Gary Hatfield Review By: Gary Hatfield Source: Isis, Vol
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Review Author(s): Gary Hatfield Review by: Gary Hatfield Source: Isis, Vol. 81, No. 3 (Sep., 1990), pp. 574-575 Published by: University of Chicago Press on behalf of History of Science Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/233462 Accessed: 24-11-2015 19:02 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. History of Science Society and University of Chicago Press are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Isis. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 165.123.34.86 on Tue, 24 Nov 2015 19:02:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 574 BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 81: 3: 308 (1990) of curves, with its references to "all the Johann Nicolaus Tetens, had more affini- lines over (or under) a segment," as un- ties with Scottish philosophy than has been problematic both mathematically and his- realized hitherto. torically. Yet it was a relatively new tech- Kuehn mounts an impressive scholarly nique at the time and rested on a tricky argument that firmly establishes that the adjustment of Bonaventura Cavalieri's work of Reid, Oswald, and Beattie was method of indivisibles. One wonders how much discussed, regularly translated, and Huygens learned of it. In Chapter 7 on rec- sometimes admired by German philoso- tification, Yoder presents van Heuraet's phers during the period in question. He application of the technique to reduce the contends that especially in the years prior rectification of a curve to the quadrature of to Kant's notorious condemnation of the another and contrasts the procedure with three Scots in his Prolegomena to Any Fu- Huygens's method of determining normals ture Metaphysics of 1783, their work at- to the involute, as if the two approaches tracted much interest because it was con- solved the same problem and as if Huy- sidered to provide an antidote to the gens's were both as direct and as universal skepticism and idealism of George Berke- as he claimed. Only at the end of the ley and David Hume. Beginning in the chapter does one learn that Huygens's 1780s, German philosophers looked to method only works if one happens to recog- Kant to fill that function-or they at least nize the involute of the curve to be rectified acknowledged his work as the dominant bid and that, in fact, the reduction to quadra- in that game. This is where Kuehn's second ture cannot be avoided. thesis becomes important. He maintains But these are minor flaws in an otherwise that even if Kant's work came to dominate excellent account that should bring Huy- philosophical discussion in Germany, this gens more directly into general view. It is was only a nominal lessening of the influ- good to have this book. Unfortunately, as ence of the three Scots, for, Kuehn argues, we have come to expect of Cambridge Uni- Kant himself was heavily in their debt. In versity Press, its price is outrageous. accordance with R. G. Collingwood's sug- MICHAEL S. MAHONEY gestion that vehement rejection can be a sign that an author is in reality strongly at- tracted to the views he ostentatiously de- * Eighteenth Century nounces, Kuehn contends that Kant was strongly attracted to the views of common- sense philosophy. Here his argument is less Manfred Kuehn. Scottish Common Sense secure. For although he establishes that in Germany, 1768-1800: A Contribution to commonsense philosophy was widely dis- the History of Critical Philosophy. (McGill- cussed during the 1770s, he does not show Queen's Studies in the History of Ideas.) that Kant took part; and although he shows xiv + 300 pp., app., bibl., index. Kingston, that some of Kant's contemporaries com- Ont./Montreal: McGill-Queen's University pared his response to Humean skepticism Press, 1987. $35. with the positions of Reid and his cohort, Manfred Kuehn's book is intended to he is on weaker ground in arguing that this provide a broad survey of the effects of contemporary perception was near the eighteenth-century Scottish commonsense mark. philosophy on German philosophy in the Kuehn's proposal of a strong "common- period from 1768 to 1800 (from the first sense" influence on Kant cannot be exam- glimmerings of Kant's critical philosophy ined adequately in the space allotted here. to the end of his active period, before his But in any evaluation of this proposal, death in 1804). It argues for two related close attention must be paid to the claim theses: that Scottish commonsense philoso- that what the Scots called "inborn princi- phy-the philosophy of Thomas Reid, ples of belief" are similar to Kant's a priori James Oswald, and James Beattie-was principles of the understanding. Further, in much better known, and much more influ- any evaluation of Kuehn's claim that ential, in German philosophy during this Tetens's analysis of the human understand- period than has been recognized in scholar- ing was quite similar to Reid's, close scru- ship of late; and that Kant's critical philos- tiny should be given to the implied similar- ophy and the philosophical positions of ity between Reid's postulation of an inborn Kant's important interlocutors, including inclination to believe in the external world This content downloaded from 165.123.34.86 on Tue, 24 Nov 2015 19:02:05 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BOOK REVIEWS-ISIS, 81: 3: 308 (1990) 575 and Tetens's postulation of basic laws of manticand the other syntactic. Needless to the understandingas conditionsfor the pos- say, these two aspects are related: the sibility of objective thought. My own belief former deals with what scientific proposi- is that the similaritiesare not sufficient to tions are talking about while the latter is supportKuehn's second thesis. concerned with their interconnection. Despite the fact that, in my view, the Lambert,like Kant, began with Christian book does not establish one of its two prin- Wolff s compendiumof Leibnizianphiloso- cipal theses, I commend it to those with an phy, thoughunlike Kant he did not attend a interest in Germanphilosophy during this university and was for the most part self- period, and to those with an interest in the taught. Lambertfound Wolff s system im- history of the human sciences. Moreover, pressive in its recognition of the power of Kuehn's establishment of Scottish influ- deduction, but he became completely un- ence in Germany-including reviews of satisfied with its treatmentof the so-called books publishedin English and their subse- Anfangsproblem,that is, how one justifies quent translation-can serve as a reminder the startingpoints of deduction. It is in pur- to scholars of the seventeenth and eigh- suit of the solution to this problem that teenth centuries of the danger of "national Lambert's pragmatic theory of scientific histories" that ignore the international knowledge and his systematologyemerge. characterof the communityof naturaland Siegwart has drawn on three of Lam- moral philosophers during the Enlighten- bert's works. The first two, publisheddur- ment. ing his lifetime, are the New Organon, or GARY HATFIELD Thoughts on the Investigation and Desig- nation of the True and Its Distinction from Error and Illusion (1764) and the Design for an Architectonic, or Theory of Simple and Johann Heinrich Lambert. Texte zur Syste- First Things in Philosophical and Mathe- matologie und zur Theorie der wissen- matical Knowledge. Though completed by schaftlichen Erkenntnis. Edited by Geo 1764, the Architectonic appeared first in Siegwart. Textual editing by Horst D. 1771 because publishers were concerned Brandt.(Philosophische Bibliothek, 406.) ci about the difficultyof the work. The third + 160 pp., index. Hamburg:Felix Meiner text is more problematical.In a letter from Verlag, 1988. DM 48 (paper). 1767 Lambert referred to a "sketch of a Most historiansof science know of J. H. systematology" that he had written down Lambert from his Cosmological Letters or for himself. Siegwartargues that this refer- from the mathematicalseries that bears his ence must be to a manuscript entitled name. The three texts presented here, se- "Fragmentof a Systematology" that was lected for inclusion in the Philosophische included in the second volume of Lam- Bibliothek series of classical works, have bert's essays, edited by the astronomerJo- as their focus Lambert's little known, but hann Bernoulliin 1787. extremely interesting,thoughts on the phi- In his introduction Siegwart provides losophy of science. Further, the emphasis helpful overviews of both the Organonand is on Lambert's ideas for their own sake, the Architectonic. The latter, he argues, not, as is too often true, for their relationto can be seen as a branchof science in which or influenceon Kant's thought. the results of the formerare applied. But it Geo Siegwart has provided an eighty- is to the Architectonicthat Lambertrefers seven-page introduction in which he ex- in the Fragment;hence, accordingto Sieg- plains and justifies his choice of texts from wart, we must focus on the relation be- Lambert'sworks. Following a brief sketch tween these two works for Lambert'scon- of Lambert's humble beginnings, his ec- tributionto system theory. This he does en centric personality,his work in naturalsci- route to his conclusion that no one before ence, and the development of his uncom- Lambert treated the notion of system at fortableposition amongthe elite in German such a general level or in such a detailed society, Siegwart discusses Lambert's fashion.