Humes verborgener Rationalismus (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 263 rule? The reality condition was met by his dealing with what does happen in human judgments, not with what "could happen," "given this or that theory of self-evidence" (13o). No such clear indication as to how the adequacy condition was met is given in the summarizing words that it was met "by showing that assent to self-evident propositions was self-sufficient, that it was immediately produced upon the apprehension or the conception of the proposition" (13o). That is, pre-theoretically, what selfevidence is; one would have expected something about the explanatory satisfactoriness of a causal view of self-evidence. And one wishes that a resolute attempt had been made to show that such a view meets either the adequacy or the reality condition in the interpretation of Reid. One also wishes that this view would explain or illuminate what Reid says or the positions he takes up, or that there would be positive evidence that he held this view. No objections are envisaged and disposed of, such as, for example, that a causal theory of self-evidence might very well seem to make the operation of self-evidence blind, whereas Reid stressed seeing when dealing with self-evidence. The book presents a complex Buffier with an interesting promise, though a disappointing performance, in the matter of "essential relations" between the truths of inward Cartesian sentiment and the principles of common sense. The charge against Reid of a plagiarizing dependence on Buffier is taken seriously and dismissed . Among the grounds on which it is dismissed is the inductivist common sense attributed to Reid. The book has a close unity. Part of the book's intention is to challenge the view that common-sense philosophers "fail to justify their appeal to common sense." The way this challenge is met is by showing Reid and Buffier as philosophical arguers. What there might be to be learned from the content of their justifications of the appeal to common sense does not appear; in particular we are not helped to see that the justification produced by the commonsense inductivist fusion makes Reid more significant for modern philosophy than he previously was. That, of course, does not diminish the value of the book as a historical study. The author has examined everything written on Buffier and Reid. Unpublished material of Reid's is drawn upon. The book contains as an appendix what Reid referred to as his Cura Prima on common sense, prepared by David Norton. S. A. GRAVE Hobart, Australia Lothar Kreimendahl. Humes verborgenerRationalismus. Quellen und Studien zur Philosophie , vol. x7. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1982. Pp. x + 222. DM 98,oo (Cloth). Kreimendahl's book is an investigation into the basic principles of Hume's philosophy . Hume himself did not define the principles upon which his philosophy was based, except to say that they were empirical. Kreimendahl argues that in fact they come from the rationalist tradition. 264 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Kreimendahl concentrates on the destructive phase of Hume's philosophy, arguing that the principles discovered here are the same for Hume's positive phase. Hume, according to Kreimendahl, took over rationalist arguments from Descartes and Leibniz as well as theological positions from Tillotson without becoming aware of the contradictions and inconsistencies thus entailed. Kreimendahl's book is both a systematic investigation and a historical study that traces the development of Hume's thought in the context of the times. In his section on Hume's epistemological premisses, Kreimendahl argues that to use different force and vivacity as a means of differentiating impressions from ideas (a) does not apply universally, and (b) is purely subjective, and cannot be made into an objective universal standard. Hume never was sceptical about his own basic principles. He presupposed , according to Kreimendahl, the objective validity of the law of causality before coming to discuss the law. Hume's copy-thesis is inadequate because he treats it as a self-evident proposition. Yet for Hume there can be no justification of first principles on an a priori basis, only on experience. Thus they can be neither intuitively nor demonstrably certain. Hume argued for the unlimited validity of his empiricism...