Journal of the History of Philosophy

BOOK REVIEWS 45 ~ of the bibliographical entry; thus as many entries as possible should be inspected. The interlibrary loan needs of scholars would seem to dictate the high degree of accuracy afforded by personal inspection. However, some uninspected sources (e.g., George Stade's The Age ofReason and theEnlightenment: Ren~ DescartestoMontesquieu [New York, 1984], L'OsservatoreRomano, Revue de 17nstitut Catholiquede Paris, Rivista di Antropologia, Revista de la Universidad de Buenos Aires,Journal of Thought, Diotima, and the Atti del XXII Congresso Nazionale di Storia dellaMedicina--the latter a source for several entries) are not so exotic that they could not have been located and inspected. Moreover, the editors' decisions not to provide the name of publishers or the titles of publication series, and to list only initials in place of authors' first names further restrict the value of this bibliography as a tool for interlibrary loan use. Chappell and Doney admit that their subject-index is "neither as finely grained nor as comprehensive as we would have liked it to be"; in fact, it is quite primitive in comparison with Sebba's and at times is hardly usable. Undifferentiated index topics such as "Epistemology" or "Metaphysics" or "Mind, Mental Faculties and Operations, Mind and Body" with three hundred or more entries each are virtually useless. What is one to do with topics such as "Philosophy--General" and "Method," each with over a hundred and fifty entries? Moreover, a number of obvious index topics such as "Truth," "Simple Natures," and "Time" are lacking. In contrast with Sebba's Bibliographia Cartesiana, which is filled with annotations, the Chappell and Doney bibliography contains no annotations. There are indications of publications discussed in the entry and publications which reviewed or discussed the entry in question, but no indications as to the content of the entry. Again, in an era in which interlibrary loan activity has long been a fact of life even for scholars with access to excellent libraries, it is simply too expensive to send for a photocopy of an article entry without a reasonable idea of the subject matter of that entry. This absence of annotations, in combination with the primitive nature of the topical index, limits the value that this bibliography can have for scholars. This is not to minimize the long hours of searching and proofreading that went into this volume, nor is it to refuse to express gratitude to the editors for their service to Descartes scholarship. Nevertheless, one still cannot but admire the monumental achievement of Gregor Sebba, who, without benefit of a computer, produced what is virtually the standard of philosophical bibliography. DONALD A. CRESS Northern Illinois University Craig Walton and P. J. Johnson, eds. Hobbes'sScienceof NaturalJustice. Archives of the History of Ideas, Vol. 11a. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, x987. Pp. xiii + 31 ~. $97.oo. Recent books by Gregory Kavka, Mark Johnston, Tom Sorell and others indicate that Hobbesian scholarship is now equal to the best on any philosopher. The current volume under review, a collection of articles, maintains that high level. As its title says, 452 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 28:3 JULY ~99 o what unites the essays is the idea of natural justice as a topic for scientific treatment. All the papers were originally conceived in connection with a Hobbes conference in 1979, although they are not the proceedings of that conference. While the editors did not attempt to impose a consensus, the contributors are obviously much more in tune with each other than most contributors to multiauthored works are. The book is divided into six parts: 1. Task of the 'Science of Natural Justice'; ~. Logic and Language of This Science; 3. Natural Right and the State of Nature; 4. Generating the Commonwealth; 5- Justice and Equity in the Commonwealth; 6. Hobbes Today. As these titles indicate, a panoply of perspectives on the central topic is offered. Given the length of this review, I can mention only a few of the many excellent essays. Several authors attempt to deflate the standard interpretation of the Hobbesian formula, homo lupus homini, according to which Hobbes had a very dark view of human nature. According to the new interpretation proferred by Paul Johnson and...