Books Received

638 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY ~7:4 OCTOBER ~989 The continuous emergence in Sartre's second critique of a trend towards naturalism , a realistic materialism, and the concreteness of human needs (in a "Manichean world of scarcity") signifies the final turn in Sartre's thought from the early emphasis on the interiority of an absolutely free consciousness to a stark recognition of the determinisms, necessities, and inertial social and material forces that act upon man and check his intentional praxis. As Aronson's careful study shows, Sartre continuously stresses the free praxis of the practical organism in a realm in which the antihuman, counterfinalities, and multiple inertial forces undermine this "freedom." In a sense, the fundamental paradoxes of Sartre's thought are highlighted in Aronson's serious and probing discussions of Critique I1. The concluding summary of correctives of Sartre's sometimes one-sided views reveals Aronson to be a sound and insightful social thinker who is able to broaden the application of Sartre's ambitious, meandering, and often overflowing project and soften the edges of his excessive claims. Aronson does not take the next step, however. That is, he does not say that much of Sartre's elaborate socio-historical dialectical interpretation has value for an understanding of social dynamics outside the framework of Marxism and apart from the occasional ideological tone that echoes in the second Critique. Couldn't the dialectical method of interpretation Sartre formulates be applied to the Roosevelt era in the United States? Sartre is a stimulating and exasperating thinker whose abstract verbosity sometimes obscures his genuine insights. It is fortunate that Aronson is such a skilled cicerone, one who fairly and scrupulously guides us through the reflections of the French philosopher with finesse and verve. The timing of Sartre's Second Critique is not, alas, too good. Gorbachev's policies of "openness" and "restructuring," the recent Soviet rapprochement with the West, with the United States, goes against the grain of the general orientation of Critique II. But even a somewhat untimely Sartre is better than none at all. And, at any rate, the mind of Sartre still holds an intrinsic fascination for many. Unlike more impersonal and cautious philosophers, Sartre displays an audace that is attractive because it is so rare. GEORGE J. STACK State University of New York at Brockport BOOKS RECEIVED Alberti, Antonina. Sensazione e realt& Epicuro e Gassendi. Accademia Toscana di Scienze e Lettere "La Colombaria," Studi XCV. Florence: Leo S. Olschi Editore, 1988. Pp. 18o. L 48.ooo. Aquinas on Being and Essence. Translated with an Interpretation by Joseph Bobik. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1965. Pp. xv + 286. Paper, $9-95. Aristotle. The Politics. Edited by Stephen Everson. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Pp. xxxii + 2o7. Cloth, $29.95. Paper, $6.95. Aronwitz, Stanley. ScienceasPower.Discourseand Ideologyin Modern Society.Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988. Pp. xii + 384. Cloth, $35.oo. Paper, $14.95. BOOKS RECEIVED 639 Baker, G. P. and P. M. S. Hacker. Wittgenstein. Rules, Grammar and Necessity.An Analytical Commentary on the "Philosophical Investigations," Vol. 2. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985. Pp. xvi + 352. Paper, $24.95. Baumgold, Deborah. Hobbes's Political Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Pp. xi + 211.$39.5o. Benjamin, Andrew, editor. Post-Structuralist Classics. Warwick Studies in Philosophy and Literature . London: Routledge, 1988. Pp. viii + 273. $75.oo. Jeremy Bentham. A Fragment on Government. The New Authoritative Edition byJ. H. Burns and H. L. A. Hart with an Introduction by Ross Harrison. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Pp. xxx + 128. Cloth, $29.95. Paper, $6.95. Berman, David. A History of Atheism in Britain: From Hobbes to Russell. London: Croom Helm Ltd., 1988. Pp. x + 253. $72.5~ Boisvert, Raymond D. Dewey's Metaphysics. New York: Fordham University Press, 1988. Pp. xii + 2279$35.00. Bournique, Gladys. La philosophie deJosiah Royce. Biblioth6que d'histoire de la philosophie. Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1988. Pp. ix + 452. Paper, FF 24o. Brakas, George. Aristotle's Concept of the Universal. Studien und Materialien zur Geschichte der Philosophie. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1988. Pp. 113. DM 49...