Lectures on the Philosophy of World History. Introduction: Reason in History (review)

Abstract

122 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY we must side reverentially with Macaulay in declaring that Bentham is a writer "from whose opinions on a question of jurisprudence it is rarely safe to dissent," or, indeed, that "on most parts of the philosophy of jurisprudence, it is not easy to add to what has been said by Mr. Bentham." It is rather to try to rescue him from his image as a lightweight in all branches of philosophy. To a large extent, that image is a result of students' concentrating too heavily on some parts of Bentham's output and neglectingothers. Of Laws in General has been a particular victim of this habit. For far too long, Bentham was known chiefly for his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, where many of his greatest faults as a thinker are openly displayed, not least in in the first six chapters, which, as Plamenatz noted many years ago, contain many ambiguities and downright fallacies. Even where he is not ambiguous or fallacious in the IPML, Bentham propounds a vulgar and, in any case, impractical principle of utility. Moreover, his criticism of other principles is unthinking, almost flippant. These are not the chapters of a profound, contemplative thinker, but of a conjurer. But Bentham himself saw many of the conceptual (if not argumentative) weaknesses of the IPML while writing its last chapter. He realized that what was requred was, as Lyons puts it in his recent provocative work, "the study.., of the nature of law, as distinct from principles for rationalizing and reforming legislation." The result was Of Laws in General, which lay undiscovered in Gower Street until 1939. Even since its publication, however, it has not always been granted the full measure of esteem that is its due. Too often it has been taken to be of the same stripe as, and inferior to, Austin's Province of Jurisprudence Determined (1832); and it may be conceded that there are some cursory resemblances between the two. Both writers propound an imperative legal philosophy: inasmuch as Bentham does so, it is hardly surprising that Austin should, given the latter's often proclaimed allegiance to Bentham's views. But there are two areas of difference between them, and they are crucial; for we must understand the nature of Bentham's philosophy of law if we are properly to appreciate its very great merit and significance. Austin's legal theory--which in many respects has come to be viewed as the utilitarian legal theory and is therefore of no little significance itself--is considerably more rigid, less fastidious , and less alert to philosophical intricacies than is Bentham's and is thus considerably easier to demolish. The second difference is this. Austin's (the utilitarian) philosophy of law always rests on a particular notion--or notions--of utility. A great deal of Benthain's philosophy of law does not ineluctably rest on any notion of utility (although it is not therefore without a blemish). It is true that Bentham's notion of law as customary fidelity to the sovereign's commands has been the object of many telling attacks. Nonetheless, our fresh evaluation of Bentham with the aid of renewed curiosity and more information may, for a start, grant him a more substantial intellectual endowment and inventiveness than he has frequently been condeded. D. C. BAND Australian National University Lectures on the Philosophy of World History. Introduction: Reason in History. By G. W. F. Hegel. Translated by H. B. Nisbet, with an introduction by Duncan Forbes. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975. Pp. xxxviii + 252. $23.50) It is widely believed that one of Hegel's most influentialcontributionsto philosophy was his demonstration of the relevance of" history" to theoretical and, especially, political reflection. It is as a philosopher of history that Hegel is most often initiallypresented, whether in terms of his remarkable characterizations of the historical nature of human spirit in his Phenomenology , or by means of the published version of his lectures on history. Even though Hegel himself BOOK REVIEWS 123 continually insisted on the foundational status of the Logic for all his system, the "externalization " of the "Absolute" in the historical progression of Geist has become one...