Peirce (review)

312 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 25:2 APRIL 1987 version of his so-called "politics." Politics is his weakest area and one in which he vacillates quite a bit. His political views are part of a larger theory of culture and society which, he thought, was a countermeasure designed to halt the nihilistic movements toward a levelling mediocracy. Though numbers favor the "masses," the masses ought not to rule and impose their values on autonomous, exceptional individuals . A "rising tide of mediocrity" can easily drown mavericks or independent thinkers. There is wisdom in Eden's final defense of a constitutionally-centered liberal democracy, his faith in plebiscitary democracy. But his rhetorical overkill of Nietzsche 's cultural values is one-sided. There is a lot of discussion of Nietzsche's assumption that in his new social Rangordnung the scientific mastery of nature would play a central role. And there is an awareness that today the technological power of nationstates is positively terrifying, especially in the hands of professional "demagogues." However, he does not mention that, as early as a87~, Nietzsche saw that the scientific will to knowledge and a utilitarian ethics, when wed to "practical politics," would lead to massive conflicts. The aristocratic-philosophic-artistic culture that Eden lambasts as a mode of 'nihilism' was put forward in order that a high culture would control and restrain the powers of scientific technology. The unholy marriage of technological knowledge and world politics did, contra Nietzsche, take place, and the offspring was.., the twentieth century. Eden's thoughtful and perceptive work is so rich that it invites criticism. He uses 'science' throughout to refer to the German idea of Wissenschaft, social science, and technology. The key term 'nihilism' is not adequately defined. Eden knows what he means by it, but we're not sure what it means. This is especially a problem when dealing with a thinker, such as Nietzsche, who describes so many modalities of nihilism himself. However, the main theme of the relationship between Nietzsche and Weber is an advance on previous works in this area. Eden certainly has given us a provocative book that goes to the heart of recent and presentday political problems and exposes the challenges to the preservation of a viable democratic liberalism. GEORGE J. STACK SUNY, Brockport Christopher Hookway. Peirce. The Arguments of the Philosophers. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985 . Pp. xii + 3ol. $45.00. The shortness of the title of Hookway's book iconizes the conciseness of his work. Further satisfaction is realized by discovering the author's evident fundamental sympathy with Charles Peirce's desire to fashion a systematic or integrated philosophy. Hookway recognizes without apology the degree to which his book aims at exegesis in pursuing the main goal of "providing a guide that will enable people to read Peirce's works with an understanding of what he is up to and why he presents his doctrines as he does" (x). The book provides a kind of map of much of the Peircean philosophic structure, BOOK REVIEWS 313 and it not only retains, but rather successfully highlights a number of the especially Peircean landmarks---the book does not typically shy away from Peircean terminology. Considered as a map, the scale was evidently prescribed in advance--only so much parchment could be spared to reveal the image, which by any other name is still semeiotic. Most of the book examines Peirce's philosophic rationale for communal scientific knowledge which proceeds by deliberate self-controlled inquiry. Counselling patience concerning the appearance of fragmentation and diversity of Peircean projects , Hookway avows, "Properly understood, these doctrines [which systematically detail epistemological grounding] are less wildly speculative--and less alien to the styles of modern philosophy--than may, at first glance, appear" (3). Peirce's classification of the sciences provides the principal organizing tool for showing epistemological grounding. Part One of the book develops, with as much detail as it dares, conceptions of the categories, the logical conception of mind, the aims of inquiry, ultimate standards, and a theory of signs (semeiotic) which itself is the study of logic in a broad sense. The influence upon Peirce of philosophic forebears , particularly Immanuel Kant, is duly considered...