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414 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 24:3 JULY x986 inconscient diff~rentiel, la complexit~ qui se cache confus~ment sous la simplicite apparente, Leibniz ale tort de nier la sp&ificit~ des impressions affectives et il ne compose les sensations que d'une faqon ext*rieure et mat~rielle, au lleu de centrer cette composition sur l'unite active du moi. L'exl~rience de reffort moteur, "mode fondemental de mon sentiment d'existence" (59) r~v~le en moi, selon les termes dc Biran, une "force hypersen.dbleet hyperorgan~lt~" (6o) qui, &rit M. Even, "me constitue moi dans le sentiment de mon existence originaire" (/2~d.)et fonde le connaissance sur le vouloir. Locke avait su, contre le rationalisme d'un Malebranche, distinguer et opposer volont~ et d~sir, mais sans identifier volont* et libertY, celle-ci restant d~finie d'un point de vue ext&ieur et non comme pouvoir interne du moi. Ainsi Biran trouve sa vole, celle de l'exp~rience int~rieure, ~ travers rexamen des apports classiques et principalement une critique de l'empirisme h~sitant de Locke. Les analyses et les r~f~rences de L. Even sont sobres et daires. Remarquons seulement que son travail reste un peu trop int6rieur lui-m~me ~ l'~poque &udi6e: il fait de la pens~e de Gassendi un "sensualisme mat~rialiste" (4o), ne distingue pas la "table rase" d'Aristote de ses avatars empiristes (7 et 11-1~) et il n'explique pasce qu'il faut entendre par des "impressions inconscientes" (44). Pour Biran, le psychique est plus &endu que la seule conscience, entendue comme conscience impliquant le r6flexion du moi, comme conscience de soi. JEAN BERNHARDT C.N.R.S., Pari~ Leonora Cohen Rosenfield, editor. CondorcetStudies I. Society for Study of History of Philosophy. History of Philosophy Series, No. 1. Adandc Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, x984. Pp. xi + ~lo. $16.95 Leonora Cohen Rosenfield, who edited this volume, was convinced that the ideas of the eighteenth-century philosophe Condorcet have much greater significance for the modern world than has generally been recognized. Although she died before Condorcet Studies I appeared, it was her initiative that led to this collection of articles devoted to aspects of Condorcet's thought with present-day relevance. The contributors include American and European scholars from a wide variety of disciplines. Thanks to Rosenfield's activities, a second volume of CondorcetSttd~ is already in preparation. For more than a decade now, ther have been signs of a renewal of interest in the "last of the philosophes." Keith Baker's magistral Condorcet:FromNatural Philosophyto Soda/Mathtmat/cs (1975) forcefully argued that Condorcet made a major original contribution to the philosophic underpinnings of modern social science and freed him from the traditional stereotype as the faithful spear-carrier of earlier Enlightenment thinkers, important only for his elaboration of the doctrine of progress. The German intellectual historian Rolf Reichardt's probing study of Condorcet zwischen Reform und Revolution (1973) broke new ground in examining the development of Condorcet's political ideas before the French Revolution; previous studies of his political thought and activity had invariably focused on Condorcet as the only philo- BOOK REVIEWS 415 soph~ to play an active role in the events of 1789-94. Several of the contributors to the present volume have already published more extensive works devoted to Condorcet elsewhere, and there have been additional contributions, such as Horst Dippel's Individuum und Gesellschaft: SozialesDenken zwischenTradition und Revolution: Smith-Condorcet -Franklin (G6ttingen, 198 x). In the Rosenfield coUection, the major emphasis is less on the evolution of Condorcet 's ideas than on what one contributor, Constance Rowe, calls "The Present-Day Relevance of Condorcet." For most of the contributors, that relevance lies in Condorcet 's advocacy of a variety of principles basic to modern democracy: the abolition of slavery, equality for women, universal suffrage, fair trials, universal public education and progressive taxation. Condorcet was an early advocate of all these ideas, and devoted himself to their implementation during the revolutionary period. Furthermore , he was determined to tie them together philosophically on the basis of a consistent doctrine of human rights. The contrast between Condorcet's efforts to make revolutionary legislation harmonize with philosophical...

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