Journal of the History of Philosophy

BOOK REVI~.WS 497 Steven Nadler. MalebrancheandIdeas. New York: Oxford University Press, 199a. Pp. xii + 198. Cloth, $39.95. Steven Nadler has the enviable ability to do justice to both sides of a philosophical debate. Several years ago he published Arnauld and the CartesianPhilosophyofIdeas, a fine study which sympathetically explored Arnauld's orthodox Cartesian theories of intentionality and perception. Nadler has now switched his attention to the target of Arnauld's polemic ; he has given us a comprehensive account of the theory of ideas developed by the definitely unorthodox Cartesian philosopher, Malebranche. Malebrancheand Ideas displays many of the same virtues as the earlier study; it is lucid, scholarly, and crisply written. But if the second book is even better than the first, this is at least in part because its subject is more inviting and more challenging. Malebranche is a philosopher who cries out for exegesis; he offers a body of doctrine which is rich, imaginative, and, superficially at least, obscure. Nadler has risen admirably to the challenge of demystifying Malebranche's theory of ideas. In the early chapters of his book Nadler convincingly argues that the distinctive nature of Malebranchian ideas has been thoroughly misunderstood by many of his readers. Critics of Malebranche's doctrines have often failed to appreciate that his ideas are logical concepts or essences which are apprehended in a purely intellectual way. Nadler correctly emphasizes that the primary epistemological role of ideas is in the theory of abstract thought; the role which ideas play in our perception of the physical world is strictly secondary. Subsequent chapters offer excellent discussions of the notorious 'walking-mind' argument and of the representative nature of ideas. It is, however, perhaps a trifle strange that Nadler should seek to explain how ideas represent by claiming that they are images (48). In fairness to Nadler, he does not intend this claim in any crude sense, but it seems likely to mislead rather than help the reader. Daisie Radner appears to be more on target in saying that to have access to an idea is to possess a kind of know-how. Perhaps Nadler's most controversial thesis is his denial that Malebranche holds a representative theory of perception. On the face of it this thesis is distinctly unpromising ; it seems that Nadler can be answered by a few judicious textual citations. For instance, Nadler himself quotes Malebranche as saying that "in seeing [voyant]the idea directly, I see [voi]it [the body] indirectly" (164). It is statements like these that have led historians to hail Malebranche as one of the classic advocates of the representative theory of perception. But Nadler is not to be refuted in such a simpleminded way. His challenge to conventional wisdom rests on his central analysis of the nature of Malebranchian ideas; since ideas, for Malebranche, are logical concepts, not visual-like data, they are ill-suited for the role which they would be required to play in a representative theory of perception. So far, so good; Nadler is perfectly right to highlight the differences between Malebranche's doctrine of perception and orthodox versions of the representative theory. Nadler may also be right to stress that ideas, for Malebranche, play a constitutive role in perception without themselves being objects of perception. But it is less clear how much is gained by suggesting, as Nadler does, that Malebranche is in essential respects a 498 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 3~:3 JULY ~994 direct realist (177). In his earlier study, Nadler made the same claim, more plausibly, on behalf of Arnauld, and some readers may wonder whether Nadler is overeager to claim all Cartesians for the direct realist camp. Perhaps it is simply misleading to seek to interpret Malebranche in terms of the familiar dichotomy between direct realism and the representative theory of perception. Moreover, at one point Nadler's argument seems distinctly vulnerable. He seeks to show that Malebranche cannot understand the term 'perceive' univocaily when he speaks of perceiving both ideas and bodies. In support of this claim Nadler argues that "whatever the 'perception' of ideas is, it is not sense perception, which ~ our mode of apprehending existing material bodies" (165). But Nadler has not...