174 Book Reviews

myself with which to distinguish what makes certain states these and not those
(they fall under the category of states that are mine, directly experienced by me,
under immunity from misidentication relative to I etc.) or to legitimate
combining two or more states as part of the set (it is because that state is also
mine that it is part of the set of which this is a member). Second, Rovanes can-
didate description fails to preserve that rst-personal feat of self-conscious
self-reference by which the subject and object of an intentional episode is rec-
ognized as identical. Thus the crucial motivational role of the rst person pro-
noun is lost. For one might be in a position to know that the set of rationally
related intentional episodes of which this one is a member is F (spilling sugar;
late for a meeting; approached by a bear) without doing something about it
precisely because one did not know that that set was oneself. Third, it might be
said that there are circumstances in which the sentence I do not exist is
truethose in which I did not exist. Whereas the circumstances in which the
set of rationally related intentional episodes of which this one is a member did
not exist would deprive the equivalent sentence of meaning.
These diculties notwithstanding, The Bounds of Agency is evidently an
important contribution to current debate and worth the serious attention of
metaphysicians and ethicists.
Lincoln College x.xixiii.x uvc.sxvsvovu
University of Oxford
Oxford OX1 3BJ
UK
max.degaynesford@philosophy.ox.ac.uk
Cartesian Metaphysics: The Scholastic Origins of Modern Philos-
ophy, by Jorge Secada. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, :ooo. Pp. xii
+ ,,,. H/b $,,.,,.
Recent years have seen interest rise in examination of the Aristotelian Scholas-
tics both for their own sake and for their inuence on, and ramications for,
the study of Descartes. Jorge Secadas aim in Cartesian Metaphysics is to oer a
unied reading of Descartess metaphysics against the background of Scholas-
tic philosophy (p. I). In so doing, Secada not only explores the things that
Descartes rejects from his predecessors, but also reveals just how much he
kept. As such, Secadas book is a signicant contribution to this still young but
very important trend.
To structure the comparison between Descartes and the Scholastics (repre-
sented primarily by Aquinas and Surez), Secada uses the epistemological
debate between existentialism and essentialism, where the former is the view,
held by the Scholastics, that knowledge of a substances existence is in impor-
tant ways prior to knowledge of its nature or essence, while according to the
latter, held by Descartes, knowledge of essence is prior to knowledge of exist-
Book Reviews 175
ence. Secada rst shows that Scholastic existentialism and Cartesian essential-
ism have much in common. Not only do they share an ideal of a true science of
being and its causes, but they also share substantial views about causation, the
ontological relationship between existence and essence, the nature of merely
possible essences, and the reality of natural necessities and their grounding in
God. Further, Descartes adopted much Scholastic terminology and attempted
to solve various clearly Scholastic problems. At the same time, however, the
existentialismessentialism exegetical lens also reveals Descartess important
divergences from Scholasticism, for his rejection of existentialism brings along
an anti-empiricism, intellectualism, indirect non-realist theory of ideas, nativ-
ism, and a rejection of hylomorphism, all at odds with Scholasticism. By draw-
ing out these commonalities and dierences, then, Secada has unquestionably
succeeded in establishing that ones grasp of Descartes prots greatly by study-
ing him in the context of Scholasticism.
Here is an overview of the book. Chapter one articulates the distinction
between Scholastic existentialism and Cartesian essentialism, and sketches the
rationale for each. The primary justication for existentialism appears to be
the empiricist view that there is nothing in the intellect which was not previ-
ously in the senses, while that for Descartess essentialism includes his rejec-
tion of hylomorphism and his anti-empiricist intellectualism, according to
which understanding is fundamentally autonomous from sensation. Secada
then describes the essentialist order of the Meditations, arguing that with
regard to the three main categories of substance (matter, self, and God), Des-
cartes only claims to know existence if he knows essence, and that at least in
the case of matter he can know essence without knowing existence. Chapter
two argues that Descartess use of scepticism is best understood as an attempt
to undermine the empiricism supporting existentialism. Chapter three
explores the common ground between Scholastics and Descartes on the
notion and nature of real essences, noting one important dierence, that Des-
cartess nativism allows God (and not sensation) to account causally for our
knowledge of possible essences, again contra empiricism. I will return to chap-
ter four below. In chapter ve, Secada reads Descartess famous wax discussion
as an argument for the intellectualism grounding essentialism, against those
who read the Meditations primarily as a response to scepticism; in so doing
Secada makes sense of the wax discussions location between the cogito and
proofs of Gods existence. Chapter six examines Descartess Third Meditation
arguments for Gods existence in an essentialist light. It provides extremely
useful insight into Descartess Scholastic conception of causation and shows
how thoroughly Descartes follows Surezs critique of Aquinass Five Ways, in
particular Surezs demand that all a posteriori proofs of Gods existence be
supplemented with a priori consideration of Gods essence. Chapter seven
contrasts Descartess essentialist conception of substance with Scholasticisms
existentialist conception. Chapter eight is one of the strongest in the book.
Secada details how Descartes followed Surez both in holding a mere concep-
176 Book Reviews
tual distinction between essence and existence and in reconciling that view
with the acceptance of merely possible essences by denying the ultimate real-
ity of the latter. Further, Secada shows that Kants famous claim against the
ontological argument, that existence is not a genuine property, was already
contained in Surezs and Descartess conceptual distinction above and applied
by Gassendi against the ontological argument. These facts generate a puzzle
(nicely resolved by Secada) for understanding Descartess ontological argu-
ment, given that he (like Kant) denies existences status yet goes ahead with the
argument anyway. Chapter nines highlight, nally, is Secadas critical exami-
nation of Descartess conceptions of the body and self.
Most of this book is extremely interesting and valuable; Secada has made a
convincing case, as noted, that Descartes exegesis prots greatly by examining
him through the lens of his relationship to Scholasticism. Indeed, Secada has
much to oer to many particular debates in diverse areas of contemporary
Cartesian scholarship, and most of what he says is, I think, rather persuasive
and worthy of study. My primary critical concerns with the book, in fact, rest
almost exclusively with chapter four, to which I now turn.
First, briey, Secadas discussion in that chapter of primary and secondary
causation, occasionalism, continuous creation, and related notions could sim-
ply do with substantial further analysis and defence (cf. my Descartess Nomic
Concurrentism: Finite Causation and Divine Concurrence, Journal of the His-
tory of Philosophy, forthcoming). More importantly, Secada deals there with
the long-standing debate whether Descartes has an indirect (or immanent or
non-realist) theory of ideas, according to which there are mental entities dis-
tinct from acts of the mind which are the immediate and direct objects of
intentional mental acts, or whether he takes with the Scholastics a direct real-
ist view, where the immediate objects of intentional mental acts are external
things themselves. Secada vigorously defends the non-realist interpretation
against a number of recent commentators who, following the example of
Arnauld, defend the realist one. But while I was originally neutral on this
debate, I found myself, as the chapter progressed, actually becoming increas-
ingly attracted to the realist interpretation.
Given space limitations, I can only sketch, with neither proper context nor
defence, some of my thoughts against Secadas treatment of the issue:
(I) Descartess ontology, I think, rules out mental entities other than minds
and their modes. There is no real ontological room to distinguish mental
modes and mental objects, as Secada attempts to do (see in particular p. IIo).
(:) Reading Descartes as a direct realist may best explain why he insists that the
objective reality of ideas requires a cause with at least the same formal reality.
Further, he can insist on this causal principle against the Scholastics even while
sharing their direct realism, for example as Arnauld did (p. ,8). (In particular,
I disagree with Secadas reading of Descartess exchange with Caterus on these
points.) (,) That Descartes argues that the proper objects of intellect, viz.
essences, are not obtained from the senses does not entail that he created a
Book Reviews 177
world within the mind [as] the immediate object of its gaze (p. 8o). Indeed,
essences are perhaps poorly suited to be mental objects given that our grasp
of them fundamentally transcends sensation and imagination, that is, visualiz-
ability. (See also (o) below.) () Secadas primary argument against the direct
realist interpretation is that it would require the essence of mind to involve a
relation to external objects, which would undermine mental substantiality. But
it is (a) not clear that the essence of mind is intentionality at all, rather than
conscious awareness (as Secada perhaps might agree (p. :8, n. I,)), and (b) if
the essence of mind is intentionality, it is not clear that direct realism
according to which intentionality may be construed as a primitive property of
the mindrequires any such external relation, especially given the possibility,
recognized by direct realists, of thinking about non-existent things. (,) The
textual evidence, in my view, is not conclusive either way. Still, I especially take
issue with Secadas analysis of certain passages, one particular example being
Descartess response to Caterus in the First Replies that the idea of the sun is
the sun itself existing in the intellect (p. ,o). This passage strikes me as
strong evidence for direct realism, despite Secadas analysis. (o) Secada insight-
fully and, I think, correctly shows that true intentionality in Descartes ulti-
mately traces to the intellect: The representative function of the mind relative
to things outside itself is the result of judgement (p. ,:). But then even if Sec-
ada were correct that for Descartes sensations have objects that exist in the
mind (p. ,:) (which, given some of the above, I am not convinced he is), the
real realist/non-realist debate should concern the nature of the ideas constitut-
ing our intellectual judgements. (See also (,) above.) And here, it seems to me,
we must assume Descartes to be a direct realist, on pain of a vicious regress.
Consider the agents judgement that a sensory mental object o (say, the sun as
sensed) corresponds to an externally existing sun distinct from o. What is the
nature of his idea of this externally existing sun? If it involves another mental
object, o, we would have to ask what makes mental object o represent an
external sun in a way that mental object o did not. The only way to avoid a
vicious regress is either to say that judgements do not involve ideas (which
Descartes does not appear to do), or to allow that certain ideas (or acts of
judgement) are themselves intrinsically (or primitively) representational, as
the direct realist would have it. It seems to me that Descartes was fundamen-
tally aware of this sort of regress problem, if not exactly in this form, and
therefore the charitable reading here takes him as a direct realist. (See for
example, Cottingham, J. et al. (eds), The Philosophical Writings of Descartes,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I,8,, Vol. I, p. Io,, where, to avoid
fundamentally the same regress, Descartes treats images in the eye in eect as
means of, but not objects of, perception.)
Putting all these together suggests that we note an important distinction for
Descartes between how we ordinarily learn what (other than God) exists exter-
nally and what it is that constitutes intentionality. The former is perhaps best
answered in something like the indirect manner: to learn what exists exter-
178 Book Reviews
nally we require sensation, in particular our being directly aware, in a non-
representational way, of our sensory modes. But the latter is perhaps best
answered in the direct manner: our ability to be in representational states,
states (of judgement) which have representational content, is a primitive fea-
ture of minds which requires no mediating objects whatever. Having sketched
all this, I should note that even if I am right here, Secadas overall project
appears largely to remain unharmed. As far as I can see, Descartess being an
indirect non-realist is not essential for his essentialism, nor for any of the par-
ticular other doctrines that Secada persuasively attributes to him. Indeed, as
noted, Descartes grounds his aversion to Scholastic existentialism on his intel-
lectualism and also nativism (p. I,,), both of which are consistent (I think)
with direct realism. Perhaps some might think that indirect non-realism ts
better with empiricism, not Cartesian rationalism, in general, but I see no rea-
son to believe this. Nor can it be thought that Descartes is an indirect non-
realist in order simply to distance himself from Scholasticism, given, as Secada
has demonstrated, how much he happily preserves from Scholasticism. So in
the end it might just be that, if I am right, chapter fours main thesis may be in
error, but it would not take away much from the otherwise great value of Sec-
adas overall thesis, analysis, and arguments.
Department of Philosophy .xuvvw vvssix
Kenyon College
Gambier, OH 43022
USA
Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior,
by Elliot Sober and David Sloan Wilson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, I,,,. Pp. Io. P/b $I8.,,.
The evolution of human social behaviour was the hottest topic in public sci-
ence in the last three decades of the twentieth century. Central to these debates
was the idea that natural selection, the central mechanism of evolutionary
change, is fundamentally hostile to unselsh behaviour. Unto Others is the
most careful and intellectually substantive discussion of these issues to date.
Although undeniably partisan, Sober and Wilson describe opposing views
with some care and provide substantive arguments against them. This is a con-
siderable advance in a debate in which the opponents have often caricatured
one another beyond recognition or simply failed to mention alternative views.
The book is in two parts, the rst dealing with evolutionary altruism and
the second with psychological altruism. In the rst part, Sober and Wilson
outline trait group selection a process rst described by Wilson in the
I,,os. They argue for the reality and importance of this evolutionary mecha-
nism and situate it within a broader account of evolutionary explanation: an
account built around two complimentary pluralisms. Sober and Wilson are