Ensayos Actuales sobre Adam Smith y David Hume (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 205 Robinet's book inevitably bears comparison to Michel Foucault's L'Arch~ologie du savoir and Noam Chomsky's Cartesian Linguistics. Let it be said that Robinet is primarily a scholar in the sense that neither Foucault nor Chomsky is or claims to be. Both Robinet and Foucault explore the theme of representationalism, and although Foucault's model is grand and suggestive, scholarship like Robinet's provides the ground and test for such models. Similarly, polemical theses such as Chomsky's must bear up under the detail of exhaustive scholarly work such as Robinet's. Robinet forces the rereading of Foucault and Chomsky. He forces the reconsideration of stereotyped views of ideas and language in modern philosophy. He has enriched the history of philosophy. RICHARD A. WATSON Washington University Raul Orayen, editor. Ensayos Actuales sobre Adam Smith y David Hume. Buenos Aires: Editorial del Instituto, 1978. Pp. x + 365. In spite of cultural persecution by the military regime, and a general lack of scientific encouragement at all levels, Argentina still keeps the strongest philosophical tradition in Latin America. This volume, published by the Torcuato di Tella Institute, is a proof of this. It includes papers presented to the "Jornadas Adam Smith, David Hume y su ~poca," held in Buenos Aires in December 1976, celebrating the double bicentennial of Hume's death and the first publication of The Wealth of Nations. Most authors are Argentinian, but the well-known British philosopher Antony Flew is also present, as well as the Brazilian Eduardo Chaves. Critical comments made at the conference are also published, together with answers by the authors. The volume is divided into two parts, dedicated to the two philosophers, each with a special introduction and a bibliographical guide. Part i has four papers on Smith: "Adam Smith's Theorem" (J. Olivera); on some aspects of international economical strategy in The Wealth of Nations (J. Viilanueva); on value, labor, and capital (M. L6pez); and finally Flew's paper on Adam Smith and the Scottish founders of the social sciences. Part 2 is the most extensive and also the most interesting, with seven papers on Hume. Margarita Costa and Ezequiel de Olaso develop some of the views they had presented at the Hume Conference held at the University of Campinas, Brazil, in 1976, and later published in a special issue on Hume of the Brazilian philosophical journal Manuscrito. M. Costa carefully analyzes the foundations of causality in Hume, and Olaso strikingly shows that Hume's "Pyrrhonic crisis" involves an equivocal interpretation of ancient skepticism by the philosopher. J. Alessio proposes an original approach to the problem of the powers of objects in Hume's epistemology, in terms of dispositions; and E. Rabossi very effectively clarifies a precise aspect of the Treatise, abstract ideas and general terms. J. Larreta, 1. Zuberbi~hler and J. Ibafiez present a joint discussion of induction, coherence, and simplicity; and the scope and present import of Hume's view of science are analyzed by the dean of Argentinian philoso- 206 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY phy of science, Gregorio Kiimovsky. The problem of evil in the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion is discussed by E. Chaves, in its logical and semantical aspects. It is impossible to give, in a short note, a clear idea of the significance of such a volume for philosophy and the social sciences in Latin America, where publications of this quality do not abound. The Argentinian papers on Adam Smith reveal the existence of a solid scholarship in economics in that country; and Flew's contribution is as illuminating as usual. As for the papers on Hume, they fully display the maturity of the Argentinian philosophic community. Criticism of some of the more polemical views exposed in these papers would be out of place here. But one can regret, in a publication dedicated to two philosophers with such strong mutual ties, the absence of any discussion of the relationship between them. This certainly is one of the most important links to be found by the historian of eighteenth-century science and philosophy. One of the doors to this kind of discussion might be the analysis of Hume's economical essays and of their relevance...