Philosophical Selections, and: Treatise on Nature and Grace (review)

674 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 32:4 OCTOBER 199 4 Nicolas Malebranche. Philosophical Selections. Edited by Steven Nadler. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1992. Pp. xiv + 28L Cloth, $32.5o. Paper, $12.95. Nicolas Malebranche. Treatise on Nature and Grace. Translated by Patrick Riley. New York: Oxford University Press, x992. Pp. xviii + 226. Cloth, $55.oo. Among English-speaking historians of philosophy, the French seventeenth-century philosopher Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715) has only recently regained some of the renown he enjoyed during his lifetime. This delay is surprising on two counts. First, Malebranche's influence on the development of modern philosophy is significant and worthy of study; he was renowned throughout the learned world and read closely by important seventeenth- and eighteenth-century thinkers such as Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley , Hume, Rousseau, and Kant. Second, Malebranche's philosophical writings offer much on their own; he is among the few thinkers in the Western tradition to have constructed and developed a complete and wholly integrated system of philosophy, and his works are rich in discussions of philosophical as well as scientific questions. Recently, Anglo-American scholars have taken some important steps in rectifying this lacuna in the history of philosophy and the two present books serve this end in different and important ways. The first book, Philosophical Selections, is the first collection of substantial selections from Malebranche's philosophical works to appear in English. Nadler has produced a superb collection from Malebranche's major works, The Search after Truth, Elucidations of the Search after Truth, Dialogues on Metaphysics, and Treatise on Nature and Grace. Considering that Robinet's' standard edition of Malehranche's works fills an impressive twenty volumes, and that Lennon and Olscamp's' 198o English translation of Malebranche's most important philosophical work, The Search after Truth together with the Elucidations, spans some seven hundred and fifty pages, Nadler's achievement is quite remarkable. He has produced a concise, scholarly, and representative collection that serves as an excellent introduction to Malehranche's thought. Where most collections of selected writings of a philosopher's works are limited because the omitted material is integral to the philosopher's complete thought, or because the excerpted material produces a mishmash of the philosopher's ideas, Nadler's edition comes as close to overcoming these limitations as is possible. Although Nadler offers little by way of philosophical commentary and only a very brief history and introduction to Malebranche's philosophy, the reader will find a careful and thematic arrangement of Malebranche's texts. Malebranche's important epistemological doctrine of the vision in God, his equally important occasionalist doctrine of causes, and his influential ontotheological doctrines of the nature of the will and of grace provide the basis of Nadler's selections and presentation of Malebranche's works. Each of the selected texts is drawn from previous translations, with only the Treatise on Nature and Grace receiving muchAndr ~ Rob/net, general editor, OeuvrescomplttesdeMalebranche(Paris: Vrin, 1958-1984), 20 volumes. 9Thomas M. Lennon and PaulJ. Olscamp, translators, TheSearchafterTruth(Columbus: Ohio State University Press, a98o). BOOX REVIEWS 675 needed revision from Nadler. These translations and revisions are of a quality which makes Malebranche's works accessible to the modern reader. The text of this book is virtually free of error, except for one noticeable lapse on page 52, where the fifth line is left blank instead of completing the paragraph with "knowing it." Notable inclusions in this collection are: "Elucidation Ten," which provides Malebranche's best summary of his theory of the nature of ideas, laws, and truth; Malebranche's rejection of Descartes 's first law of motion on the basis of experimental evidence, from the last chapter of The Search after T~th; the almost complete Dialogues on Metaphysics which Nadler rightly judges as Malebranche's best-written and most cohesive work; and finally, important excerpts from Treatise on Nature and Grace which highlight the importance of order, simplicity, and general laws in Malebranche's world-view. This book will serve as an excellent introductory text for modern students of philosophy who are interested in learning about one of the great Cartesian thinkers and metaphysicians of the seventeenth century. In short, Nadler's edition of Malebranche 's writings...