The Golden Lands of Thomas Hobbes (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 229 provide valid ground for doubting p, q must confront p directly in content. Thus he wants to exclude the standard skeptical gambit of providing as ground for doubt a secondary-level r to the effect that both logic and experience suggest that for doubting p, it is possible that there is a good argument, q, which has slipped my mind, has not been thought of yet but may be tomorrow, or is presented in a book neither of us has read. In particular, I see no reason to support Curley's stress on primary as contrasted to secondary confrontation, given that he takes as crucial the notion that "where the proposition to be doubted is assent-compelling, then any hypothesis put up as a ground for doubting it should have an equally strong claim on our assent" (p. 121). This resort to the notion of propositions that compel assent is extremely weak, given that which propositions compel assent from different people is a very subjective thing. But Curley claims that "the skeptical opposition could hardly object to it, given their doctrine that 'To every argument an equal argument is opposed'" (p. 121). Apparently Curley takes "equal" here to mean equally on a primary level of content, that is, both propositions dealing directly with the matter at hand. But equal strength to compel assent is surely more to Curley's point. And the secondary-level proposition, r, "Tomorrow I might think of a good primary reason for doubting p" is in one sense even more compelling than a primary-level proposition, q, that confronts p directly, for r provides ground for doubt not merely of a particular case, but generally. However, this does not matter much, and it is a measure of Curley's own ability to compel assent that he goes on to say that anyway, "the really serious objection to his argument [ultimately to Descartes's entire system] is the substantive one that his arguments for the existence of a nondeceiving God are just not compelling" (p. 118). Curley's treatment of Austin, Malcolm, and Ryle is a measure of the ascending strength of the history of philosophy, and of the general realization that it is worthwhile to try to find out what problems philosophers were actually concerned with, and what they actually intended to say. He plays Moli~re with Austin's mesmorizing rhetoric, chides Malcolm gently for dreaming about dreaming, and says that "Ryle writes polemic, not a serious exercise in the history of philosophy. Like all strong medicines, it must be used only as directed and kept out of the reach of children" (p. 171). It is a further measure of strength that Curley takes seriously and profits from the analytic work of Hintikka, Plantinga, and Kripke. A goal of the history of philosophy is to do analysis in historical context. It is reasonable to begin with the assumption that sense can be made of many of the classicial problems of philosophy, and to proceed with contemporary techniques if they prove helpful. There is a useful bibliographical note, but no bibliography. The names of authors of many works cited in the text and footnotes are not in the index (e.g., the name "Curley," which is cited several times), nor is, for example, "soul," which is important throughout. This is a sour note in a generally harmonious and pleasing work. RICHARDA. WATSON Washington University Miriam M. Reik. The GoldenLands of Thomas Hobbes. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1977, Pp. 239. $15.95. "The great Columbus of the Golden Lands of new Philosophies"--praise for Thomas Hobbes from his contemporary Abraham Cowley; and Meriam Reik draws on the tribute for the title of her intellectual portrait. She alludes at the outset to problems besetting the biographer of Hobbes, among them that of continuity---or, more precisely, the lack of it. Had Hobbes died, say, at age forty, he would be remembered only as a minor classical scholar and translator of Thucydides. 230 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY How did this relatively obscure figure suddenly emerge as a "scientific philosopher" of the very first order? Some commentators, among them Leslie Stephen and John Laird, make no serious...