A Companion to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Transcendental Aesthetic and Analytic (review)

564 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 24:4 OCTOBER ~986 It is a pity that more space is not devoted to Toland's concept of mind. If there was a thinker in Europe who already at that time held a completely secularconcept of mind, as implied by his theory of the accessibility of knowledge to all men, it was Toland. When reading Christianity not Mysterious one realizes how seriously Toland took the Cartesian doctrine of ideas in its Lockean version. He never doubts that the basis of knowledge is clearand distinct ideas and that we can reach certainty by comparing the doubtful and obscure with the clearly (evidently) known. It remains to be seen whether Toland who was fully aware of and wrote about the innovatory uses of language, knew that the notion of reason with its clear and distinct ideas was Descartes 's innovation, introduced so as to facilitate the acceptance of the new concepts of physics and mechanics. One thing is sure: for Toland there could be no mysterious element in his notion of mind. This does not mean, however, that "roland thought it easy to have "clear and distinct ideas." On the contrary, the secular concept of mind is not achieved once and for all but is the product of an agelong fight against prejudice. And it is here that Daniel's book is so instructive. Toland insisted all his life on the importance of the exchange Of ideas through debates and controversies in order to fight against established custom which leads to prejudice and superstition. It is not enough to declare that one opts for Reason as the new authority: the point is to inspire in others the confidence to assert this New Authority. Toland devoted all his life to this aim. HIS biographies of Harrington and Milton deal with the individual's prejudicial notions and practices. He used his etymological and historical procedures for discerning the prejudices of entire cultures. And he challenged the authority of the Church fathers with his historical and literary exegesis of the Gospel. Toland was a key link between the English deistic movement of the early eighteenth century and deism on the Continent. In sum, "With his contacts far beyond the deistic movement, Toland's interests and relationships, travels and experiences, present to us today a portrait in microcosm of early modern Europe" (5). Toland's confidence in the capacity of human reason is characteristic of his age. Daniel makes us realize the extraordinary amount of energy men like "roland spent in order to bequeath to us this confidence in human reason. EZRA TALMOR Haifa University Aschenbrenner, Karl. A Companion to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Transcendental Aestheticand Analytic. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983. Pp. xvi + 318. Cloth, $27.oo. Paper, $13.25. This work consists of comments (to use the author's own description) on the Introduction , the Transcendental Aesthetic, and most of the Analytic of Principles of the Cr/t/que ofPure Reason. Aschenbrenner singles out these portions on the grounds that they are "analytical, concerned with the nature, foundations and limits of empirical knowledge," in contrast to dialectical and methodological interests of the rest of the first Cr/tique. Boo~ REVlZWS 565 In the table of contents, analytical headings of all sections and subsections are perspicuously displayed, followed by page references to both the Companionand the Norman Kemp Smith translation of the Crit/que. This arrangement, two indices, and a (very short) bibliography undoubtedly will help students find their way through Kant's work in the manner intended by the Compan/on's author. The content of Aschenbrenner's comments will also often prove helpful to their intended audience. When he, in dealing with the first section of the Introduction, headed "Of the Difference Between Pure and Empirical Knowledge," refers to both Locke and Hume in order to clarify Kant's dictumthat "all our knowledge begins with experience.., but.., not all arise[s] out of experience," he does advance a beginner 's understanding of what Kant is about by distinguishing Kant's source of a prior/ judgment from Locke's reflection as a source of ideas. Locke's source is still a sense...