The Light of the Soul: Theories of Ideas in Leibniz, Malebranche, and Descartes (review)

678 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 29:4 OCTOBER 1991 Nadler accomplishes very well the first half of his program. He carefully analyzes Arnauld's and Malebranche's theories of perception and makes several convincing claims about them. For Malebranche, an idea is an object present in the mind representing the outside world to that mind; for Arnauld, an idea is a mental act, not a representative proxy standing between the perceiver and the outside world. Nadler argues that Arnauld's theory faithfully interprets Descartes and provides a foundation for a direct realist theory of perception. Moreover, he places Arnauld's account of intentionality within the tradition of late Scholastic doctrines to which they are indebted. He also argues that, in the light of Arnauld's developments of Cartesian theories, one can see that the attribution by some modern commentators to Descartes of the historical roots of contemporary epistemic problems is mistaken. Nadler develops his theses skillfully, paying close attention both to the primary texts and to the important secondary literature ; he not only discusses the readings of Lennon, Watson, and Yohon, but also those of Guerouh, Robinet, and Rodis-Lewis. Nadler's historico-philosophical analysis is disappointing, though. Except for some very interesting but brief comments in Chapter 2 about Arnauld's views on the Eucharist , the historico-philosophical analysis is basically relegated to a five-page appendix ("The theological debate," pp. 179-85). This is regrettable, as is the decision to focus the debate on just Arnauld and Malebranche. As Nadler himself would agree, the late seventeenth-century debate about ideas was not merely a series of abstract arguments about representationalism, realism, etc. Arnauld's purpose in the debate was to undermine what he took to be the foundations of a theology he found unacceptable. But Arnauld remains an enigma. What is one to make of the brilliant theologian who early on constructed the most interesting critique of Descartes (including a devastating critique of Descartes's account of the Eucharist), but who later became a wholehearted and enthusiastic Cartesian, in spite of the feebleness of Descartes's responses and the general anti-Cartesianism and anti-intellectualism of his associates at Port-Royal? What is one to make of an acute thinker who does not see any conflict among Augustinism, Jansenism, and Cartesianism? In sum, Nadler's work is a fine preliminary study of a major intellectual event of the late seventeenth century. Readers will find extremely useful its careful development of various philosophical positions, but there is still room for a study of the debate that places it more fully in its intellectual context. ROGER ARIEW Virginia PolytechnicInstitute and State Universit,~ Nicholas Jolley. The Light of the Soul: Theories of Ideas in Leibniz, Malebranche, and Descartes . New York: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 199o. Pp. x + 2o9. $39.95In The Light of the Soul, Jolley proposes a new account of the development of seventeenth-century theories of ideas, focusing on the views of Descartes, Male- BOOK REVJZWS 679 branche, and Leibniz. He argues that the course of early modern discussions of the nature of ideas can best be understood as a debate over whether ideas are to be conceived as mental items with temporal and causal properties (what he calls the "psychologistic" conception), or as eternal, abstract objects (the "logicist" conception). According toJolley, Descartes's writings contain elements of both these views, although for the most part the psychologistic appears to dominate. The tensions inherent in Descartes's position are clearly detected by Malebranche, who comes down firmly on the side of the Iogicist conception. Malebranche is thus a Cartesian supporter who nevertheless rejects "the fundamental Cartesian tendency to classify everything nonphysical as mental" (3). Instead Malebranche defends a view of ideas as abstract objects, a position he elaborates in his theory of vision in God. Leibniz, by contrast, under the influence of his nominalism, opts for a psychologistic conception of ideas, and this significantly shapes his treatment of innate ideas and self-knowledge. In a final chapter , Jolley briefly discusses how Locke, Berkeley, and Reid align themselves on this issue; and he suggests that with Reid the debate largely comes to an end until it is...