Das Vico-Axiom: Der Mensch macht die Geschichte (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 471 ception. Despite his apparent acknowledgement of the apparent crudity of the picture-original thesis, Mackie would have us consider "whether within the limits of what can be called a picture-original thesis, we can give any coherent account of mediate perception, of dealing with other things by way of ideas" (p. 42). If the picture-original theory of perception were wrong, bow wrong could it be, he queries. Suppose the primary qualities of things did not cause us to have resembling sensations; what then? He claims that a person insulated from a direct view of the world but supplied with reliable representations, signs, of it, would believe he was observing the world directly and "be no worse off than we are" (p. 44). On this view, Mackie is offering us a thoroughgoing functional-or instrumentalist-interpretation of ideas. Our ideas would be natural signs of nature. Some ideas-those caused by primary qualities-while they may resemble nature, nevertheless have as their primary function to serve as reliable natural signs of occurrences in nature. It is an Ockhamist position, not merely with respect to universals, but with respect to knowledge in general. Locke, as interpreted by Mackie, is supposed to have a representative theory of perception that is tenable. Mackie treats ideas as "intentional objects," so that the statement "I see a horse .... does not entail that what I see should be there independently of my seeing it.... 1 can see horses though there are none" (pp. 47-48). "That is bow things look (or feel, or sound, and so on)" to the perceiver (p. 48). However, Mackie acknowledges, "that things look thus and so . . . is one thing, that they are thus and so is another" (p. 50). But for Mackie, this is not an occasion for real doubt because, as we have seen previously, he has confidence in the scientific "fact," namely, "that things [are sensed the way they really are] is a causal product of some features of how things are" (p. 50). Nevertheless, he admits there is a problem in inferring a cause that has never been observed from an effect (pp. 50-51). The unverifiabilityof such a cause diverts Mackie into a discussion and "Solution of the Problem of Meaning" (p. 60). He then returns to the "causal inference" needed to bridge the gap between ideas and reality. "The real existence of things outside us is a well confirmed outline hypothesis," explaining "the experiences we have better than any alternative hypothesis would."He calls it "an outline hypothesis to allow for revisions within it" (p. 64). However, "to allow for revisions within it," and subsequently to allow "filling in more detailed accounts," suggests that his hypothesis lacks sufficient generality and an ad hoc procedure for a hypothesis whose "merit is a special sort of simplicity" (pp. 64-66). Mackie concludes that his "intentional object variant" is a kind of representative theory that can be defended and that "is fairly close to what Locke was trying to state" (p. 70). But there is "at least one problem outstanding"; that is "to defend the view that some ideas, but not others, resemble the corresponding qualities of external things, [particularly when] we have no 'direct access' to things in order to compare our ideas to them" (p. 70). One must reiterate one's wonderment at Mackie's concern that some of the reliable signs of nature should also resemble nature. Mackie's "problem," however, is rhetorical, because he answers, "But this is only the problem of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities over again" (p. 70)-and so it is-which he takes as settled in his previous chapter. ANGELOJUFFRAS William Paterson College of New Jersey Ferdinand Fellmann. Das Vico-Axiom: Der Mensch macht die Geschichte. Freiburg/Munich: Verlag Karl Alber, 1976. Pp. 200. Professor Fellmann's book falls within the context of a widespread renewal of interest in the thought of Giambattista Vico (1668-1744). Two collections of essays on Vico' and two major ' Giorgio Tagliacozzo and Hayden V. White, eds. Giambattista Vico: An International Symposium (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1969)and Giorgio Tagliacozzo and Donald Phillip Verene, eds. 472 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY...