Journal of the History of Philosophy

680 JOURNAl. OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 29:4 OCTOBER 1991 Leibniz's nominahsm, for, as Mondadori has recently shown, there is reason to think that Mates has overemphasized its scope.' We may grant that Leibniz is committed to the thesis that the actual world consists solely of simple substances and their modifications , and that he thus denies the independent existence within the world of abstract beings such as qualities. Nevertheless, ample evidence supports the view that Leibniz conceives of a wide range of abstract entities (~:oncepts, relations, possible worlds) as being in some sense real, insofar as they exist in, and are the objects of, God's understanding (see, e.g., Causa Dei w and in this, Motadadori shows, I,eibniz allies himself ~hh an important tradition of medieval thougi~t dating back to Duns Scotus and ultimately to St. Augustine. As Jolley recognizes, there are strong reasons for resisting the move to interpret these divine ideas as mental dispositions, since it is at odds wilh the orthodox conception (accepted by Leibniz) of God as pure act. In the end, it is unclear what sense attaches to the claim that tor God ideas are "mental" rather than "abstract" objects. It is true that Leibniz refers to the "divine mind," and even describes God as a "monad." However, the former at least is a designation he shares with Malebranche, and still the latter is able to uphold a conception of ideas as abstract objects. Here Jo[ley appears unfortunately constrained by his interpretative framework . Why does Leibniz have to support either a "psychologistic" or a "logicist" conception of ideas? Why can't we conclude that he instead adopts elements of both positions? h~ human beings, ideas are .,o he c,vnceived as men,.a! dispositiors '.~ form particular thoughts; in God, ideag are eternal, abstract objects, which provide the ground for the truth of those thoughts. Ahhough Jolley makes some effort to support the notion that seventeenth-century philosophers are both deeply indebted to their past and strongly influenced by theological concerns (1 a), he does not undertake to document in any serious way the range of these debts and influences in the case of Descartes, Malebranche, or Leibniz. Within these limits, The Light of the Soul offers a clear and r~gorous account of their views on the nature of ideas. It is by no means the last word on this topic, hut it should certainly help to advance the discussion and to strengthen the growing awareness of the crucial importance of Malehranche fbr seventeenth-century philosophy. DONALD Ru'I'tl ERI-'O g O Emory Umversity Henry M. Rosentbal. The Consolations of Philosophy: Hobbes's Secret, Spinoza ~ Way. Edited. with an Introduction, by Abigail L. Rosenthal. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989. Pp. ix + 21 :. $29.95. I risk abusing a reviewer's obligations with the following simple advice concerning this book: Read it. Read it, that is, if you have genuine interest in learning from the philosophies of Spinoza and Hobbes, or if you treasure escape from current stereo- ' ~-. Mo~idadori, "'Review of B. Ma~.es,The Fhtlosophyof Leibmz," The Phi~,o.~t~phicalHeview99 (:99o): 613-z 9 BOOK REVIEWS 681 types about ethical theory into troubled reflection on human agency. But readers of this journal will not therefore be comfortable with it in ways they are likely to expect. A pair of lengthy essays supply subtitle and shape this text. Hobbes's Secret is stated in various ways, beginning with his defiance of all the labels we incline to apply to him. I hazard formulating its core thus: a nontemporal social contract informs Hobbes's entire philosophy, ontological to political. That union is itself natural, or even Nature, and amid artificial approximations to it, it may be disobeyed or disregarded. But it cannot not be obligatory, and it cannot not constitute the fabric of human moral agency. The natural condition and the "eternal laws of nature" alike envisage alternatives governing all moral deliberation. The phrase Spinoza's Way is even more tricky to formulate. His identified "ways,"-up and down--presuppose assent to "Hobbes's secret" in correspondence with the second kind of knowledge. But Rosenthal's argument...