Book Notes

524 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY tional epistemology to distinguish the Neo- from the Critical Realists. This issue was advertised in the early platforms of the controversy, but seemed to recede into the background as the doctrines became more complicated. There is no space here to discuss this big issue. I recall merely that the realists whom I knew well seemed disinclined to debate this relatively ancient issue. They emphasized aspects of experience in which sense-perception was not central. R. B. Perry's first article in the campaign was entitled "a behaviorist account of purpose." Santayana's doctrine that knowledge rests not on the given but on "animal faith" is certainly illconcealed behaviorism. I could give many other examples. There are many detailed reflections on which I would welcome further reflection, especially on Peirce, James, and Whitehead. But I restrict myself to my "inside" acquaintances, which are less extensive than the impressive company with whom Sellars conversed. HERBERT W. SCHNEIDER Claremont, California BOOK NOTES Platons dialektische Ethik, und andere Studien zur platonischen Philosophie. By Hans Georg Gadamer. (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1968. Pp. xiv+288) The greater part of this volume is a republication of the author's work of 1931 on Plato's Dialectical Ethics. This is an examination of whether or not Plato's dialectic constitutes a method for a scientific ethics. The first half is a study of several of the major dialogues from this point of view; the second, is a detailed examination of the Philebus, with special reference to it as a background for Aristotle's Ethics. Appended are four previously published essays. Two are early: Plato and the Poets (1934) and Plato's Educational State (1941), a commentary on the Republic, devoted chiefly to Plato's insistence that rulers need a philosophical education. Two are recent: Dialectic and Sophistics in Plato's Seventh Letter (1962); and Amicus Plato magis amica veritas (1968), in which Gadamer supplements his "phenomenological approach" by an interpretation of the relation between Plato and Aristotle as moral scientists which is explicitly under the impact of recent ontology, especially Heidegger's. He interprets Aristotle's critiques of Plato as being basically Aristotle's realisation that the Platonic use of mathematics as a model for scientific ethics made it impossible for Plato to understand the essential being of living organisms, and therefore, Aristotle shifted to a biological method. --H.W.S. Le Fonti della Filosofia Spinoziana nel Breve Trattato. By Pietro Addante. (Bari: Centro Ricerche Storico-Filosofiche, 1970. Pp. 26) This compact analysis examines the familiar question of the relation of Spinoza's philosophy to the traditions and to modern science, with special attention to his personal development. After a summary review of the interpretations of Hegel, Wachter, Riemann, Hamelin, Avenarius, Joel, Levy, the Rabbi of Bratislavia, and Semerari, he defends an hypothesis that is closest to that of Avenarius. Addante assigns as the chief influences that caused his break with orthodox Judaism the medieval neoplatonism (especially of Rabbi Mortiera) and medieval Aristotelianism. His isolation created in him an intensely personal ("psychological-moral") search for the summum bonum. In this search he was directly influenced by the current pietism, by renaissance naturalism, and by mysticism. As early as the Short Treatise he had arrived at a personal solution to which all these influences contributed not as distinct elements but as reciprocal stimuli. Most significant to him personally were the doctrine of the immanent BOOK REVIEWS 525 unity of God-Nature-Substance and the experience of the unity of the love of God and the knowledge of God. This theory is explicit especially in Chs. I, II, XXII, and XXVI of the Short Treatise. Having achieved this insight independently, he did not wish to identify himself with any religions tradition, though he recognized elements of his faith in both Judaism and Christian pietism. --H. W. S. ,4 Literary History of France, Vol. 3: The Eighteenth Century 1715-1789. By Niklaus, Robert. Foreword by P. E. Charvet (General Editor). (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1970. Pp. xx+435. $11.50) This third volume of a distinguished historical series is of special importance for the history of philosophy, because the author is fully aware of the way in which...