Le Dieu des Philosophes (review)

130 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY of the object of criticism (p. 614). In addition, he makes a renewed effort to clarify his concepts in aesthetic theory of "the work of art," negative aesthetic value, the consummatory experience, the relation of art to nature, and the normative elements in criticism. On the way to these clarifications, he discusses a topic to which he has devoted himself over the years, the proper concerns of higher education in the teaching of art values, and the relationship of the department of philosophy to humanities (pp. 563-564). He states that ... philosophy has a unique function in the educational sphere--that of keeping the balance between concepts and qualities. In the academic scheme, philosophy should be given a place of its own as neither one of the sciences nor one of the humanities. For its irreplaceable role is that of maintaining a comprehensive understanding of both for the enterprise of civilized living (p. 564). He adds that this observation is a central implication of his worm theory, for distortion results from an overemphasis either on the pursuit of concepts exclusive of quality, or on qualities exclusive of concepts. Art without knowledge is personal effusion; discursive knowledge without qualities is a husk. Pepper accepts Iredell Jenkins' position about the comparative value of the qualitative immediacy of art with the indirect conceptual knowledge of scientific success, that neither is superior nor inferior to the other, and that "... what both are superior to is the confused common sense view of this reality in which alike they have their point of departure" (p. 596). The book contains a useful table of contents and an index, as well as a good many infelicitous expressions and a number of editorial errors, the elimination of which would have greatly enhanced its value. ALLAN SHIELDS University of Northern Iowa Le Dieu des Philosophes. By Joseph Moreau. (Paris, Vrin: 1969. Pp. 166) Professor Moreau poses an old problem: namely, whether any philosophical argument for the existence of God is valid. His approach to the problem is historical, the general guide-lines of his inquiry being provided by Leibniz and Kant, particularly the latter. However, he is not content merely to expound others' views, but selects from them what he regards as of contemporary relevance, so that the sub-title of his book (Leibniz, Kant et Nous) is apt. He begins with Kant's discussion of the ontological argument, paying particular attention to Der einzig mrgliche Beweisgrund zu einer Demonstration des Daseins Gottes; indeed, this pre-critical work plays a large part in the first six of the nine chapters of the book, Moreau agrees (p. 21) that Kant has shown that existence cannot be deduced from pure concepts, if "existence" is taken to mean "empirical existence." But a defender of the ontological argument would say that God's existence is of a different type; it is the existence of an absolutely infinite being, the ens reaIissimum . Kant would reply that existence is not a perfection, so that non-existence BOOK REVIEWS 131 removes nothing from the supreme perfection that we conceive in God. This, according to Moreau, makes use of Leibniz's distinction between existence and essence (p. 30), and he is therefore led to examine Leibniz's arguments for the existence of God. Leibniz's cosmological argument (p. 55) escapes Kant's criticisms, provided that it is regarded as a supplement to the ontological argument, its function being to show that a necessary being is possible. Leibniz also argued that a necessary being is required to explain the possibility of contingent things; i.e., a necessary being is the principle of possibility in general. A similar thesis was advanced by Kant in the Beweisgrund. Kant (pp. 63 ft.) argued that the proposition 'Nothing is possible' is selfdestructive ; for if nothing is possible, that itself (that nothing is possible) is impossible. Now, contingent existence cannot be the basis of all possibility, for to say that something is contingent is to say that in its absence it is still possible to think. The real basis of possibility, therefore, must be a necessary being. Moreau notes (pp. 69 f.) that Leibniz had already said, and with justification...