In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Notes and Discussions NOTE SUR G. SEBBA,"A 'NEw' DESCARTESEDITION?"* Puisque le titre du tr~s int~ressant article: "A 'New' Descartes Edition?" contient un point d'interrogation, donnons imm~diatement la r6ponse: non, il ne s'agit pas d'une 6dition vraiment "nouvelle." Le professeur Gregor Sebba a tr~s exactement expos6 les raisons qui justifieraient une "nouvelle ~dition": le projet de la Librairie Vrin pretend simplement ~tre une solution empirique et provisoire. Des professeurs et (...) des chercheurs ont actuellement besoin de l'6dition Adam et Tannery pour pr6parer des cours ou des theses ou des articles: on va leur procurer les onze 1 volumes sous un format plus commode, certains ~tant divis~s en deux tomes; avec le concours de Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, nous esp6rons que le prix de vente de chaque tome ne sera pas trop 61ev6; enfin, si minutieuse que soit la r6vision, rien n'empdchera une publication rapide. IIne peut &re question de commentaires. Mais, par des cahiers suppl6mentaires ajout6s ~t chaque volume et particuli~rement importants pour les tomes de la Correspondance, le lecteur saura tout ce que l'6rudition contemporaine ajoute, depuis 1913, ~ notre connaissance des textes cartesiens. Bien entendu, on reprendra ce que L6on Roth a apport6 sur la correspondance de Descartes avec Huygens. M. Bernard Rochot fera entrer darts les appendices tousles 616merits actuellement connus de la future 6dition critique que souhaite M. Gregor Sebba. Quant,h cette 6dition critique, elle est une oeuvre de longue haleine. I1 conviendrait, en particulier, de reviser les notices qui pr6sentent chaque lettre, d'op6rer un s6rieux contr61e des dates propos6es, de reprendre l'6dition des textes du t. X comme le demande M. Gregor Sebba. Tousles historiens de Descartes souhaitent qu'un nouvel Adam et un nouveau Tannery se chargent d'un travail aussi utile. Mais ceux que la Librairie Vrin a consuh~s ont pens6 que, en attendant, une r6-6dition de l'"Adam et Tannery," mis "hjour, si l'on peut dire, ~3tait devenue indispensable. HENRI GOUHIER Paris, France 9 Journal o[ the tlistory o[ Philosophy, Vol. I, No. 2 (1963), pp. 231-236. xII n'est pas question de r6-6diter let. XII, c'est.h-dire la Fie de Descartes par Ch. Adam. [71]... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 253 Histoire de la Philosophic. Tome IV. Par Albert Rivaud. Philosophic Franqaise et Philosophic Anglaise de 1700 ~ 1830. (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1962. Coll. "Logos." Pp. xxiii + 594. NF 22.) It is a disservice to the memory of a scholar to publish his unfinished writings, though one can understand how friendship induces his colleagues and pupils to do so. In the case of the fourth volume (...) of Rivaud's Histoire de la Philosophic, the disservice is all the greater, since several chapters and parts of chapters have been written not by him but by his associates: Messrs. Rochot on Vauvenargues, Daumas on the Philosophic chimique, Leroy on British and American philosophy, while the chapter on biology after Lamarck has been left in its unfinished and fragmentary state. What Rivaud would have done with these topics cannot be determined now, but surely he would not have thought that 124 pages out of 574 would suffice for a treatment of British and American philosophy, when even such figures as Hyacinthe Bougeant, Jean-Franqois H6nault, Mercier de la Rivi~re, Paul Thiry, Marmontel, and Hemsterhuis are given at least a few paragraphs each. As far as British and American students are concerned, Book II which treats of their intellectual predecessors might well have been omitted. Not only is the treatment skimpy, but there occur from time to time errors of fact which, though perhaps trivial in themselves, shake one's faith in the historian's accuracy. To refer to but one or two examples, we are surprised to learn that the Island of Rhode Island is one of the Bermudas (p. 484), that Berkeley's two children were born in Bermuda (ibid.), that Hume never once mentioned the poems of Shakespeare or Milton (p. 512), which would seem to indicate that the author had never read Hume's History of England, and that (p. 557) John Galsworthy was a grand romancier du XIXe si~cle. Such errors are made by the best of us nor should I cast the first stone, were it not that this is the type of history of philosophy which goes in heavily for biographical detail. Each man mentioned is given a full biography, sometimes running on for pages in small print and including details which are diverting enough in themselves and which are perhaps important if they illuminate the ideas of the men whose lives they depict. But Rivaud gives one no indication of how, for instance, Rousseau's musical interests affected his philosophy, of why Grimm (p. 197) who ne s'intdresse gu~re gzla philosophic should be given even a paragraph, of what influence the various mistresses and wives of the philosophers mentioned actually had upon their lovers' ideas. A biographical history of philosophy, if done by a psychologist, might be extremely revealing of the procedures of the intellect. But these sketches which precede the expositions of philosophical theses seem irrelevant except insofar as they give us dates and education. One can understand 254 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY that Descartes' having studied with the Jesuits at LaFl~che is a useful bit of information, for it may in part explain why he refused to accept any doctrine which contradicted the teachings of the Church. But would Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion have been different if he had not had his quarrel with Rousseau? If so, to what extent? In spite of these criticisms, the book has the value of a good reference book. Not only are there copious references to the leading intellectuals of eighteenth -century France, but among them are included natural scientists who normally do not figure in histories of philosophy. Such men as Lavoisier, Buffon, Lamarck, Geoff-roy Saint-HiIaire and Cuvier were philosophical in their aims and their philosophical ideas modified their scientific investigations just as their scientific discoveries reacted upon their philosophical thinking. For that we can congratulate ourselves. It would be absurd, for instance, to omit men like Clerk Maxwell, Willard Gibbs, Einstein, Darwin, and Agassiz, Freud and Jung, L. H. Morgan, Franz Boas, and Lester Ward in an account of the role of philosophy in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. To the extent that Rivaud has coupled men... (shrink)