Pauline Phemister, The Rationalists: Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006), 238 pps., $24.95, 0-7456-2744-7
Pauline Phemister (Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Edinburgh), in this volume covers the great rationalist philosophers Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz. These philosophers stand out among their seventeenth-century contemporaries as each sought to construct a philosophical system in which theological and philosophical foundations serve to explain the physical, mental and moral universe. Through a careful analysis of their work, Phemister unpacks the rationalists’ contribution to the development of modern philosophy.
Bar none, these philosophers are dedicated to the ideal of setting forth a coherent and consistent philosophical system that sought to explain all aspects of human knowledge. Phemister asserts that the Thirty Years’ War helps one comprehend the uncertainty of Descartes’ methodological approach to philosophy in contrast to the more optimistic and dogmatic methodologies of Spinoza and Leibniz. Descartes’ adult life was marred with conflict, whereas Spinoza and Leibniz spent their adult lives in relative peace. However, the common thread that binds these three together is their shared insistence regarding the possibility of developing a rationally unified system of thought that encompassed metaphysical, physical, and ethical knowledge.
Phemister claims that Descartes is rightly held to be the ‘father’ of modern philosophy, and his philosophy, therefore, lays the groundwork for Spinoza and Leibniz to build upon. Leibniz, Phemister asserts, was primarily concerned with constructing a philosophical system that would unite all people groups, regardless of their religious and cultural backgrounds. Spinoza, in contrast to Leibniz, envisioned a utopian society of free individuals united as friends around their common intellectual love of God, and thus encouraged the education of all people groups. While the latter two philosophers were critical of Descartes at many points, they nonetheless took forward the Cartesian ideal of a philosophical system based in metaphysics and the knowledge of God, and using the power of logical reasoning to attain truths about substances, the self, the physical world, human freedom, and human virtue.
In chapter one, Phemister avers that all three philosophers sought justification of the pursuit of knowledge in living the virtuous life. In chapter two, he highlights the epistemological theme further in recounting the pursuit of universal language schemes by the three philosophers. Chapters three through nine deal with metaphysical concerns. Pointedly, chapter three discusses the Cartesian dualism of mind and body substances in contradistinction to Leibniz’s pluralism of individual substances. Spinoza’s arguments for ontological monism are discusses at length in chapter four. The question of how to understand diversity in unity is explored in chapter five. In chapter six, Phemister turns to the physical world of material bodies. Therein, he contrasts Descartes’ view of the body as res extensa and his recognition of individual bodies as substances with Spinoza’s view that individual bodies are merely modes of God’s attribute of extension.
Phemister highlights how Leibniz took a via media position between Descartes and Spinoza in chapter seven by highlighting how Leibniz allowed some animated bodies as substances, but denying that status to inanimate bodies. Chapters eight and nine, both, address the relationship of minds to bodies, looking first to Descartes, and then to Spinoza and Leibniz. Therein, Phemister argues that there is great convergence in their respective views on the relation of minds to bodies. Finally, Phemister examines some ethical issues with respect to these three philosophers in chapters ten and eleven.
In sum, Phemister’s discussion of Descartes’, Spinoza’s, and Leibniz’s views on knowledge, universal languages, the nature of substance and substances, bodies, the relation of mind and body, freedom, and the role of distinct perception and reason in morals is lucid and illuminating. The volume is replete with illuminating contrasts and comparisons between these three philosophers, and is therefore highly recommended to patrons interested in a broad introduction to rationalist philosophy.
Bradford McCall
Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA.