Journal of the History of Philosophy

BOOK REVIEWS 473 Chapter 4 concerns Peirce's "pragmatic metaphysics" and is the culmination of the development of Rosenthal's pluralism thesis. Together with the observation that the categories are categories of process, and through a close examination of the category of Firstness, she emphasizes the importance of sense-qualities that are inseparable from negative and positive possibilities Cmay-bes" and "would-bes") and their relevance to the controversies over whether Peirce is a realist, an idealist, or a phenomenalist. She says that Peirce did not see that the language he had available from the tradition was not adequate; thus, he proposed that objective idealism is the best answer to the question of whether the universe is mind or matter, even though he in fact repudiated objective idealism. In considering Peirce's cosmology, Rosenthal draws on Peirce's discussions of the law of mind, considering the ineradicable place of spontaneity in the emergence of new intelligibility or the evolution of laws. She concludes with a reiteration of the point that although knowledge involves convergence, convergences are always within a common world that inquirers partially but continually remake. Rosenthal's book is far too rich to do it justice in this short space. It challenges the reader to see why Peirce's thought is particularly relevant to contemporary debates, not only over how to interpret Peirce but, more importantly, about how his philosophy may help advance the discussions of the relativity and at the same time the rationality of different conceptual networks. In that connection, I suspect that the term "pluralism " as used by Rosenthal presupposes as much qualification as does Peirce's use of the terms "realism" and "idealism," which were available within the traditional vocabulary of his day. But however much the idea of pluralism is qualified, the strength of the pluralism thesis, I think, turns on two major issues: (1) the sense in which Peirce would regard his short list of three categories as alterable in a way that would commit him to more than his avowed fallibilism and (2) the ways in which Peirce can be a pluralist and nevertheless regard the dynamical object as sustaining an independence from the made and remade common world--which, as I would put it, is the world of immediate objects. With respect to these issues, as well as with respect to its scholarship and insights, Rosenthal's book dearly deserves to be reckoned with in future discussions of Peirce's thought. CARL R. HAUSMAN Pennsylvania State University John van Buren. The YoungHeidegger:Rumor of theHidden King. Studies in Continental Thought. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, x994. Pp. xxi + 415 . Cloth, $35.oo. Heidegger tended to dismiss his youthful writings and lectures. He was particularly reluctant to see his early Freiburg lectures published; hence their status as a mere "supplement" to the Collected Edition of his works. This unfavorable judgment was not lost on Heidegger scholars as they gravitated to Beingand Timeor to works written after the Kehre. The YoungHeideggeris conceived as a direct challenge to this prevailing view. 474 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 34:3 JULY 1996 After unearthing the dynamic of the struggle dominating and holding Heidegger back in his earliest efforts (19o9-1916), van Buren sets out to show how the themes of Heidegger's Freiburg courses in particular (1916-1923) contrast favorably--from a "negative, deconstructive, skeptical" point of view--with Being and Time and, to a lesser extent, with the themes of his later thinking. The result is a study of extraordinary scope and depth, carefully researched and graciously conceived, written with f/an and purpose , a sheer pleasure to read. No work of its magnitude is above serious criticisms, some of which are suggested below, but there can be no doubt that The YoungHeidegger makes a substantial and properly provocative contribution to Heidegger scholarship. Between the aim and substance of The YoungHeidegger, there exists a certain tension, a tension betrayed by the ambiguous tide of Part One: "The Matter of Heidegger's Thinking." The aim, in accordance with Heidegger's own hermeneutical directive, is clearly "the matter of Heidegger's thinking," the Sache, the Ereignis or, better, Ereignisse that Heidegger tries to think in...