Journal of the History of Philosophy

BOOK REVIEWS 415 involved may come to no more than deductivism. But that is not obvious, and Stove's very good book would have been strengthened had he obviated the need for raising the question. The first chapter is an extremely clear and helpful introduction to what probability theory is, what it enables us to do, and how it connects with inductive inference so that the logically careful examination of Hume that follows can be grasped by one not skilled in probability theory. The book will be of interest to Hume scholars but also to epistemologists because of its refutation of inductive scepticism and to probability theorists and philosophers of science because of the many theses the author argues for concerning logical probability. DONALDW. LIVINGSTON Northern Illinois University Aspetti Epistemologici della Finalitd in Kant. By Silvestro Marcucci. (Firenze: Felice Le Monnier, 1972. Pp. xi + 440) Although essentially expository rather than critical in conception, this formidable volume may well be the definitive work dealing with the problem of purposiveness in Kant's philosophy. There are two reasons for this judgment on my part: (1) Professor Marcucci has based his interpretation of Kant's position upon all available sources, ranging from the Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (1755) to the Opus postumum, including such much neglected works as "Bestimmung des Begritfs einer Menschenrace " (1785), "Ober den Gebrauch teleologischer Prinzipien in der Philosophic" (1788), and the largely unkown "Erste Einleitung" to the third Critique. (2) In a large number of extensive footnotes Marcucci deals effectively and critically with a vast literature (in Italian, German, and English) pertaining to the problem. I know of no other work in the field of equal scope or comprehensiveness. In chapter I (pp. 21-80), the author deals with Kant's pre-critical discussions of the problem of purposiveness in nature, concentrating in particular on the Universal Natural History. Chapter II is devoted to a discussion of the idea of purposiveness as developed in the first phase of Kant's critical philosophy. Here the Dissertation of 1770 and the Critique o! Pure Reason are the objects of analysis. By stressing the role of "Ockham's Razor" as "principle of homogeneity" (p. 113), Marcucci is preparing the ground for the unusual confrontation (in chapter III) of Kant and Linnr. The point at issue is the problem of the classification of "natural objects"; and it is here in particular that the "Erste Einleitung," the "Bestimmung," and the "Gebrauch teleologischer Prinzipien" play their part in Kant's argument for a distinction between a merely logical schema (such as Linnr's) and a "natural system" of the objects of nature. In the latter case, a "natural purposiveness" is "the a priori foundation" of the interrelated genera and species (p. 179). But this raises an epistemological problem. Professor Marcucci discusses it in chapter IV, "Experience and Judgment" (pp. 181-238). His point is that, for Kant, the basic principle of judgment, i.e., the principle of purposiveness, is not constitutive but regulative only (p. 183). Chapter V (pp. 239-320) consists of a detailed analysis and discussion of the "transcendental presupposition of purposiveness for an empirical science of nature." "Erste Einleitung " and the third Critique are again in the center of the discussion. However, Kant's argument in the third Critique is strictly an "as if" argumentni.e., it is an argument by way of an analogy (pp. 298-316); and this fact leads Marcucci to a discussion of the problem of "objective purposiveness" in nature as Kant sees it in the second phase of his critical philosophy. This is the topic of chapter VI, the Concluding chapter of the book 416 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY (pp. 321-430). Again the "Erste Einleitung" together with "Gebrauch teleologischer Prinzipien" and the third Critique provide the basis for the discussion; but references to the Opus postumum are also quite numerous and provide supportive evidence. The first topic being discussed is the interrelation of machanisms and purposiveness. Kant himself had argued that "in an animal body many parts can be conceived as concretions according to mechanical laws.... Yet the cause which brings together the required matter, modifies it, forms it, and puts it in...