The Philosophy of Georges Bastide, a study tracing the origins and development of a French value philosophy and a French personalism against the background of French Idealism (review)

430 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY The Philosophy of Georges Bastide, a study tracing the origins and development o/ a French value philosophy and a French personalism against the background o[ French Idealism. By Thomas Koenig. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971. Pp. i-xii+ 224) When you have associated with a philosophical movement, it is always a pleasure to read an objective, faithful history of what was for you a spiritual adventure. I just experienced that special delight in reading Thomas Koenig's book. I can say without reservation, his historical interpretation is accurate, perceptive, exceptionally well documented. He knows his field and understands in depth the different philosophical personalities he is referring to. In brief this study on the philosophy of Georges Bastide is in fact an excellent introduction to a very important part of French thought between 1930 and 1950---more specifically to French Idealism with its new incarnations called "philosophy of Spirit," philosophy of value or reflexive philosophy. After reading Koenig's analysis, it becomes clear that French existentialism did not burst out as a thunderstorm in a summer day, but was prepared, made possible thanks to those new expressions of the traditional French spiritualism--a tradition which starts with the Cartesian Cogito and has reappeared from generation to generation for three centuries. In that perspective, this book will be very useful for anyone trying to reconstruct that part of French culture during those decisive years before aaad after World War II. Now one can wonder why Thomas Koenig has decided to choose Georges Eastide among a "plriade" of brillant philosophers. Surely it is a matter of taste. I personally think that Bastide is not the most original or influential philosopher of that period; he is not a Lavelle, or Le Senne, or Nabert, But maybe Koenig's choice is justified by the unique place of Georges Bastide among those philosophers. He tried to reconcile two distinctive trends of French Idealism, the Kantian criticism of Lron Brunschvicg and the metaphysical meditation of a Malebranche or Maine de Biran. For that reason, Georges Bastide is and will remain an important figure in French philosophy of the second third of the French twentieth century. To sum up: Thomas Konig's study on the Philosophy of Georges Bastide should belong to any library interested in the European philosophy of our time. To a cultural historian he offers a rich, well-controlled documentation. EDOUARD MOROT-SIR University o/ North Carolina, Chapel Hill I1 Sogno Finito: Saggio sulla storicitd della fenomenologia. By Guglielmo Forni. (Societ~t editrice il Mulino, Bologna, 1967. Pp. 276. Paper L. 3000) There were three important philosophical movements in Europe before the start of the First World War which aimed at a renewal of the foundations of the idealistic philosophy: In France, Henri Bergson tried to achieve this aim through a vitalistic interpretation of life and evolution; in Italy, an intuitionist theory of aesthetics brought enduring fame to Benedetto Croce; in Germany, an idealistic reinterpretation of the epistemology and logic of Edmund Husserl and his followers took place. Bergson's teachings affected mostly ethics and the philosophy of religion in France; Croce's philosophy has not lost entirely its hold on Italian aesthetics while Husserl's phenomenology of thinking turned already in the twenties into a phenomenology of existence. ...