The Spinoza Conversations between Lessing and Jacobi. Text with Excerpts from the Ensuing Controversy (review)

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS 315 The dismissal of arguments that these philosophers themselves considered vitally important indicates that Hope is not seriously interested in examining the moralsentiment theory in its own right, an impression further confirmed by his frequent use of terms such as "cavalier," "confused," "silly," "naive," and "glib" to characterize many of their arguments. Of the three philosophers discussed, Hutcheson fares the worst. Hope's account of Hutcheson's theory of virtue is seriously flawed by his taking Hutcheson to be a utilitarian. Utilitarianism claims that right and wrong are determined by consequences. Moral-sentiment theories, including Hutcheson's, claim that right and wrong are determined by the sentiment aroused in impartial spectators towards the motives of agents. Hope also misconstrues Hutcheson's theory of obligation, attributing to him a number of different kinds of obligation that Hutcheson in fact claims to be only apparently different senses used by his opponents. Hutcheson argues that these apparently different senses of 'obligation' are all reducible to one of the two senses that he accepts as meaningful. Hope reveals a lack of familiarity with the texts in a number of places. For instance, part of Smith's argument against the existence of a Hutchesonian moral sense is that this sense itself could not be morally evaluated. Hope, coming to Hutcheson's defense, calls Smith's claim "a bit glib and question-begging" (115), seemingly unaware that Smith is simply repeating Hutcheson's admission that this is an implication of his view. Likewise, Hope claims that Smith and Hume significantly differ about pride, Smith "denigrating" it, "at least in its offensive form," while Hume "sees no wrong in it" (112). But Smith and Hume hold identical views on pride, both allowing for the virtue of a proper estimation of one's own merit and both criticizing what Hume, in the Treatise, calls "an overweaning conceit of our own merit." Similar mistakes are found throughout the book, and, while no one of them is all that crucial, the cumulative effect is damaging to Hope's credibility as an interpreter of these theories. The book is better viewed as an attempt to develop a moral theory with certain moral-sentiment overtones than as a scholarly work in interpreting the moralsentiment theorists. MARIE MARTIN Clemson University The Spinoza Conversations between Lessing and Jacobi. Text with Excerptsfrom the Ensuing Controversy. Introduced by Gerard ValiSe. Trans. G. ValiSe, J. B. Lawson, and C. G. Chappel. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1988. Pp. vi + 174. Cloth, $26.5o. Paper, $13.75. On the afternoon of July 5, 1780, F. H. Jacobi arrived at Wolfenbfittel for an extended visit with G. E. Lessing. It was the only meeting between the two men and was, according to Jacobi's later report, devoted substantially to conversations concerning the "spirit of Spinozism." Less than a year later Lessing was dead at the age of 51, and his longtime friend Moses Mendelssohn began laying plans for publishing something 316 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 29:2 APRIL 1991 concerning the character of his recently deceased friend. In 1783,word of this project reached Jacobi, who, through the intermediary of a mutual friend, informed Mendelssohn of Lessing's alleged SpinozismL Profoundly disturbed by this report, which implied that Lessing may have concealed his true views from his longtime friend, Mendelssohn requested a full report on the conversations in question. Thus there was initiated a sometimes acrimonious correspondence between two of the most important and influential German authors of the late eighteenth century, one a dogged exponent of "rational theism" and the other an uncompromising exponent of the view that the truths of religion and morality are inaccessible to human reason. In the course of the exchange, Jacobi characterized Lessing's "Spinozism" as identical with pantheism, atheism, and fatalism. While agreeing with Lessing "that there is no other philosophy but the philosophy of Spinoza," Jacobi went on to call for a repudiation of philosophy and reliance upon a salto mortale. Mendelssohn, in contrast, while not denying that Lessing may indeed have expressed some admiration for Spinoza, was at pains to distinguish between the sort of pantheistic and fatalistic system attributed to Lessing by Jacobi and...