he has recourse to a distinction between the things that we conceive clearly and distinctly and the things that we remember having conceived clearly and distinctly. And he insists that knowledge of God's existence is necessary in order to assure that our remembering having conceived something clearly and distinctly is sufficient to establish its truth, a Where memory is not involved no such assurance, presumably, is required. In the case of the proof for God's existence, for example, attending to the reasons which prove his existence is supposed to be sufficient. An appeal to God Himself would be not only circular but otiose. This line of defense, apart from changing the subject, seems to place enormous pressure on the concept of memory. Indeed, Descartes seems to be saying that knowledge of God's existence renders memory infallible, when it is clear and distinct ideas that are remembered. But can the concept of memory withstand this pressure? I do not think that it can. For, if knowledge of God's existence is going to eliminate the possibility of error when it is clear and distinct ideas that are remembered, it seems reasonable to ask why it does not eliminate it when

Bible Interpretation as Philosophical Praxis: A Study of Spinoza and Kant

Abstract: LET US IMAGINE THAT A RELIGIOUS FANATIC had stolen Spinoza's literary remains before they were published, in order to save the world and posterity from a dangerous atheist. In this unfortunate case, we would have in our possession only the Tractatus Theologico Politicus, which Spinoza published anonymously, and The Principles of Cartesian Philosophy with the appended Cogitata Metaphysica, which Spinoza's friend, L. Meyer, published in Spinoza's name, while warning that they do not necessarily express the author's views. We might have also discovered many of the letters, and, if Leibnitz were gracious enough, he might even have made public the conversation which he had had with Spinoza about a year before the latter's death. Yet in the absence of the Ethics and the two theoretical treatises, 1 Spinoza would have surely been a marginal figure, if anything, in the history of philosophy. On the other hand, there is no doubt that even in such an event, Spinoza would have retained his central position in the history of another discipline-Biblical criticism; for what he says on this subject in the Tractatus Theologico PoIiticus (henceforth: TTP) is sutficient to ensure that. Spinoza's historical contribution to Biblical criticism is thus independent of his contribution to general philosophy, and one could discuss the former in itself with little regard to the latter. In this essay, however, I propose to take a different approach, investigating the relation between Spinoza the philosopher and Spinoza the Biblical critic. Although in an important sense Spinoza's hermeneutic program is autonomous, it is still philosophically instructive to see how it is grounded in his general thought and philosophical goals. At the same time it seems of equal interest to compare

Newman's Dispute with Locke

Abstract: THERE ARE AT LEAST TWO DISPUTES between Newman and Ix)eke in the Grammar ol Assent. The first is on the question of whether or not there are degrees of assent. Locke thinks that there are and Newman thinks that there axe not. In the second dispute, Newman contests Locke's "pretentious axiom that probable reasoning can never lead to certitude. 'u This seems to me to be by fax the more important issue, and I shall concentrate on it after having made some remarks about the first. According to Locke, the mind judges or assents whenever it "takes . . . any proposition to be true or false, without perceiving a demonstrative evidence in the proofs. ''2 The difference between judgment and assent, for Locke, is that a judgment takes place subsequent to the direct investigation of facts, whereas an assent is given to the conclusion of verbal reasoning, when that reasoning does not entail the conclusion, s Both assents and judgments are takings or presumings that P is the ease. 4 This being so, assent is a mental act, and does not admit of degrees. Hence it is (at least) misleading of Locke to speak of degrees of assent. 5 Locke introduces that notion because he believes that there is something that we should vary in our acceptance of P according as the evidence for P is strong or weak. Now we cannot vary our assent, as Locke defines that, but we can vary our assurance. And in fact Locke says

Parmenides' "The Way of Truth"

Abstract: RECENT YEARS HAVE PRODUCED a number of distinct interpretations of Parmenides' philosophical poem. Of these, one of the most interesting is that of Montgomery Furth's "Elements of Eleatic Ontology, ' ' t and I shall use his treatment of the poem as the basis for the development of a different interpretation, an interpretation which, hopefully, can preserve the explanatory power of Furth's exposition while avoiding certain of its difficulties. Furth suggests that, at the start of his argument, Parmenides is concerned to show the meaninglessness of negative "is" statements, whether "is" be t a k e n in an existential or a predicative sense. One cannot say "Unicorns do not exist" meaningfully; for, in order for the word "unicorns" to be meaningful, there must be unicorns for the word to refer to. Therefore, negative existential statements are self-defeating, because they purport to deny a necessary condition of their own meaningfulness. Parallel considerations apply to the predicative sense of "is". If "John is tall" is meaningful only if John is tall, or the fact of John's being tall exists, or the like, then the statement "John is not tall" would be meaningful only if, for instance, the fact of John's being tall did not exist, but if it did not exist. then, again, there is nothing for the sentence to refer to, and therefore the sentence must be meaningless. Thus, according to Furth, underlying Parmenides' whole position there is a strongly referential theory of meaning. In this way, it is easy to see how negative uses of " is" statements can be held to be .unintelligible. Equally, once the possibility of meaningful negative s~tements has been abandoned, it becomes impossible to give an intelligible account of change. Finally, one can see how Parmenides could have come to assert that being, or reality, was a monolithic, unitary, homogeneous entity; for "given the is-not doctrine, Parmenides is in a position to claim that the statement that something is asserts the same as the statement that (ostensibly) something else is, because the attempted specification of the alleged difference is unintelligible, ''2 and therefore all true (i.e. meaningful) state-

The Critical Philosophy and the Royce-Bradley Dialogue

Abstract: k GOOD DEAL OF THE NEGATIVE CRITICISM of K a n t ' s philosophy of mathematics is directed almost entirely agmnst certain doctrines in the transcendental aesthetic. The strategy of such criticism is to show, first, that Kant 's treatment of space as an a priori form of intuition presupposes the Euclidean geometry and, second, that since the new geometries give different grounds for interpreting space when some other postulate is substituted for the Euclidean postulate on parallels, Kant's particular view of the ideality of space is untenable, t A corollary is sometimes added. It is that the scope of the entire critical philosophy has been drastically limited because of its narrowly conceived base in the transcendental aesthetic. Especially where the corollary is worked out, the importance of the critical philosophy for contemporary philosophy is called into question. The question might be framed as follows: since Kant's philosophy of mathematics can hold only in the locus of Euclidean geometry as interpreted in the transcendental aesthetic, and since the transcendental logic has the aesthetic as one of its necessary conditions, how can the critical philosophy be relevant to contemporary developments in philosophy? Framed in this way, the question assumes that the fortunes of the critical philosophy turn on developments in mathematics. The assumption implies that the methods of philosophy and the methods of mathematics are quite similar, if not even identical. Those who adopt the corollary, with the implicit judgment about the severely limited role of the Kantian philosophy in present developments, proceed as if Part II of the Critique of Pure Reason had never been written. In all probability, however, it was written before Part 1, 2 and provides the larger context in which Part I, including the Transcendental Aesthetic, must be construed. It is in Part II that Kant argues that philosophical method and mathematical method differ in all essentials.

Peirce and Schiller and Their Correspondence

Abstract: THE FORTUNATE FINDING of tWO of Peirce's unpublished letters to Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller and the availability of two of Schiller's unpublished letters to Pekoe have made possible a more detailed, exact and clear understanding of their philosophical relationship and of the development of the pragmatic movement than could have been at tempted before. These letters will help better to order, date and interpret the scattered references to Schiller in Peirce's published wri t ings and the few references to Pekoe in those of Schiller. Further, there is now the opportunity to judge the value of the rough drafts of the letters Peirce sent to Schiller and of the letters he did not send which have been preserved among Peiroe's manuscripts. The two \"letters\" of Peirce to Schiller, which have been published in volume eight of the Collected Papers, actually are only rough, incomplete and unsigned drafts of letters. I t is uncertain whether Peirce ever sent corresponding letters, because unfortunately so far such letters have not been found, though from other evidence it seems very likely that he did write and send the actual letters. Peirce initiated the correspondence by sending a copy of his article \"What Pragmatism Is\" to Schiller. t The question naturally arises why he did so. Part of the answer seems to lie in the reference made to Schiller in the article. H o w the following citation furnishes a partial answer to our question will be seen shortly:

Felix Adler's Concept of Worth

Abstract: FELIX ADLER (1851-1933) is today better known as a teacher and as the founder of the Society of Ethical Culture (in 1876) than as a philosopher specializing in ethics. He taught a course in ethics at Columbia University for many years and there are generations of colleagues and students who revere his memory. He was one of the founders of the International Journal of Ethics (now Ethics) in 1890. He wrote two major works, An Ethical Philosophy of Life (1918) and the Reconstruction of the Spiritual Ideal, which is the publication of the Hibbert Lectures delivered in Oxford in 1923.1 The above paragraph reads as if it were an obituary notice paying proper respects to the dead. But it is a contention of this essay that Adler is deserving of critical attention and not merely devotion, A few words about his background, however, are quite pertinent. Adler's family life and education were focused on the religious. He received much of his religious education from his father, Rabbi Samuel Adler, a leader of Reform Judaism in Germany, who had already emigrated to the United States when Felix was nearly six years old. He had taken over the leadership of Temple Emanuel in New York City. Felix started in his father's footsteps, and his graduate work in Germany was to prepare him for the rabbinate. It is clear that he drank deeply into the teachings of both early Hebrews and Christians in formulating his concept of worth, Adler's concept of worth is multidimensional, and the following major aspects can be distinguished: an historical dimension; a psycho-social dimension; a logical dimension; an ontological dimension; and an ethical dimension.

Aristoteles, De caelo, 310 b 11-14

Abstract: TODO r.L TRATADO D e caelo es de redacci6n m ~ bien dificultosa, tal cual lo confirman en general los comentaristas; y aun las aclaraciones de Simplieio dejan bastante que desear. Dificultades que pueden muy bien explicarse aceptando, tal cual lo propone Paul Moraux que \"nous avons de bonnes raisons pour y voir plut6t le texte d 'un ou plusieurs tours profess6s par Aristote devant un groupe, sans doute assez restreint, d'auditeurs specialisgs. ''x Y el paso que ahora nos ocupa no ha hecho excepci6n, pues ni las explieaciones corrientes coinciden aeerca de su sentido, ni las soluciones propuestas nos parecen tot nlmente acertadas. El texto dice asi:

Stirner, Nietzsche, and the Critique of Truth

Abstract: ion of equal or greater magnitude than any of the abstractions which he criticizes. This abstraction is the "I" and it is abstract precisely because it does 21 Albert I_~vy, Stirner et Nietzsche. Th~se prdsentde a la Facultd des Lettres de l'Universitd de Paris (Paris, 1904), pp. 10 ft. 22 Car l Albrecht Bernoulli, Franz Overbeck und Friedrich Nietzsche: Eine Freundscha/t (Jena: Eugen Diederichs, 1908), 2 vols., devotes some at tention to alleged links between Nietzsche and Stirner. Lange's Geschichte des Materialismus is ment ioned and the section devoted to Stirner summarized (I, 146, 148). In Nietzsche's correspondence (Gas t u. Seidl, 1900) are to be found three references to Lange's book. Two occur in letters to Fre ihe r rn yon Gersdorff in 1866 and one occurs in a letter to Erwin Rohde in 1868. None of the letters even remotely concerns Stirner, their thrust being to recommend l.amge as an intelligent idealist and to admire his opposition to metaphysical materialism. Bernoulli also ment ions Hans yon Billow as a possible source of Nietzsche's knowledge of Stirner (I, 151-152). Billow visited Nietzsche in 1872, and this would be the presumed date of Nietzsche's discovery of Stirner on this account of the matter. Finally, Bernoulli ment ions the surmise of one Th toph i l e Droz, tha t Nietzschr had possibly read Stirner by 1866, at which t ime Nietzsche and Droz had attended lectures together in Bonn (I, 153). There seems to be no concrete evidence to support any of these theories. 2a The first recollection is by one of Nietzsche's favorite pupils, Adolf Baumgartner , of whom it is known that he borrowed a copy of Der Einzige und sein Eigentum f rom the Basel l ibrary on July 14, 1874, while he was studying under Nietzsche. He claimed that he borrowed the book upon Nietzsche's warm recommendat ion of it (BernouUi, I, 135). He also claimed that Nietzsche once referred to Stirner as the most daring and consistent thinker since Hobbes (Bernoulli , I, 239). The o ther recollection is tha t of Franz Overbeck's wife, Ida, on whose account Nietzsche is supposed to have made a somewhat favorable reference to Stirner and then, a bit embarrassed, said, "Now tha t I have said tha t to you, I do no t want you to speak of it. Forget it. There will be talk of plagiarism, but you will not do that, I know." F ranz Overbeck did not recall this incident (Bernoulli , I, 239) . Along with these recollections, the value of which must remain less than fully satisfactory, two points axe to be borne in mind. The first is tha t nei ther Gast nor Overbeck, in all their conversations and correspondence with Nietzsche, ever heard Nietzsche ment ion the name of Sfiruer (Bernoulli , I, 427-430). And secondly, there is Wal ter Kaufmann ' s observat ion that Nietzsche frequently referred to his intellectual sources in his notebooks, which were not intended by h im for publication, and that no ment ion of Stirner is found in these. STIRNER AND NIETZSCHE 529 not exist, save in so far as it is conditioned by a network of objective social relationships. Accordingly, Hook argues, Stirner has established an ideal self, and he in fact "tells man what he ought to pursue" i.e., his self-interest, narrowly defined. ~4 Hook further argues that Stirner has set up a form of social life similar to that found in the thought of Hobbes, and that Stirner has established a moral code for this social order -a moral code informed by petty-bourgeois sentiments about protecting what is one's own. There are several points to be made about Hook's argument, the first and most important of which is that most of the argument is based upon sheer inference concerning what a social system of Stirnerian individuals might be like. Arguments which deal with a social order of Stirnerian individuals must remain inferential, for aside from a few remarks concerning a possible union of egoists, Stirner had little or nothing to say about these matters. Indeed, not only the social consequences, but even the actions of any man motivated by "Stirner-like" arguments, are inferential. At any rate, to examine a set of arbitrarily supposed consequences certainly constitutes no effective critique of what Stirner did have to say. Secondly, Stirner does not set up a moral code; indeed, he explicitly states several times that it would be inconsistent for him to do so. Further, in this respect, Hook's contention that the "T' is a new fixed ideal seems quite wrong. In defining the " I , " Stirner does not strip a man of all his qualities, it is true: one remains a Prussian, a Berliner, an intellectual, etc. Yet, according to Stirner, the unique ' T ' is not less, but more than all its qualities. Stirner is concerned only to strip the ' T ' of all effective temporal ideal content. By freeing the " I" from all maxims and ideals which might determine it from one moment to the next, Stirner frees himself of the charge that he has created a new fixed ideal. For the ' T ' is not fully described by the sum of its qualities; it itself is not essentially spirit, nor is it essentially sensual content-i t is, as Stirner puts it, creative nothingness. Now the ' T ' as creative nothingness is no doubt a difficult phrase to comprehend, if it is not meaningless altogether. But in so far as this ' T ' can be thought, it certainly does not seem to imply either a new or a fixed ideal. Itself lacking all ideals and maxims, what ideal content could it possess? Albert Camus' The Rebel assumes a somewhat different perspective, but like Hook, Camus seems more inclined to consider supposed social consequences of Stirner's position than what Stirner actually says. For Camus, Stiruer sees the world as having always sought to subject the ' T ' to "the yoke of successive abstractions---God, the State, society, and humanity. ' '~ The abstractions which Camus mentions, it should be noted, are all ones which issue in immediate and institutional social consequences. Camus is concerned in The Rebel with social consequences, and it is in this sense that he uses and interprets Stirner. Crime and terrorist forms of anarchy are, according to Camus, related to Stirner's principles. ~6 Stirner is said to shrink from no social act; "with him all the nihilist rebels rush to the utmost limits, drunk with destruction. ''at Stirner is viewed by Camus as a4 Sidney Hook, From Hegel to Marx: Studies in the Intellectual Development of Karl Marx (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1962), p. 170. Albert Camus, The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt, Anthony Bower, trans. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1956), p. 63. 26 Ibid., p. 64. sT Ibid., p. 65. 530 H/STORY OF PHILOSOPHY essentially destructive. In so far as he, like Hook, bases his interpretation of Stirner upon presumed social consequences of the rejection of the fixed ideals of the state, society, etc., it is easy enough to see why Camus takes this position. But what of Stirner's critique of truth, of love, and of other less institutionalized forms of ideals? Is an inquiry into the manner in which such ideals exist and are used nihilistic and destructive? To answer "yes" is to say more about oneself, it seems, than about Stirner's work. No mention is made by Camus of such ideals which Stirner examines. In other words, Camus is still too outraged by the specific criticisms which Stirner hoped would outrage his contemporaries of the 1840's to have made much progress in understanding the full significance of Stirner's work. Camus ultimately rejects Stirner because he thlnk.~ he finds in him a justification for crime. 2s Camus writes that Stirner asks, "What am I, legitimately, authorized to do?" and finds that Stirner's answer is "Everything of which I am capable. ''29 But Stirner in fact asks "What am I authorized to do?" and in the insertion of the word "legitimately" Camus has fundamentally misrepresented Stirner's position. For Stirner is writing neither to legitimize nor to illegitirnize; he is writing to de-legitimize, to put questions of human willing and behavior on a different plane than that of questions of legitimacy altogether: The "question of our time" doe.s not become soluble even when one puts it thus: Is anything general authorized, or only the individual? Is the generality (such as State, law, custom, morality, etc.) authorized, or individuality? It becomes soluble for the first time when one no longer asks after an "authorization" at all . . . . so It is only when, as with Camus, one continually converts every argument and insight into its presumed social consequences, and then further judges these consequences from a fixed standpoint, that Stirner can be made to say the things he seems to say in The Rebel. Finally, Karl LSwith briefly discusses Stirner in his From Hegel to Nietzsche. Since LSwith is neither working from a given hostile position nor interpreting Stirner for his own philosophical purposes, he begins with a certain advantage not held by Hook or Camus. Yet his interpretation shares at least this one deficiency with the other two: he slights the non-obvious points of Stirner's work, such as the critique of truth, and restricts himself to remarks concerning the more obvious social spheres in which Stiruer's work is supposed to be of consequence. LSwith's sections on Stirner deal respectively with Stirner's position in the 1840's, the bourgeois and proletarian man, education, the individual as proprietor, and Christianity. Stirner is portrayed as a thinker in reaction against Feuerbach and Bauer, and one who seeks to combat each of their positions. This is a fine beginning, to be sure; but unfortunately, for Lfwith it is the end as well. LSwith's consideration of only immediate social concerns leads him to obscure totally the marked anti-Hegelian animus of Der Einzige. For while it is true that Stirner borrows Hegelian language to criticize Feuerbach and Bauer, it is always Hegel himself that lies at the base of Stirner's concern. Feuerbach's "love" an

Introduction to Newton's Principia (review)

Abstract: Opera theologica quae latine edidit, 3 vols. (Roterodami, 1651-1660). His religious polemics with Amyraul t and Grof ius were famous. Paul Dibon, professor at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, is the most prominent contemporary historian of seventeenth-century Dutch philosophy and intellectual life; he is perfectly aware of the fact that genuine history can only be founded on solid erudition, and this inventory is a first-class contribution to it. Only those who ignore the difficulties of this kind of research will underestimate the enormous effort it involves--an effort which is, much more than a pedantic and mechanical listing of data, a kind of venatio, requiring a continuous alertness, a surprising amount of imagination and intelligence, a painstaking precision, and an enormous background of knowledge. The letters are arranged in chronological order (with the exception of a few which are undated). Each entry lists the date, the names and locations of the sender and addressee, and the opening words of the letter. The status of the letter (original/ minute/copy/printed) is indicated, as is the library in which the letter is located (and the call number), and/or, if the letter was published, the printed source. Thirty-two libraries were explored. GIORGIO TONELLI State University o/ New York at Binghamton