Pierre Gassendi. From Aristotelianism to a New Natural Philosophy, and: Causa e spiegazione. La fisica di Pierre Gassendi (review)

476 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 27:3 JULY 1989 covenant has been made and the attenuated state of nature when a covenant without a common power exists. Kavka also claims that the lack of common power to enforce moral requirements does not show that there are no moral requircmcnts (355). According to Kavka, Hobbes's morality is a form of rule egoism, not, as is usually believed, an act egoism (36o). Kavka presents a very strong case for holding that Hobbes has a genuine moral theory, measured against both formal and material critcria of morality. Along the same lines, Kavka has an interesting discussion of the similarities between rule egoism and rule utilitarianism (37off.). Kavka explicitly disavows any historical interest. One question, then, is: "Does his disregard of the historical context interfere with his interpretation of Hobbcs?" Although it may not interfere with Kavka's own interest in making a contribution to "secular ethical theory" (21), it does interfere, I think, with giving a correct and balanced explication of Hobhes's own view. Immediately after saying that "Hobbes's moral philosophy may bc viewed as an attempt to reconcile.., prudence, morality, the State, and religion," Kavka says that religion "is largely ignored here because it plays little role in Hobbes's moral and political system" (21). I think this is obviously false and Johnston, who devotes a full third of his book to the importance of religion in Hobbes's philosophy, in effect refutes this view. In my view, Kavka's dismissal of the importance of religion leads him to misinterpret Hobbes's doctrine of the laws of nature. Kavka accepts David Gauthier's view, presented in The Logic of Leviathan that the laws of nature are not strictly laws and not obligatory (341). This view contradicts much of Hobhcs's text and is incompatible with the historical context, even though I admit that Kavka presents a powerful alternative interpretation. Kavka interprets Hobbesian topics broadly and his discussions range widely enough to discuss, always in interesting ways, such topics as sociobiology and the Ik people (73-74)-Johnston's book is much narrower in scope and closer to Hobbes's own spirit. Both books arc highly recommended. A. P. MARTINICH University of Texas at Austin Barry Brundell. Pierre Gassendi. From Aristotelianism to a New Natural Philosophy. Synthese Historical Library, 3o. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1987. Pp. x + 251. $64.oo. Marco Messeri. Causa e spiegazione. La fisica di Pierre Gassendi. Collana di filosofia, 18. Milan: Franco Angeli, 1985. Pp. 167. NP. Marco Messeri's and Barry Brundell's recent studies of Gassendi's philosophy illustrates the capacity of the texts of this seventeenth-century thinker to sustain a variety of conflicting interpretations by modern readers. Gassendi's capacity for generating conflict among his interpreters is the product of both the genre in which he philosophized and the difficulties encountered by modern readers in understanding that genre. Messeri and Brundell present us with accounts of his natural philosophy which are diametrically opposed on several major issues. It is unfortunate that neither Messeri nor BrundeU seems to have been aware of the other's work when writing his own study, BOOK REVIEWS 477 for an analysis of their points of disagreement reveals just how intractable Gassendi's texts can be for anyone attempting to find the right categories in which to interpret them. For example, Messeri and Brundell find themselves on opposite sides of an exceedingly basic question: whether or not Gassendi was a genuine anti-Aristotelian. Brundell's chief aim is to restore to its rightful place the interpretation of Gassendi as, above all else, an opponent of Aristotelian doctrines in metaphysics and physics. He is thus critical of Richard Popkin's emphasis, in The History of Scepticismfrom Erasmus to Descartes 0968), on the skeptical elements in Gassendi's thought, because such an emphasis skews the discussion of Gassendi's real significance. Brundell also takes issue with E. J. Dijksterhuis' characterization, in The Mechanisationof the Worm Picture (1961), of Gassendi as an apologist for Epicurean atomism whose main contribution was his presentation of this pagan philosophy in a theologically acceptable Christian version. He seeks to return to a pristine simplicity...