Journal of the History of Philosophy

BOOK REVIEWS 263 comprehends in itself the whole perspectivity of significations which become explicit in the phenomenological stages, the logical categories, the various structures of artistic and religious representation or in the sense of historical epoques (Lakebrink, pp. 4, 102, 275, 497). Thought, in its phenomenological elevating of itself, is passing through the various regions of empirical things comprehending them and, through them, comprehending itself. Consequently, for Hegel, Logic proves to be the translucent dimension in which thought inherently reflected in itself explicates and determines itself. The question of self-determination and, in a more profound sense, of liberty as raised by Lakebrink returns here as the very centre of the ~,ryo~ and is developed through the whole sequence of categories. Hegel, however, treats this problem and all aspects related to it on the level of absolute self-reflection which has absorbed the depth and irrational facticity of being into pure logical structures. Against this claim and its dissipation of individual integrity (cf. Enc., w95), Lakebrink insists on the analectical method as a comprehensive view based on the irreducible but mutually transparent variety of things, ~6 t~vg~,oyov cuvop~tv (Arist. Met. IX. 6. 1048a 37). Lakebrink interprets Hegel's philosophy exclusively in a retrospective manner, and in this respect he succeeds in disclosing the various aspects of an underlying continuity between Hegel and the predominant theories of the tradition. One has, however , to point out the reverse side as well: that in the shadow of Hegel's gigantic system , and at last in its collapse, with Marx, Kierkegaard and the phenomenological movement a new and more cautious type of thinking arose whose access to reality is marked by a profound suspicion of the sole dominance of logic. KLAUS HEDWIG Louvain Schopenhauer interprete dell'Occidente. By Giuseppe Riconda. (Biblioteca di filosofia Mursia. Milano: U. Mursia and C. Pp. 267. Lire 4,200.) The object of this "investigation" which appeared in the collection directed by Professor Luigi Pareyson is to show that Arthur Schopenhauer was not a "drserteur de l'Europe" as Max Scheler said, but an authentic Occidental thinker. This is shown by a confrontation with those predecessors of his whom he considers as important precursors of his own philosophical system, although, as the author shows, Schopenbauer did not conceive their philosophy as it is usually understood. Schopen,hauer prided himself especially that he was an authentic successor of Kant and that Kant's philosophy was basically identical with that of Plato in antiquity. He also mentions some pre-Socratic thinkers, and in a more polemical mood Spinoza, considering his pantheism as a crypto-atheism and .his "optimism" as an Old Testament heritage. Riconda does not mention the latter point. He also skips the fact that Schopenhauer was an admirer of the first edition of the Kritik der reinen Vernun/t of Kant and thought that Kant spoiled it in the second edition especially by inserting a "Refutation of Idealism." The influence of Voltaire on Schopenhauer is only pointed to in a footnote although Voltaire's derisive attacks on she "optimism" of Leibniz and on the Old Testament--the latter of which carry with them as they do still more clearly in Schopenhauer a flavor of racial antisemitism--were very well known to Schopenhauer. A considerable part of the study is devoted to Schopenhauer's presentation of the three "pessimistic" religions: Christianity, Bra~hmanism and Buddhism, all of which manifest the need for "redemption" and were considered by Schopenhauer as a confirmation of his basic assumptions. This concerns especially the Indian religions. 264 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Riconda also uses profusely the text of Schopenhauer's juvenile writings, published in 1966 by Arthur Hiabscher, to explain the genesis of the system of Schopcnhauer. But he glosses over the fact that the voluntarism and the aesthetics of Schopenhauer are strongly influenced by Fichte and Schelling. Schopenhauer vituperated Hegel as a "charlatan," but it so happens that only three thinkers were honored in Germany by the foundation of philosophical societies bearing their names; Kant, Hegel and Schopenhauer. The latter deeply affected intellectual life in general, for instance the composer Richard Wagner, the dramatist Friedrich Hebbcl and last, not least, Friedrich Nietzsche. Riconda...