Spinoza: The Way to Wisdom (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 469 Herman De Dijn. Spinoza: The Way to Wisdom. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1996. Pp. xii + 291. Cloth, $3o.oo. Paper, $16.95. This study, part of the Purdue University Press Series in the History of Philosophy, centers upon a running commentary on Spinoza's early and unfinished Tractatus de intellectus emendatione (TdlE). It is preceded by two chapters devoted respectively to Spinoza's life and work, and to the text of the TdlE itself. Six chapters make up the body of the commentary, each preceded by the Latin text of Gebhardt with facing English translation of Edwin Curley, though De Dijn makes occasional corrections or changes in Curley's version. De Dijn, with a number of other commentators, believes that the TdlE was intended by Spinoza as a general introduction to his philosophy as presented in final form in the Ethics. Accordingly his commentary on the TdlE contains many references to developments in this later work, and the last three chapters of the study are devoted to sketches of the theory of God (Ch. 9: Ethics I), Man (Ch. lo: Ethics II), and Salvation (Ch. i l: Ethics IlI-V). Since the author intends his study to be a general introduction to the philosophy of Spinoza, he avoids the more technical details surrounding the interpretation and exegesis of the text--stating his own interpretation and noting in general where more detailed expositions or alternative interpretations may be found, notably in the extensive editions and commentaries of Rousset (Trait~ de la r~forme de l'entendement, ed. and trans, with commentary by Bernard Rousset [Paris: Vrin, ~999]), Bartuschat (Abhandlung iiber die Verbesserungdes Verstandes, translated with introduction and commentary by Wolfgang Bartuschat [Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1993]), Theo Zweerman (L~ntroduction g~la philosophie selon Spinoza [Louvain: Presses Universitaires de Louvain , 1993]), and Pierre-Frangois Moreau (L'expkrienceet l'~ternit~[Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1994]). He is largely successful in steering between the two extremes of linear commentary and generic introduction or overview. His success is particularly noteworthy for the Anglophone reader, since most of the literature dealing with the TdlE is in French, German, or Italian. Filippo Mignini (Italy) is currendy preparing a new critical edition of the TdlE with commentary, and De Dijn appears to have communicated with him on some details, as well as to have worked through the important studies of the history and evolution of the printed works of Spinoza by Piet Steenbakkers (Spinoza's Ethica from Manuscript to Print [Assen: Van Gorcum, 1995])I have a few minor quibbles. De Dijn tends to follow Curley's interpretation of Spinoza in its major elements, but he should have more carefully read Curley's Hempelian model for causal explanation in Spinoza: De Dijn's analysis of causal explanation as via formal rather than efficient causes (15a-52), with God as proximate cause, smacks rather of the now-defunct reading by Wolfson, and also appears to contradict some of the passages (e.g., 177-78) where he appears to be following Curley rather literally. He also occasionally refers to the Ethics as divided into five books;but the fact that, while Spinoza follows Euclid in the geometrical method, he divides the Ethics into parts rather than Euclidean books, may say something about his method. Finally, some further attention ought to have been given to typography and order in 47 ~ JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 35:3 JULY 1997 the (extensive and quite useful) bibliography, where for example Sprigge is indexed after Steenbakkers. The above points are truly minor, and De Dijn's study is both majestic and important . His style is clear and captivating throughout, and he succeeds in giving the student an introduction to Spinoza through the iatter's own text, and the researcher an important survey of the extensive literature in other languages devoted to this important work. LEE C. RICE Marquette University Stephen Darwall. The British Moralists and the Internal 'Ought': x64o-x74o. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Pp. xvi + 352. Cloth, $59.95, Paper, $18.95. Stephen Darwall finds among the British Moralists a unique form of moral internalism , the thesis that a rnoraljudgment or moral obligation itself...