Particles and Ideas: Bishop Berkeley's Corpuscularian Philosophy (review)

496 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 29:3 JULY 1991 occasionalism in different clothes. Sleigh argues otherwise (correctly, I believe, in spite of recent misinterpretations of occasionalism which take their cue from Arnauld). In doing so, he sheds light both on Malebranche's occasionalism and on Leibniz's varied critique of that doctrine. Sleigh is careful to remind us that the problems here are not just philosophical. There are theological points at stake. Leibniz believes that his own causal doctrine is to be preferred not just because it follows from his metaphysical views of substance, but also because it is more consistent with God's modusoperandi. The differences and similarities between occasionalism and the pre-established harmony (and the related questions regarding Malebranche's and Leibniz's theodicies) are extremely interesting and important--and understudied. Sleigh has done us a great service. This is a rich and rewarding book. It is a demanding read, but certainly worth the effort. One wishes more were said about Arnauld's own views and those doctrines which motivate his objections to Leibniz (for example, his commitment to an orthodox Cartesian ontology clearly underlies his resistance to admitting substantial forms into corporeal substance). That notwithstanding, Sleigh combines to a remarkable degree scholarly depth, historical awareness, and (above all) a keen analytical rigor (the penetrating Arnauld himself would be impressed). This is a combination rarely found in books on early modern philosophy. Put another way, Sleigh takes the seventeenth century seriously--both its philosophy and its theology, which, in the case of such complex thinkers as Leibniz, Arnauid, and Malebranche, are rarely distinct from one another. STEVEN NADLER University of Wisconsin, Madison Gabriel Moked. Particlesand Ideas:BishopBerkeley'sCorpuscularianPhilosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp. viii + 245. $55.oo. The contents of this thought-provoking but in some respects unconvincing book are as follows. In Chapter 1 Moked examines Berkeley's attitude to corpuscles during the early period in which he wrote The PrinciplesconcerningHuman Knowledge (P) and Three Dmlogues betweenHylas and Philonous (D). (I will call this the "PD-period.") Chapters 2 and 3 occupy more than half of the book and are devoted to Berkeley's claims about particles in Siris (S). Chapter 4 examines some puzzling claims in S, including the claim that certain particles are "active souls"--a claim which is baffling in its own right, but is particularly baffling given the main doctrines of the PD-period--and also explores the influence of Neoplatonism and alchemy on S. There are five appendices, two of which are substantive essays, one on minima and one on Popper's instrumentalist reading of Berkeley's attitude to corpuscles. Moked points out that in the PD-period Berkeley rejected a "package-dear' of doctrines which consisted of (1) the infinite divisibility of matter, (2) the primary/ secondary quality distinction, (3) the existence of matter, (4) the ascription of causal powers to material entities, and (5) the existence of corpuscles, or unperceived minute BOOK aEVXEWS 497 particles of material things. (My only quibble here is that there are other equally good candidates for inclusion in the "package-deal" along with [1]-[5], such as the inaccessibility of the real nature of things, representationalism, or real essences.) Because he attacked the package-deal as a whole, it is hard to be sure about Berkeley's attitude to the existence of corpuscles per se during the PD-period. Passages which might be interpreted as attacking corpuscles are open to being read as attacking other parts of the package. How does Moked interpret Berkeley's attitude to corpuscles during the PD-period? He says that "there is nothing in the Bishop's phenomenalism, even at the stage of The Principles of Human Knowledge (171 o) and De Motu (l 721), that demands the denial of the existence of micro-entities or of the usefulness of hypotheses concerning their role or nature" (1). He also says that Berkeley had no need to reject micro-entities in the PD-period, since the corpuscles can be cashed in in immaterialist terms. So it seems that corpuscles were not rejected in the PD-period. But sometimes Moked gives a different impression. He says that...