Journal of the History of Philosophy

BOOK REVIEWS 113 r besoin qui n'est pas celui de tous et de chacun, mais qui peut se montrer dans chaque homme et ~t chaque homme au moment oh l'histoire rEelle lui permet de poser la question du savoir et ~t condition qu'il se decide h la poser (c'est peut-~tre le seul point sur lequel Hegel soit rest6 fichtEen). En ce sens, on peut certainement parler de passion dans la Logique, quoiqu'il faille conceder h M. W. Kaufmann, qui engage dans sa Preface la discussion avec son ancien 61~ve, qu'elle n'y intervient pas en tant que moteur comme elle le fait dans la PhEnomdnologie. Le livre de M. Ivan Soil contribuera grandement au renouveau des Etudes hEgEliennes dans les pays de langue anglaise; mais il pourra aussi contribuer au rEveil d'une mEtaphysique qui soit autre chose que la construction de mondes inaccessibles. ERIC WEIL Universitd de Nice (France) J. S. Mill e la cultura filosofica Britannica. By Franco Restaino. (Florence: La Nuova Italia, 1968. Pp. xvi+477. Paper, L 3,000) This work satisfies a need for a detailed treatment of the development of the philosophical, social and political thought of John Stuart Mill during the period between 1830 and 1870. It also traces the influences which Mill's views exercised on European and non-European thought during the last decades of the nineteenth century. The general theme of this primarily historical discussion is that during the latter half of the 1830's, Mill's political and philosophical activities presupposed a political and theoretical strategy which was directed towards profoundly renovating British society and culture. This strategy included a plan to reorganize various groups that were favorable to the reform of British society as well as the elaboration of a new political theory, called "net-radicalism," and which by revising Benthamite radicalism could form the programmatic base of the new political movement. By 1841, however, Mill realized that this strategy had failed to produce political reform and a second period of practical and philosophical activity began. Although during this period the general aim of Mill's strategy (the renovation of society and culture) remained the same, the theoretic formulation of the reform and the means for establishing it had changed. These now included the reconstruction of a "new philosophy" to be founded upon a revision of the empiricist-associationist psychology. This reconstruction is explicated in Mill's A System o[ Logic and in his Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy. In the middle of the 1860's, this second period of Mill's political and philosophical activity culminated in the debates with Hamilton on the Examination which marked the peak of Mill's success and philosophic influence. However, by the 1870's the debates between Hamilton and Mill ended with a decline of interest in both philosophies, and the attention of philosophers turned to the views of Darwin, Spencer and the neo-Hegelians. And although this decline of interest in Hamilton's philosophy in great part may have been due to Mill's criticisms, interest in the latter's philosophy waned with a shift of attention to problems which Mill's philosophy and method could not resolve. MYRA M. MILBURN University o/Santa Clara ...