Nietzsche: A Critical Life (review)

98 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY laus of Autrecourt. He made no effort to trace how Islamic occasionalism was known and discussed in the seventeenth and eighteenth century and how it was presented in editions of Maimonides in Latin, and in discussions throughout Bayle's Dictionary. Bayle is not mentioned as a source although current scholarship indicates that he was the major source of Hume's views about previous metaphysical theories and the major inspiration of his skepticism. The critique of induction stated by Francisco Sanches and by Pierre Gassendi is ignored while various medieval ones are compared with Hume's. The development of a view like Hume's on causality worked out by the Occasionalists is alluded to, but not actually discussed. To assess Hume's novelty vis-~t-vis his immediate predecessors, one would have to go into much detail about various seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century authors. If one wished to assess his novelty compared with only the Islamic occasionalists and the medieval Christian nominalists, one could skip the developments in early modern thought. Weinberg seemed to want his most interesting comparison of Hume's analyses with those of the medievals to amount to an "evaluation of Hume's contribution to these subjects.., in terms of what went before" (p. 134). Of course, what went before includes an enormous variety of views that are not considered. From Weinberg's loci of interest, he made an exciting and interesting case, but one that needs supplementation if it is to be placed along with other modern studies of Hume's contributions. This posthumous work is an excellent collection of Weinberg's historical and analytic studies. We should be grateful to the editors for making these essays available to us. We now have a greater debt to Julius Weinberg for his efforts to enlighten us about the history of philosophy, and to show us how historical materials are most relevant to systematic discussions of philosophical issues. Julius Weinberg was one of the most learned men in America. He inspired many to study history carefully and to relate their findings to present philosophical concerns. (He was also one of those who first sought to found this journal.) These essays will help to keep his stimulating mind and great erudition with us. RICHARD H. POPKIN Washington University Ronald Hayman. Nietzsche: A Critical Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 198o. Pp. xxiii + 4~4. $19.95. "I have gradually come to understand," Nietzsche wrote in Section 6 of Beyond Good and Evil, "what every great philosophy until now has been: the confession of its author and a kind of involuntary, unconscious memoir." Ronald Hayman uses this famous passage as one of the epigraphs of his major new biography of Nietzsche. It provides him with a central thesis and a guiding principle, with a philosophical justification of his book: this is the view that Nietzsche's life provides substantial clues to his thought. Hayman's painstaking and in some ways definitive work is accordingly composed on three levels. It contains, first, a detailed investigation into the facts of Nietzsche's life; secondly, a discussion of his literary and philosophical work; thirdly, BOOK REVIEWS 99 an elaboration of what Hayman considers as the interrelations between the topics discussed on the first two levels. Hayman's reporting of the main events in Nietzsche's life is, in my opinion, excellent; it constitutes by far the best part of the book. Naturally, and unfortunately, there is no way in which his achievement in this domain can be summarized here. In elegant, lucid and occasionally witty prose Hayman incorporates a vast amount of material relating to all the stages of Nietzsche's life, from his birth in R0cken in 1844 to his breakdown in 1889 and his death in Weimar in 19oo. An unforgettable moment comes when Nietzsche, enlisted in the Prussian artillery, would hide himself under his horse's belly and mutter, "Schopenhauer, help!" All in all, Hayman leaves his readers with a rich yet uncluttered diagram of Nietzsche's life, a diagram unlikely to be superseded for some time to come. The most moving and disturbing part of this level is the painfully clear picture Hayman has drawn...