New Essays on Human Understanding by G.W. Leibniz (review)

208 LETTERS IN CANADA 1996 G.W. Leibniz. New Essays on Human Understanding. Second edition. Edited and translated by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. cxix, 527. us $59.95 doth, us $21.95 paper One of the most useful distinctions by which we organize the history of philosophy is the one dividing rationalists from empiricists. It is remarkable that the seventeenth-century philosophers were so kind as to bisect themselves along lines of both doctrine and geography. The common-sense philosophers of the English world, basing their views on experimental science, the plain testimony of the senses, and the schooling of experience, stand in sturdy opposition to the effete Europeans, wandering in labyrinthinecoils ofpure thought, dreaming up the laws ofnature from armchairs. There is always a distressing amount oftruth in these caricatures ofhistory, but we know it cannot really be so neat; in fact the picture must in many ways be positively misleading. In 1690John Locke published the Essay ConcerningHuman Understanding, which is both the general manifesto and a detailed development of empiricist philosophy. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's New Essays on Human Understanding is an extensive, detailed, but also very wide ranging commentary on Locke's work. It was explicitly intended to elicit a reply from Locke and perhaps could have begun a grand engagement between empiricism and rationalism; between Britain and the Continent. The death of Locke (in 1704, at the age of seventy-two) erased this fascinating historical possibility, and Leibniz shelved the New Essays. It was finally published in 1765 (almost fifty years after Leibniz's death) but not translated into English until 1896, by Alfred Gideon Langley (an edition thatwasnever very widely available). Remnantand Bennett'sversion is the sole alternative, and since its-original publication in 1981 it has entirely superseded Langley's (thoughthis is no measure ofits merit). Remnant and Bennett's original edition was greeted with enthusiasm, but also with the inevitable host of scholarly quibbles and caveats regarding niceties of the translation. The reviews have been read and heeded, and this edition (published in the new CambridgeTexts in the History of Philosophy series) is clearly improved by a number of critically prompted alterations. It is worth repeating, after sixteen years, that Remnant and Bennett have provided a wonderful resource to students of philosophy. Though aimed straight at the classroom, where the New Essays is perfect for illuminating the philosophy of either Locke or Leibniz, or both, it is surprisingly pleasant to read and is characteristically full of all sorts of ideas, fascinating observations, and speculations going far beyond the central disputes between empiricism and rationalism. The errors of the traditional historical divide are evident: Leibniz is the one who favours, understands, and engages in empirical research. Leibniz is the one who is HUMANITIES 209 ' at the forefront of the scientific revolution, reshaping both physics and mathematics in ways undreamt of by Locke. The range of agreement and disagreement, which bears scant similarity to the party lines, also gives the lie to the old dichotomy. The New Essays presupposes much of Leibniz's philosophy and cannot serve as an introduction, but it adds much to our appreciation of that philosophy and reveals how Leibniz could apply it to questions from another's philosophical agenda. It is also delightful to see the scope and freedom of Leibniz's thought. He even gives us hints of our world; of the health sciences he says: 'this aspect of public policy will become almost the chiefconcern of those who govern.' Buthis vision is perhaps inaccurate, for he goes on to qualify that the concern for health will be 'second only to the concern for virtue'! Finally, I raise a small question about Leibniz. Though he was always interested in the emergingmathematical theories of probability andindeed contributed to them, did he ever tmderstand probability? In the New Essays he manages to state correctly the odds fC?r rolling a seven versus rolling a nine, but he is merely lucky. Leibniz is counting I arrangements' of the dice and not their permutations, as revealed by a later remark (in a letter) that one is equally likely to roll a twelve...