Scots Philosophical AssociationUniversity of St. Andrews

God in Modern Philosophy by James CollinsReview by: D. M. MackinnonThe Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 50 (Jan., 1963), pp. 91-93Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Scots Philosophical Association and theUniversity of St. AndrewsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2217020 .

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BOOK REVIEWS 91

Was Ferrier a member of the Common Sense school or not ? Davie addresses him- self to this rather unqualified question and answers it in the affirmative, on the ground that Ferrier's aim remained the reconciliation of philosophy and common sense. As I interpret Davie, his motive in doing so is to show that the philosophy of Common Sense ended neither with a bang nor with a whimper, but in tragedy-the tragedy of having a brilliant if devious exponent of it mistaken for its executioner-and hence that it ended in a way needlessly. However, Davie's general assessment of Ferrier remains surprising, especially if one takes the Institutes of Metaphysic as the terminus ad quem of Ferrier's own philosophy, and even if one sets aside Ferrier's shrewd and unpleasant personal comments on Reid. Ferrier's general criticisms of the hasty intuitionism of " our Scottish philosophy ", his attack on its " defunct and exploded psychology" and the extent to which he contrasts his own position with his Scottish predecessors', all make it much too strong to say, as Davie does, that Ferrier was " a member of the Common Sense school " (p. 279). Davie himself hints at a more satis- factory assessment when he allows (p. 275) that Ferrier was as far to the right of Reid and his school as Hume was to the left. If this is so, then a more qualified judgment than Davie's is certainlv necessary: and the interesting question arises when and how far Ferrier was pushed away from Reid by his study of Hegel, a philosopher whose influence he disclaims, but in whose debt he arguably was.

It is much to be hoped that there will be a second edition of The Democratic Intellect, revised and corrected. My account of the book, selective though it has had to be, has been meant to express something of the consistent interest which I owe to it (an interest increased rather than lessened on a second reading). But the presentation of detail matches neither the dignity of the theme nor the attractive format of the volume. Typographical mistakes, haphazard methods of giving references, the occasional absence of references when they are needed, inaccurate quotation (some re-quotations differ ludicrously from the versions given previously in the text), erratic terminology (such as the several variants on 'evangelicism' between pp. 267 and 270) and other errors mar the narrative and are especially to be regretted in a University Press publication.

G. P. HENDERSON

God in Modern Philosophy. By JAMES COLLINS. (London: Routledge. 1960. Pp. xii + 476. Price 40s).

Professor Collins has provided a fascinating and frequently very illuminating map of the development and criticism of theism in the post-Cartesian period of philosophy. He has aimed at, and indeed achieved, a rare comprehensiveness and the debates he chronicles are portrayed in a way which is both scholarly and philosophically exciting. His book is an excellent example of the way in which the history of philosophy can be made to serve the advance of characteristically philosophical discussion, especially when written by a man manifestly at home, as Collins is, in the history of ideas in the widest sense, and able to trace the outworking of distinctively philosophical conceptions in the total intellectual culture of a period.

Thus to mention one example, pivotal to his whole argument, Collins excellently brings out what he calls " the functionalism " characteristic of Descartes' treatment of the being of God. The divine veracity guaranteed for Descartes, the human reliance on memory necessary for the achievement, through combination of intuitus and de- ductio, of knowledge of phvsical nature. Collins shows himself aware that this pro- cedure is a transcript, into the impersonal idiom of rationalist metaphysics, of the language of devotion which acclaims as unwavering and unshakeable the benevolent purpose of the Creator ; but he is also aware of the extent to which Descartes's approach has been continued by other rationalists. It is even discernible in Kant's so-called " moral argument ", sharply aware though that philosopher showed himself to be, by his treatment of Wolff's ideas (excellently expounded by Collins), of the deficiencies of the rationalist outlook. Further, "it was ", writes Collins, " the long-range purpose of British empiricism to account for human knowledge and conduct in ways that would not require a theological guarantee " (p. 90). To vindicate this somewhat startling statement, he offers an excellent account of Locke's and Berkeley's treatment of God, followed bv an only slightly less successful discussion of Hume's, and also constantly recurs to it in the later section of his book. The reader who follows his whole argument will certainly find the controversy between rationalists and empiricists greatly illum- inated, and some of the issues at stake in the prolonged debate on the possibility of metaphysics clarified. Moreover, whatever verdict may be passed on the detail of Collins' treatment of the theism and anti-theism of Hegel, Feuerbach, and Marx, his attempt to integrate their treatment of these problems with the manner in which they were raised and left by the rationalists and empiricists is viewing in a single compre-

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92 BOOK REVIEWS

hensive perspective styles of philosophizing which have too often recently been treated as indeed historically successive one to another in time, but as altogether disparate in inspiration, in method and in treatment. In fact, the likenesses and unlikenesses are both there, and philosophical understanding of the underlving issues demands the careful tracing of both alike. Here again it is the depth of Collins's fusion of philo- sophical and historical judgment which enables him to reveal both the continuity and the novelty of the different stages of a prolonged controversy. It is unfortunate that the irritating looseness, carelessness, and indeed inconsistency of his use of such terms as 'existence ', ' deduction', ' deductive principle ', 'premise ', 'phenomenalism', etc., mav sometimes conceal from the reader the sharpness and importance of his insights; but that reader will be wise to persevere.

Inevitably in a work that essays comprehensiveness on the scale of this one, treat- ment of individual thinkers is uneven. Reference has already been made to the slight inferiority of the section on Hume. Further, while the treatment of Pascal is good, and that of Newman quite admirable, the account of Kierkegaard and the comments on the modern existentialists are scrappy and ineffective; moreover, the author is clearly more at home with e.g. the American naturalists than with the daunting com- plexities of Nietzsche. Again, the treatment accorded to Mill is markedly superior to that given to Voltaire, whose Candide certainly required more extended notice. Again, while clearly very much at home with the classical empiricism of the 18th and 19th centuries, he is much less present to the logical empiricism of the 20th ; and his markedly cold reference (p. 386) to the preoccupation of John Wisdom and other modern analvsts with questions of theodicy, suggests a curious blindness to the cruciality of these prob- lems.in theistic argument, oddly contradicted by the svmpathy displayed in his analysis of the complex, yet subtle and elusive, thought of Newman. It is simply not enough to dismiss this preoccupation as a revival of the " Bayle-Leibniz discussion in the form of a linguistic theodicy ".

But the fundamental weakness of the book lies in the author's failure to give in- telligible and full expression to his own " realistic theism ". While he constantly speaks of it, distinguishing its method and style from those of the theisms and anti-theisms he surveys, emphasising its limited and (repeatedly) its inferential character, he nowhere effectively brings out the sense in which it is called " realist " ; further, what he says repeatedly of its procedures, while making it obvious to the informed reader that it is a form of Thomism, remains undeveloped. It is not enough to refer allusively, fre- quently, to the " analysis of composite sensible beings " and " the basic causal analogy ". The reader inevitably asks for a much more detailed account, and although in his prolonged discussion of rationalism Collins adumbrates bv contrast something of what he has in mind, his vindication and indeed his description of his own position here is pitifully inadequate. Moreover, a writer so informed on the criticism of the category of causality which stems from Berkeley, Hume and Kant, and has been continued by Collingwood (whom Collins oddly does not mention) as well as by Russell, Schlick, Braithwaite, Ayer, etc., should not content himself with presenting what muLst seem to the unconverted sheer dogmatism in tones of a rather coy superiority. In fact the boldness and the firmness of Collins's lengthy historical study makes one eager for a detailed account of his position. When he writes " Ours is the age of philosophical sandhogs working far below the surface on the foundations of the theory of being " (p. 384) he shows awareness of the difficulty of the task awaiting any avowed theist whose general sympathies are enlisted by a " realist " view, in working out that view in detail. Why then does he fail so signally to do much more than rehearse the cliches of the schools ? There is one passage where Collins refers to the fashion " among his- torians of philosophy today to classify the philosophers as existentialists and essential- ists " (p. 79), and quite properly rejects it as historically misleading. In other passages, however, he seems to display a great measure of sympathy with the underlying onto- logical doctrine which Gilson has propounded in several books, according to which the true metaphysician (viz. a proper Thomist) finds his subject matter in existence. Indeed, the classical empiricists win Collins's praises for their resolute refusal to lose sight of the concrete existent. But the reader who hopes to find in the concluding section the sort of development of Gilson's ideas he might have looked for from a writer as pro- foundly endowed with the capacity for intellectual sympathy as Collins, is altogether disappointed; he has not seemingly got as far as Gilson has done, and his almost magisterial command of a strand of philosophical history still awaits completion by a positive essay.

Yet it would be most unfair to end on a note of complaint; for this book constitutes perhaps the best survey for some time of the problem of God in modern philosophy. Moreover, the bibliography (and in a different way the body of the notes) provide ex- cellent guides for further study. The author's reading is exceptionally wide and very little of importance has escaped his notice (although it is surprising that the works of

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BOOK REVIEWS 93

R. G. Collingwood, John Oman and F. R. Tennant are not mentioned). We may surely hope that in due course we shall have from Professor Collins the necessary complement and sequel, in the shape of an exposition of a " realistic theism " which will do justice both to its subject and to its author's wide-ranging philosophical understanding.

D. M. MACKINNON

Received also:-

ADAMS, ROBERT P. The Better Part of Valor: More, Erasmus, Colet, and Vives, on humanism, war and peace, 1496-1535. Seattle: Univ. of Washington P.. 1962 Pp. xvi, 363. $7.00.

AIKEN, HENRY DAVID. Reason and Conduct: New bearings in moral philosophy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 1962. Pp. xviii, 376, vi. $6.75.

ALLAN, DONALD J. Aristote le philosophe. Orig. publ. as The Philosophy of Aristotle 1951. Louvain & Paris: Nauwelaerts, 1962. Pp. viii, 248. FB 120.

Allen, Don Cameron (ed.). The Moment of Poetry. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins P., 1962. Pp. 135. $3.50.

ANSELM von CANTERBURY. Proslogion. Ed. by F. S. Schmitt. Stuttgart-Bad Cann- statt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1962. Pp. 159. DM 12.80.

ARISTOTLE. Protrepticus. An attempt at reconstruction, by Ingemar Duiring. (Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia, 12). 0oteborg: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1961. Pp. 295. Sw. Kr. 27 (sewn), 32 (cloth).

ARMSTRONG, D. M. Bodily Sensations. (Studies in Philosophical Psychology). Routledge, 1962. Pp. viii, 132. 12s 6d.

Atreya, J. P. (ed.). Darshana: An international quarterly of philosophy, psychology, psychical research, religion. mysticism and sociology, Vol. II, No. 1. Moradabad (India): Prof. J. P. Atreya, 1962. Pp. 126. 10 rupees, ?1, $3.

AUSTIN, J. L. How to do things with words. (William James Lectures, 1955). Ed. by J. 0. Urmson. Oxford: Clarendon P., 1962. Pp. x, 167. 21s.

BAILLIE, JoHN. The Sense of the Presence of God. (Gifford Lectures 1961-2.) London: O.U.P., 1962. Pp. x, 269. 30s.

BALET, LEO. Rembrandt and Spinoza. New York: Philosophical Library, 1962. Pp. x, 222. $4.50.

BARRETT, WILLIAM. Jrrational Man: A study in existential philosophy. New York: Doubleday, 1962. Pp. 314. Paper $1.45.

Beer, Arthur (ed.). Vistas in Astronomy, Vol. 5. Oxford: Pergamon P., 1962. Pp. 230. 84s.

BENOIT, HUBERT. Let Go! Allen & Unwin, 1962. Pp. 277. 30s. BLACK, MAX. Models and Metaphors: Studies in language and philosophy. Ithaca,

N.Y.: Cornell U.P.; London: O.U.P., 1962. Pp. xii, 267. 46s. BLANCHE, ROBERT, Axiomatics. (Monographs in Modern Logic). Routledge, 1962.

Pp. vi, 65. 7s 6d. BOOLE, GEORGE. Analisis Matematico de la Logica. Transl. by Armendo Asti Vera.

Instituto de Filosofia. Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina, 1960. Pp. 152. No price.

Bosco, NYNFA. La Filosofta Pragmatica di Oh. S. Peirce. (Studi e Ricerche di Storia della Filosofia, xxvii). Torino: Edizioni di " Filosofia ", 1962. Pp. viii, 303. L. 3000.

BRANDETS, IRMA. The Ladder of Vision: A study of Dante's comedy. New York: Doubleday, 1962. Pp. 233. Paper 95c.

Bredsdorff, E. L. (Dept. of Scandinavian Studies, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge) (ed.). Scandinavica: An international journal of Scandinavian studies, Vol. I, No. 1. London and New York: Academic Press, 1962. 45s p.a. to institutions, 35s to individuals.

BUCHANAN, EMERSON. Aristotle's Theory of Being. (Greek, Roman & Byzantine Mono- graphs, No. 2). Cambridge, Mass.. University, Mississippi, 1962. Pp. 64. $2.50.

BUCHLER, JUSTUTS. The Concept of Method. New York and London: Columbia U.P., 1962. Pp. 180. 32s.

CARSUN CHANG. Wang Yang-Ming: Idealist philosopher of sixteenth-century China. New York: St. John's U.P., 1962. Pp. viii, 102. $2.50.

V. Cauchy and M. Estall (edd.). Dialogue: Canadian philosophical review, No. 1 (first quarterly issue). Kingston and Montreal: Canadian Philosophical Association, 1962. Pp. 113. $1.75 ($6.00 p.a.).

COHEN, L. JONATHAN. The Diver8ity of Meaning. Methuen, 1962. Pp. xii, 340. 32s 6d. CRANSTON, MAURICE. Sartre. Edinburgh and London: COliver & Boyd, 1962. Pp. 118.

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