Journal of the History of Philosophy

98 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Europe was impressed on an animistic pantheism preserved in the belief in evil spirits of every stripe. A number of philosophers promoted the view that the souls of animals are actually those of the damned, that animals are the mechanisms of demons. Professor Rosenfield reports that "Aubert de la Chesnaye and Bougeant were only joking when they represented a lady as taking fright at the idea 'that her little dog, who steeps with her at night, and by day caresses her, is a little devil'" (pp. 140-141). Fright, or delight? Can we be so sanguine about the joke today? Today it depends on whether one reads African Genesis and The Territorial Imperative by Robert Ardrey, or The Naked Ape and The Human Zoo by Desmond Morris. The popularity of these books and others, such as On Aggression by Konrad Lorenz, Men in Groups by Lionel Tiger and The Mind of the Dolphin by John C. Lilly, bespeaks a new phase in man's relation to men and animals. Professional and popular literature and speculation on the beast-machine is as extensive and current today as it was in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But now it is no longer anathema to go all the way in comparing man wi,th other animals. The begrudging admittance of Darwinism has finally opened the door to the dark and the light side of human, that is, animal, behavior. Whether we are to be haunted by our origins in killer apes or diverted by our heritage of uninhibited primate eroticism, it is our animal nature that now comes to the fore. If men have souls, so do animals, for man is an animal. If man is a machine, let's see how he works--we have reached a new level of tolerance for the myriad ways of man. From Beast-Machine to Man-Machine provides an essential key to understanding the tenor of our times. RlcnAmo A. WATSON Washington University, Saint Louis The Theory of Knowledge in Giambattista Vico. By Richard Manson. (Hamden: Archon Books, 1969. Pp. xiii+83. $5.00) The problem which this book isolates for concentrated attention is certainly one of the central problems of Vico's vast and complicated speculation. It is, nevertheless, one which cannot, by the very nature of that speculative structure, be addressed in abstraction from Vico's total enterprise. It is with relief, consequently, that one recognizes that the author, despite his avowed intention, does not isolate this problem but seeks to understand it in that total context. His theme, then, is not Vico's theory of knowledge, but simply Vico's enterprise, with emphasis upon certain aspects of it which, if mistakenly taken in isolation, might be structured as a theory the force of which would be inconclusive. One is naturally led to ask, consequently, what the author contributes to the better appreciation of Vico's thought, to the undertaking of the New Science, since that is the text upon which his attention centers. The answer, I believe, is readily forthcoming. To the comprehension of the overall schema of that thought, nothing new. To some of its constitutive dements, some clarification and re-ordering, particularly through some felicitous exemplifications. At the same time, on the negative side of the ledger, there BOOK REVIEWS 99 must be entered certain serious misconceptions which unless modified threaten to outweigh his undoubtedly acute observations. To indicate these misconceptions at once, is, perhaps, the best, though not the most grateful, manner of proceeding. Best, became if these misconceptions are identified immediately, their ultimate effect can be minimized, and the true strengths of the book placed in greater relief. The first of these misconceptions concerns Vico's general and controUing iment. "To save history from destruction at the hands of the Cartesians and traditionalists, who regarded it merely as a matter of conjecture," the author writes (p. 99), "Vico decided to create a new science of history." This statement represents an almost complete inversion of the process of development of Vico's thought. It is true that as early as 1708, in the Inaugural Oration of that year, which the author mentions in passing a number...