Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 53, Number 3, July 2015, pp. 551-552 (Review) DOI: 10.1353/hph.2015.0040 For additional information about this article Access provided by University of Michigan @ Ann Arbor (4 Aug 2015 03:53 GMT) http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hph/summary/v053/53.3.machuca.html 551bo o k rev i ews Leibniz's Monadology by Michael Gottlieb Hansch, Johann Jakob Brucker, and Louis Dutens; the other containing a fascinating account of Andreas Clavius and his heretofore forgotten entry, Monadologiae Sciographia, in the Berlin Academy essay competition of 1747 on the nature of monads (thankfully transcribed and contained in the appendix). Neumann's story is also helpful insofar as he picks up on the social and political features of the Leibniz-Wolff relationship-that is, how each sought to place himself in the Republic of Letters and in the German and European cultural milieu. Indeed, Neumann makes this point even more general: Pythagoras, first, and then the Leibnizian monadology, were instrumentalized by different thinkers. The importance of this argument is that it lifts the history of the concept of the monad from the realm of pure philosophical dialectic and situates it also in its human and historical setting. B r a n d o n C . L o o k University of Kentucky Sébastien Charles and Plínio J. Smith, editors. Scepticism in the Eighteenth Century: Enlightenment, Lumières, Aufklärung. International Archives of the History of Ideas, 210. Dordrecht: Springer, 2013. Pp. xxvii + 381. Cloth, $129.00. This volume is another instance of the enduring influence of Richard Popkin's pioneering work on the history of modern skepticism. Moreover, although he initially maintained that skepticism had a negligible impact on eighteenth-century philosophy, he eventually came to adopt the opposite view. The aim of the collection is to show that skepticism played a more important role in the eighteenth century than is usually thought, either because a number of thinkers adopted a skeptical stance or because the main rationalist systems must be regarded as responses to skeptical challenges. For this reason, the editors (i) criticize Popkin's early judgment and those who still accept it, and (ii) remark repeatedly that the real impact of skepticism on the eighteenth century has begun to be appreciated only recently. Nevertheless, in chapter 1, in which he discusses Popkin's successive views on the influence of skepticism in the Enlightenment, Charles claims that Popkin was mistaken in changing his mind and coming to view the Enlightenment as a skeptical era highly preoccupied with a mitigated form of skepticism. And (ii) is a bit of an exaggeration: suffice it to consider the several works by, for example, Keith Baker, Daniel Breazale, Ezequiel de Olaso, Robert Fogelin, Michael Forster, Giorgio Tonelli, and even Popkin published in the 1970s–90s and cited by the editors themselves. This is not to deny that this volume will broaden our knowledge and deepen our understanding of its topic. The book consists of five parts in twenty-three chapters, eighteen in English, five in French. Although each has a bibliography, the volume includes a global one. It also contains an index nominum, but no index rerum. Two positive features are the international provenance of its contributors and that both major and minor figures are discussed. There are a number of typos and infelicities of style. As often happens, the contributions are not of equal value or equally stimulating, but the volume as a whole is a welcome addition to the literature on modern skepticism. Since a reviewer must be selective, I will limit myself to providing an overview of the volume and describing some of the chapters. Part 1 explores the presence of skepticism in the early eighteenth century. Smith examines Pierre Bayle's skeptical method of antinomy as displayed in his Dictionary, contrasting it with that of Sextus Empiricus. Smith makes no mention of secondary literature except for a paper of his, which is unfortunate given the considerable number of valuable recent works dealing with Sextus's Pyrrhonism and with Bayle's not always clear stance on skepticism. Anton Matytsin's chapter analyzes the responses to Bayle's Pyrrhonism by JeanPierre de Crousaz and David-Renaud Boullier. Parts 2–4 address the influence of skepticism on, respectively, British, French, and German philosophy. Part 2 opens with Peter Kail's succinct analysis of the connection between moral skepticism and the moral sense theories of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson. 552 journal of the h istory of phi lo so phy 53 :3 j u ly 2015 Gianni Paganini identifies another source of Bayle's influence on Hume, arguing that in the first part of the section "Of the Immateriality of the Soul" of the Treatise Hume not only drew heavily on Bayle's Réponse aux questions d'un provincial, but replied to the latter's aporias. Claire Etchegaray, taking an approach more systematic than historical, focuses on Hume's and Reid's views on skepticism about the existence of external objects. In part 3, Nicolas Correard analyzes the nature and similarities of the forms of mitigated skepticism adopted by Jean-Baptiste Boyer d'Argens, Louis de Beausobre, and Voltaire. Voltaire's relationship to skepticism is also the object of the chapter by Stéphane Pujol, whose line of argument and conceptual distinctions are not always clear. In his clearly written essay, Marc-André Nadeau argues that the theoretical involuntary skepticism adopted by Rousseau in La profession de foi du vicaire Savoyard evolved in his later writings into an existential skepticism, that is, a skepticism that can be lived. Charles's second contribution examines Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville's intellectual itinerary from a universal Pyrrhonism to a revolutionary skepticism that ascribes pragmatic value to the theory of human rights without purporting to provide an epistemic foundation. Smith opens part 4, arguing that Kant was concerned with three forms of skepticism- Cartesian, Baylean, and Humean-in each of which he found something he could integrate into his critical philosophy. Ives Raddrizani addresses the position of Salomon Maimon, which the latter described as skeptical and which was formulated in connection with his criticism of Kant's transcendental philosophy. The papers by Italo Testa and Massimiliano Biscuso are devoted to Hegel. While the former offers a clear analysis of the religious skepticism adopted by Hegel in his early writings and inspired by the critical attitude distinctive of the Enlightenment, the latter claims that Hegel viewed skepticism as a crucial moment in the construction of any true philosophy. Finally, the two essays of part 5 explore "some echoes" of eighteenth-century skepticism in nineteenth-century French philosophy. Frédéric Brahami examines the post-revolutionary thinkers' equation of Enlightenment with skepticism, arguing that the reason is to be found in the fact that Enlightenment philosophy was seen as calling into question all institutions, customs, and beliefs, thus being responsible for the Reign of Terror. Philip Knee discusses Lamennais's criticism of the modern genesis of skepticism in Descartes and Rousseau, and his attempt at overcoming it by appealing to the authority of "historical consciousness." The present collection is clear proof that scholarship on the history and philosophical significance of modern skepticism is as vigorous as ever. D i e g o E . M a c h u c a CONICET, Argentina Oliver Sensen, editor. Kant on Moral Autonomy. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xii + 301. Cloth, $96.95. This rich collection of essays, many inspired by or referencing the work of Onora O'Neill, offers various perspectives on autonomy in Kant with some effort to draw relations to other issues in moral theory. The essays are divided, somewhat artificially, into three parts. Part one contains essays defining Kant's concept of autonomy. Thomas Hill updates his argument that contemporary applied ethics uses a concept of autonomy very different from Kant's, yet often mistakenly attribute their concept to Kant. Hill allows that Kant's conception of autonomy can provide a basis for and so enrich the contemporary approaches. Andrews Reath usefully provides a summary of the position he has developed in other writings about the nature of autonomy as the activity of self-legislation of rational beings. Karl Ameriks expands on O'Neill's rejection, in the term 'autonomy,' of, on the one hand, radical existentialist theories that emphasize the auto as any choice and, on the other, strict theories demanding obedience that emphasize the nomos. Ameriks shows that less extreme