Kant's Theory of Freedom (review)

464 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 3o:3 JULY t992 of mental object. They can therefore not be understood as an "intermediate object" between the perceiving mind and the external object. Broadie convincingly--and in detail--shows that "the role of notions in Mair's philosophy is the same as the role of ideas in Reid's" (~ ~4). One may indeed wonder whether Reid had read the texts of the pre-Reformation philosophers that could be found in the libraries of the University of Aberdeen and the University of Glasgow. (ii)Broadie is certainly also correct in claiming that the kind of nominalism that was advocated by the early Scots "was strongly represented in the Scottish Enlightenment" (~~9), and that especially Hume's philosophy is nominalist in this sense. However, since the similarities are so broad, general, and vague, and since nominalism was so pervasive in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British thought, it is difficult to accept Broadie's claim that "Hume's philosophy is in many ways a continuation, along nominalist lines, of some of his pre-Reformation predecessors" (129). The defense of such a thesis would require at least some of the historical arguments Broadie declines to give--or so it would seem to me. Broadie's argument suggests that it might not be altogether inappropriate to speak of a--more or less--continuous "tradition of Scottish philosophy," and that, in spite of all its merits, we should not overemphasize the importance of the Scottish Enlightenment . He also suggests that it was not as original as is often thought, but was in some fundamental aspects "similar" to the "pre-Reformation" philosophy in Scotland. Yet, however suggestive Broadie's comparative study of these two episodes in Scottish phiIosophy is, it does not say very much about a Scottish trad/t/on. One of the main reasons for this seems to be that Broadie is not so much interested in this tradition perse, but is rather concerned to rehabilitate the "pre-Reformation Scottish philosophers" as thinkers who "had things to say.. 9which should interest us now, not merely because they are part of the history of the country, but because they shed light on problems of perennial concern" (131). Though there is nothing wrong with this goal, I wish he had said more about the other, if only because I know nobody else who is so eminently qualified as he is to undertake that task. MANFRED KUEHN Purdue University Henry E. Allison. Kant's Theory of Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 199o. Pp. xii + 3o4 . Cloth, $49.5o- Paper, $15.95. Allison provides an incisive analysis of numerous Kantian texts bearing on the theme of freedom. Although disavowing any intention of being "a study of Kant's moral theory per se" (238), some serious students of Kant's moral philosophy and its implications will find it useful. Allison's book comprises three separable studies: the first distinguishes, in terms of some earlier writings and the first Critique, the empirical and intelligible character of rational agents, practical and transcendental freedom, and two contemporary interpretations of some of the issues raised; the second explicates, out of later works, the distinctions between Wille, Willkiir, and Gesinnung, "radical evil," "virtue," and "holi- BOOK gzvtEws 465 ness"; and then evaluates the critical thrusts of Schiller, Hegel, and Williams; the third mounts a defense of Kant's notions of moral law and transcendental freedom as the "fact of reason" of the second Cr~Iue. Allison's defenses of Kant depend on four grounds which are explicated along the way: (i) the doctrine of transcendental freedom; (ii) the "double-aspect" interpretation spelled out in his earlier Kant's Transcendental Idealism; (iii) what is described as the "Incorporation Thesis'--that "freedom is an ineliminable component in rational agency" (5); and (iv) what is described as the "Reciprocity Thesis"--"the analyticity of the connection between freedom and the moral law" 034 and ~ol ff.). Yet, despite its tighdy constructed arguments, the book's real concern is not to explicate Kant's theory of freedom as its title proclaims. Only in his very last sentence does the author finally state his operative concern: to convince some contemporary commentators on...