A Short-Title List of Subject Dictionaries of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries as Aids to the History of Ideas (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 411 ophies" (pp. 406-408). His main justifying reason for this exclusion is that the concern for man's nature ("the theme of humanity") is claimed to run as a uniquely underlying thematic one through both the modern and contemporary texts, in ways foreign to these other eras and cultures. This tolerant, even pluralistic "theory" is richly defended in a series of tightly written chapters, showing the author's wide-ranging awareness of major sources as well as of different yet related conceptual themes in our own age. Chapter II (pp. 35-96) treats the insistent modern sources, including a thorough and valuable analysis of "the demanding text of Descartes." Chapter III (pp. 97-185) wisely explores the domain of artful historical questioning; it includes detailed treatments of problems of "text, translation, and biography" as well as of "genesis, system, and conspectus" of the great thinkers. In Chapter IV (pp. 186-266) the various roles of an historical interpreter come under scrutiny, while Chapter V (pp. 267-344) shows how Kant can be interpreted both historically and in light of contemporary interests in a seminar experience. Finally, Chapter VI (pp. 345-417) titled "Teleology of Historical Understanding," presents an argument which "sees" the philosophical historian as an active participant in philosophical dialogue and interpretation. Two subsections devoted to criteria marking a great philosopher and to the intent to do historical justice to a text may counter a reader's occasional fears, raised by earlier chapters, that creativity may gain too great a mastery over an historian's obligation to understand classical texts in their own terms. Clearly and rightly, Professor Collins comes down hard on the side of truth over imaginative creativity in historical work, if a choice need be made. Though occasionally frustrating by its ritualistic language, the book on the whole raises properly searching questions about modern sources and historical work in philosophy. Philosophers willing to look over fences into neighboring philosophical fields should benefit from reading it. A rather full and representative bibliography (pp. 421-452) includes works in French, German, Italian and English (as would be expected from the annual reviewer of philosophical books for the lively Cross Currents, an ecumenical journal). Probably the author has been a bit too brief with philosophers who worry why, over the centuries, so little philosophical agreement has been unearthed from The Battle of the Schools. Professor Collins sincerely, if too uncritically, views philosophizing and the historical treatment of texts as ends-in-themselves. If his own book is taken as an example, he can be said to have made an impressive case for the values of philosophizing. Professor Colhns has written a tolerant, suggestive and significant work which is, at the same time, a most scholarly one. It and its arguments deserve careful attention from the philosophical community. W~ITAI~R T. DEININGER California State University at San Jose ,4 Short-Title List of Subject Dictionaries of the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries as Aids to the History of Ideas. By Giorgio Tonelli. (London: The Warburg Institute, University of London, 1971. Warburg Institute Surveys, IV, ed. by H. H. Gombrich and J. B. Trapp. Pp. 64) How little we know about the origin of the modern encyclopedia and dictionary! Despite the zeal with which compendia of knowledge were drawn up in the Middle Ages, its great encyclopedic works, that of Vincent de Beauvais for example, did not 412 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY follow the alphabetical order. Not before the sixteenth century did the alphabetical order prevail over the methodical order. The author of the present pioneer study expresses the hope that it may stimulate interest in the history of lexicography. His aim is "to provide for the first time an extensive list of these dictionaries and their basic locations in Europe, together with some information concerning their doctrinal affiliations, diffusion and present usefulness " (Introduction). Some encyclopedias are included with the dictionaries. A few are well-known---especially the Encyclop~die of Diderot and Co., Samuel Johnson's Dictionary and the first Encyclopedia Brittanica, a Scottish enterprise--but most of the material is rare. The volume is attractively presented by the Warburg Institute. It is methodical, clear, well-indexed...