Richard E. Aquila

This survey of problems is motivated by the conviction that the Fregean revolution in logic inaugurated a renewal of classical metaphysics and also provides the best structure for formulating its problems. The main issues of concern in contemporary analytical metaphysics seem to be touched. Reference, however, to particular philosophers is often by name only, and the historical comments are occasionally misleading: regarding Locke, for example, and in the broad use of the term "Cartesian," now common in philosophy but perhaps misleading for the general reader.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Columbia History of Western Philosophy ed. by Richard H. PopkinRichard E. AquilaRichard H. Popkin, editor. The Columbia History of Western Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. Pp. xxvi + 836. Cloth, $59.95.This volume aims to “… revise the general prevailing understanding of the history of philosophy among present-day academics.” It aims to do so by emphasizing the “full intellectual and social contexts” of the ideas in question, with particular emphasis on developments in religion and science. Unsurprisingly, the theme of scepticism not only looms large in the sections devoted to the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophers, but also, in the light of its more explicit and detailed connection to the context of religious controversy, its presentation is fuller than what might be expected under the “prevailing understanding.” (Both that theme, and also the influence of the Kaballah, are touched on twice in the general introduction. I take the occasion to note that the index, though extensive, is sometimes less useful than it might be, leaving to the reader’s own eventual discovery, for example, the often neglected connection of the latter with Spinoza.)Popkin also takes pain to lament the common attitude “that the history of philosophy is nothing but footnotes to Plato and Aristotle” (xviii). As if to underscore his point, the first chapter—going from the Pre-Socratics through early Christian philosophy—is not even presented as a chapter on “Ancient Philosophy”: what is in question is simply the “Origins of Western Philosophic Thinking.” In any case, although introduced by him, the chapter is apparently not edited by Popkin himself, who lays such claim only to the chapters on medieval Islamic and Jewish philosophy and the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. (Popkin’s introduction effectively emphasizes the three-fold background of “Asian,” Biblical, and Egyptian influence, with the last of its four pages devoted to Bernal’s Black Athena. I confess to not having read Bernai previously. But Popkin’s reflections were effective; I immediately contacted Amazon.com.) Each of the other chapters is said to have an overall “editor or editors,” but their identity is not revealed. However, presuming that, except for the first, the editor is the author of the corresponding introduction, we might guess: Stephen Brown for medieval Christian, Brian Copenhaver for the Renaissance, Rudolf Makkreel for the nineteenth century, Avrum Stroll for twentieth-century analytic. There is no general introduction to the twentieth-century continental chapter.Each section of a chapter is followed by a bibliography, though with no overarching format: some are restricted to secondary sources, others not, and there is no clear pattern regarding inclusion of non-English materials. The Medieval Christian and Renaissance chapters conclude with general bibliographies by their (apparent) editors. In any case, the bibliographies should serve eminently well for the editor’s view of the volume as a [End Page 669] “launching pad” to further study. It is in fact a most effective launching pad. However, there are some possible eyebrow-raisers. For example, apart from anthologies, the only books listed on Spinoza are Popkin’s own on the history of scepticism, Strauss’s Spinoza’s Critique of Religion, andWolfson’s The Philosophy of Spinoza; the secondary references for the Kabbala denudata are about the same in number as those for Descartes and Spinoza together; those for Thomasius and Wolff outnumber those for Kant, and there is no reference, for example, to Heidegger among the latter (and for that matter virtually none in the indexes of the books cited for Kant).In addition to the main sections of each chapter, there are occasional mini-sections, sometimes less than a page, by Popkin and others. Besides facilitating continuity, they provide additional references. On at least one occasion (cf. his brief comment following Plato), they give Popkin the opportunity to suggest that there are also other ways to look at the philosopher in question. In fact Popkin takes pains to note that no effort has been made to “force the different authors into a common expository style or into a common point of view,” and that they often in fact differ with each other (xviii). This seems to me not always felicitous, e.g...

I argue for a basically Sartrean approach to the idea that one's self-concept, and any form of knowledge of oneself as an individual subject, presupposes concepts and knowledge about other things. The necessity stems from a pre-conceptual structure which assures that original self-consciousness is identical with one's consciousness of objects themselves. It is not a distinct accomplishment merely dependent on the latter. The analysis extends the matter/form distinction to concepts. It also requires a distinction between two notions of consciousness: one relates to the employment of already formed concepts, the other to the structures of imaginative apprehension that help to constitute (empirical) concepts from the start. We need to see that (1) so far as objects are only conceptualized appearances, the material through which we apprehend them must be reflected in that apprehension itself; (2) the corresponding material consists of a manifold of pre-conceptually active anticipations and retentions concerning the course of one's own experience. The resultant structure imposes an orientation on the world of appearances that does not derive from a concept of oneself as an individual in it, but that nevertheless provides the only possible basis for such a concept. One's self-concept, at least as empirical subject, is simply that ofwhatever subject is indicated, in an appropriate way, by that orientation.

Transcendental consciousness is described by Kant as 'the one single thing' in which 'as in the transcendental subject, our perceptions must be encountered.' The unity of that subject depends on intellectual functions. I argue that its singularity is just the same as that of Kant's pre-intellectual 'form' of spatiotemporal 'intuition.' This may seem excluded by Kant's claim that it is through intellect that 'space or time are first given as intuitions.' But while preintellectual form is insufficient for space and time as distinct 'things,' it is sufficient for the constitution of a 'single thing' indifferently construable as both. Contrary to what are typically seen as the main differences between Kant and Hume on identity of 'self,' there is thus already a difference in play below the level of either's concern with the sorts of connections available for the combining, or illusion of combining, of manifolds of 'impressions' or 'ideas.'

The overall theme of this superb collection concerns the complex of relations among Kant's views of art and aesthetic experience, the interests of morality and society in the latter, and more generally the connection between morality and human sensibility. Except for the last and perhaps the penultimate chapter, Guyer's main approach is from the direction of issues raised by the "Critique of Aesthetic Judgment." However, the last and longest chapter, specially written for the book, is a detailed and penetrating examination of the extent to which Kant recognizes the moral significance of human sensibility. The chapter includes interesting comment on Kant's development and motivations, as well as helpful commentary on the different frameworks employed by Kant in his classification of virtues and duties.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.2 (2002) 267-268 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Kant's Theory of A Priori Knowledge Robert Greenberg. Kant's Theory of A Priori Knowledge. University Park: Penn State University Press, 2001. Pp. ix + 278. Cloth, $45.00. This is one of the deepest and most carefully reasoned books on Kant I have read. It is a book for the scholar of the first Critique, not the "educated layman," but it very much needs to be read by the former. Even for Kant scholars, it is not easy. Apart from demands imposed by the tightness of the reasoning, one may simply be uneasy with the fact that, as instanced in a relentless and detailed critique of the main species of the "customary" reading--represented primarily by Allison and Guyer--Greenberg is defending a radically new view of Kant's reasoning in the Critique.Typically, one either supposes Kant really has no theory regarding the possibility of specifically a priori knowledge in the first place, or--either for excessive subjectivism, reference to "things in themselves" (in more than an Allisonian "methodological" spirit), or both--it is a disaster. (Or, as in Guyer and before him Strawson, one distinguishes between a Kant of each stripe.) On the no-theory option Kant is primarily concerned with the conditions of empirical knowledge and the relation of experience to objects. So occupied, he in effect redefines what it is to be concerned with the (non-analytic) a priori in the first place: it just is to be concerned with such conditions. In turn, he takes it for granted that, insofar as certain representations are indeed such conditions, they are sufficiently related to experience and its objects to meet the demands of knowledge. To the contrary, according to Greenberg, it is just this which Kant sees cannot be taken for granted.Regarding the ontology of Kant's theory, Greenberg argues (18-26 and chapter 2passim) that it is and ought to be distinct from that of the knowledge that is its target, that is, from the world of "appearances." But this is not to say that what is in question is a world of "things in themselves": things that, as Greenberg takes that notion, would have to be viewed "according to properties or laws that are intrinsic to them" (101), to make sense of the theory in the first place. Rather, the ontology comprises "things simpliciter": things that might (though not by us) be viewed as "things in themselves." What the theory tells us, first, is thata priori knowledge is possible only insofar as it relates to things precisely as appearances. Second, this is possible only insofar as experience itself relates to things as appearances. Thus to the contrary of standard readings, the primary focus is on the possibility [End Page 267] of experience, and its relation to objects, as a condition of a priori knowledge, not vice versa. This is of course not to deny the importance of space, time, and the categories as conditions of experience. It is just that their relevance to the possibility of a priori knowledge cannot consist wholly in the fact of such conditioning.Greenberg concedes that the book falls short of defending the objective validity of Kant's theory, as opposed to its internal coherence and--as exemplified mainly by way of a detailed analysis of the second-edition Transcendental Deduction (chapters 11-3), a convincing account (chapter 10) as to what was needed but lacking in the original version, and (chapter 9) a major independent contribution to the discussion of Kant's views regarding "logical forms" and "functions"--the validity of Kant's reasoning. That just illustrates the general point: just as the ontology of the theory needs to be distinct from that of the knowledge that is its target, the point from which the objective validity of the theory is assessed needs to be part of some further theory. This may be dissatisfying. "But is that not how things always stand in philosophy?" (269).There is no way that...