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BOOK REVIEWS 463 One must also lament the lack of adequate documentation in this work. Of course, a work for the general reader should not be overburdened with scholarly impedimenta, but the annotation of this volume is meagre in the extreme. It is also inconsistent: some quotations are footnoted, while others, for no apparent reason, are left unidentified. The three-and-a-half-page "Select Bibliography" does little more than give the full bibliographical citations for the few works actually referred to in the notes. It is almost useless as a guide for further reading and study. Troublesome too is the lack of general background information about each philosopher 's career and writings and the development of his philosophy. Here again, the volume is quite inconsistent, going into some detail about the development of, for example, Nietzsche's and Husserl's thought, while leaving the utterly false impression that the philosophy of Kant, Fichte, or Schelling underwent no significant evolution. Unfortunately, these three shortcomings--poor annotation, inadequate bibliography , and insufficient attention to the development of individual philosophies-combine to undermine the value of this volume for its intended audience. For it is precisely the beginning student and general reader who can be presumed to stand most in need of the sort of background information and guidance for further reading that is here absent. (To take one example: chap. 7 includes a short discussion of the contents of Karl Stumpf's "main work," but neither the text nor the apparatus contains any indication of the title of this "main work.") To sum up: Continental Philosophy since r75o is indeed a concise and original, albeit less than authoritative, historical survey. It gets better as it goes along, and it includes an exemplary discussion of Nietzsche and of twentieth-century Continental philosophy . It is artfully organized, presented with extraordinary clarity, and written with uncommon charm. Because of the limitations imposed by its brevity and the distortions introduced by the author's preconceptions and animosity toward transcendental idealism , however, it cannot---on its own--be recommended to students and general readers seeking an overall survey of modern Continental philosophy. Nevertheless, its undeniable virtues might still make it an excellent choice for use in conjunction with a more pedestrian and encyclopedic history of the period. DANIEL BREAZEALE University of Kentucky John Andrew Bernstein. Nietzsche's Moral Philosophy. Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, a987. Pp. 3t4 , $27.5o. Bernstein has two interrelated intentions in this book. It is intended first as a critique of Nietzsche's moral philosophy, and second as a sequel to Bernstein's earlier book, Shaftesbury, Rousseau and Kant: An Introduction to the Conflict between Aesthetic and Moral Values in Modern Culture. Although Bernstein's critique is competently handled and often suggestive, it is rather unmoving However, the book succeeds nicely as a continuation of the line of thought begun in its predecessor. Bernstein's book is highly critical. He signals the general tenor of his book in the 464 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 28:3 JULY t990 Introduction. There he declares his lack of patience with the Nietzsche literature. Too often, Bernstein contends, commentators have defended Nietzsche against misunderstandings without ever suggesting that he was right about anything in the first place. Bernstein thinks that this approach does a disservice to Nietzsche, because it makes "no me of him for the purposes of the advance of thought." Bernstein hopes to serve Nietzsche better by either helping to "clear the ground for a creative reconstruction of Nietzsche's philosophy" or by demonstrating that no moral philosophy like that of Nietzsche could "yield a worthwhile ethic." Thus Bernstein's critical sieve captures nearly all of Nietzsche's important themes: the will to power, Caesar and Christ, eternal recurrence, and the master and slave. None of the themes survives unscathed. In virtually every case, Bernstein concludes that Nietzsche is arbitrary and/or inconsistent. This type of conclusion, given the explicitly hostile tone of the critique, is unsurprising. More importantly, though, this type of conclusion is also of little consequence. It is not particularly difficult to beat Nietzsche with the stick of consistency. One need not even stray from between the covers of...

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