Berkeley Is Pronounced Barclay - Home Pages

More documents

Recommendations

Info

$Math 121 Test #1 Spring 2012$

$Math 121 Test #2 Spring 2012$

ReviewsGeorge Berkeley De Motu and The Analyst: A Modern Editionwith Introductions and Commentary, Edited and Translated byDouglas M. Jesseph, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992,Pp. x + 230 Â£51.00A tendency in recent critical work on De Mofu has been to relateit to certain current preoccupations in philosophy of science.Examples of this are Popper's discussion of Berkeley as aninstrumentalist" and various interpretations relating Berkeley'sviews to those of Mach and logical positivism. A feature of thistendency has been to ignore the specific historical context of thetext. Gerd Buchdahl's magisterial Metaphysics and the Philosophyof Science (1969) avoided this unhistorical approach and relatedBerkeley more closely to his contemporaries, presenting hisscientific views as a more rigorous development of those of Locke.While Richard Brook emphasised the role of Berkeley's doctrine ofmeaning in relation to questions in the foundations ofmathematics and physics, in his Berkeley's Philosophy of Science(1973). he also avoided the temptation of making Berkeley aprotagonist in twentieth-century controversies.Douglas Jesseph takes the same stance and assiduouslyavoids discussing Berkeley's work in relation to contemporarydisputes. He presents a new translation of De Motu withoriginal text. He also includes an edition of The Analyst withintroductions to both texts. bibliographies and indices. Hisrationale for this publication is,theREVIEWSto present Berkeley's two most important scientific texts in aform which meets contemporary standards of scholarshipwhile rendering them accessible to the modern reader.(p. ix)Unfortunately the goal is not entirely achieved, since in dealingwith De Motuthe book falls short of the standards of scholarshipcited, as I shall discuss. To a lesser extent this is also the case withThe Analyst.De Motuis introduced by ieviewing the major controversiesabout motion which influenced Berkeley. First there is an accountof the views of motion of a) Aristotle and the scholastics, b)Descartes and Galileo, c) Leibniz and d) Newton. The brief accountof Aristotelian and Medieval theories about motion relies on datedstudies and has no references to primary sources. This may beexcused, perhaps, since Jesseph states that "Berkeley apparentlyhad no detailed knowledge of Aristotelian and scholastic theoriesof motion" (p. 9). The sections on Galileo, Descartes and Leibniz arebetter served in this respect, with apposite quotations to illustratethe issues discussed. However the discussions are rather short.and indeed the section dealing with Newtonian mechanics hasdisproportionately long quoted passages to the small amount oftext.After this Jesseph presents particular disputed issues, suchas the "Vis Viva Controversy", Percussion and Gravitation. Thisserves as a brief orientation to reading De Motu, but there is noattempt at presenting interesting interpretative angles on the text.The four pages devoted to "The Place of De Motuin Berkeley's5
6REVIEWSPhilosophy" do not adequately deal with this issue. While merelystating that metaphysics and physics are separate provinces forBerkeley, Jesseph doesn't explore the rationale for andimplications of this position. A brief paragraph mentions that Luceheld that immaterialism was central to understanding De Motu,without any attempt to assess this claim. The same paragraphmentions the positivist reading of Berkeley, again without anyengagement. Nor does the couple of hundred words under theheading "A Note on the Text and Translation" constitute acontribution to Berkeley scholarship.As to the translation, the stated aim was to balanceconsiderations of readability against those of accuracy - whichresulted in "a fairly literal translation which can still be read withrelative ease" (p. 37). The main translation hitherto available wasthat of Luce in Works, also reprinted in the Everyman edition ofPhilosophical Works, M. R. Ayers (ed.). One way in which thepresent translation is an advance on the Luce version is theinclusion of footnoted references to quotations and allusions toother philosophers. However, the translation itself doesn't alwayshave the limpidity and clarity of the Luce version and the latinatesyntax sometimes occludes the sense. For example;REVIEWSIn the pursuit of truth we must beware of being misled byterms which we do not rightly understand. That is the chiefpoint. Almost all philosophers utter the caution; few observeit. (Luce).Quo modo curva considerari potest tanquam constans exrectis infinitis, etiamsi revera ex illis non constet, sed quodea hypothesis ad gometriam (sic) ufilis sit, eodem motuscircularis spectari potest. tanquam a directionibus rectilineisinfinitis ducens, quae suppositio utilis est in philosophiamechanics. (*61)Just as a curve can be considered as consisting of an infinityof right lines, even if in truth it does not consist of them butbecause this hypothesis is useful in geometry, in the sameway circular motion can be regarded as traced and arisingfrom an infinity of rectilinear directions, which suppositionis useful in mechanical philosophy. (Jesseph)A curve can be considered as consisting of an infinitenumber of straight lines, though in fact it does not consist ofthem. That hypothesis is useful in geometry; and just socircular motions can be regarded as arising from an infinitenumber of rectilinear directions- which supposition is usefulin mechanics. (Luce).However, the single most glaring feature of Jesseph'sbook,illustrated in the Latin text of section 61, quoted above, is theproliferation of the most appalling typographical errors.Misspellings abound, print is smudged, abominations (in this ageof word-processing) such as "And surely when we when we call abody heavy ..."(p. 83) mar the text.7Ad veritatem inveniendam praecipuum est cavisse ne vocesmale intellectae nobis officiant: quod omnes fere monentphilosophi, pauci observant. (*I)In the pursuit of truth the most important thing is tobeware that poorly understood words do not hinder us:nearly all philosophers warn of this, but few heed thewarning. (Jesseph)The bibliography for De Motu is comprehensive, but not complete- missing for example the 1989 Italian translation by MariapaolaFimiani which had lengthy historical studies and which addressedthe relationship between that work and immaterialism.
Page 2 and 3: Berkeley Is Pronounced BarclayBy Ri
Page 6 and 7: 8REVIEWSJesseph is on different gro
Page 8 and 9: 12REVIEWSREVIEWSprocesses and the c
Page 10: BIBLIOGRAPHY16Morgan. Vance. "Kani

Berkeley Is Pronounced Barclay - Home Pages

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?