George Berkeley's Manuscript Introduction (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 455 GeorgeBerkeley'sManuscriptIntroduction. Transcribed and Edited with Introduction and Commentary by Bertil Belfrage. Headington, Oxford: Doxa (Oxford) Ltd., 1987. Pp. 159. s 3o. The 3ooth anniversary of the birth of George Berkeley in x985 has been the occasion for the publication of a number of important collections, articles, and books. None, however, is likely to be of more enduring importance than Belfrage's editiodiplomatica of Berkeley's Manuscript Introduction. We now recognize that the CommonplaceBook, Luce's PhilosophicalCommentaries,has profoundly affected our philosophical interpretations of Berkeley's work. Indeed, we continue to ask what his actual words are, what they mean, when he wrote them, how they bear on his philosophy. These and many other questions have occupied students of Berkeley. As readers of the BerkeleyNewsletter (and JHP) know, Belfrage has written extensively about these questions. What readers may not, however, know is that for many years he has also been studying the draft introduction. Although printed in both the Fraser and the Luce-Jessop editions of Berkeley's Works,it has not previously been properly edited. Belfrage seeks to reproduce the manuscript text. He has tried as accurately as possible to represent in print (as Luce did in his 1944 editiodiplomaticaof the Commentaries ) the manuscript. This of course means including insertions, cancellations, and the original orthography and punctuation. Nothing remotely like this is available in either Fraser or Luce-Jessop. Belfrage also provides an introduction, a commentary, and a critical apparatus. He believes major philosophical issues are involved. He claims that this is not simply a draft of what was to be published as the Introduction to the Principles of Human Knowledge. Rather, it should be considered as a "separate contribution to philosophy." Belfrage writes: "More than one half of the ManuscriptIntroduction was omitted from the published Introduction, and more than a fifth of the published Introduction contains new material which has no counterpart in the manuscript" (13). In addition, there are apparently clear signs of different strata in the composition--matters which are analyzed in the editor's introduction. Belfrage maintains that there are themes which only appear in the published Introductions , e.g., that primary qualities cannot be separated from secondary and that ideas represent things in the same way that words represent ideas. And there are themes which he finds only in the manuscript, e.g., "complete'resemblance is required between an idea and the thing it represents" (33). Belfrage believes that Berkeley's views about representation reveal a "different concept of 'idea' in the two texts, a difference he characterizes as that between image-picturesand sign-images. He carries this forward to a discussion of (scientific) demonstration. Finally, he turns to the question of the ManuscriptIntroduction "in the context of Berkeley's early writings" (51), namely, "Of Infinites" (read 19 Nov. 17o7), his "first" sermon (11 Jan. 17o8), and the PhilosophicalCommentaries.Belfrage seeks to relate the themes of the manuscript to the entries of the Commentaries,although no one knows better than he how difficult dating those entries can be. If one has any doubts as to why an edition of the draft introduction is necessary, a 456 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 28:3 JULY 199o comparison of the texts in Fraser and in Luce-Jessop will remove them. Fraser gives one absolutely no idea of what Berkeley's pages look like, nor of the relations of certain strata to the basic text. Jessop gives us a straightforwardly readable text--but at the price of many omissions. Beifrage deserves our thanks both for his transcription of the text and for his provocative commentary, a commentary which seeks to demonstrate the philosophical significance of Berkeley's complete text. HARRY M. BRACKEN McGiU University Morton White. Philosophy, "The Federalist," and the Constitution. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. Pp. xi + 273- $29.95. In this study Prof. White undertakes to "expose [the] philosophical elements of Publius 's thinking" (7) to contemporary readers. In addition, the study can be seen as the beautifully crafted product of a scholar simultaneously doing philosophy and history of philosophy. Because Jay, Madison, and Hamilton, authors of these papers, were less concerned with philosophy than with persuading...