The Nationalism Reader, edited by Omar Dahbour and Micheline Ishay. New Jersey: Humanities Press International, Inc, 1995. Reviewed by August Viglione, Istituto Universitario Orientale, Naples.

The editors of this anthology and the author of the introduction to it often fail to give any but the slightest discussion and analysis of the works they include in it. Their commentary upon the selections is at times informative, although a little scant and rarely incisive. Their selection of authors is skewed by Ishay’s acceptance without further discussion of Carlton J.H. Hayes’s questionable position that nationalism is something modern with no roots in antiquity. Moreover, they offer extremely sketchy biographies of the contributors to the anthology. To say that Jean-Jacques Rousseau is a major political thinker is quite acceptable, but that Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes is likewise a major political thinker could use a little explaining. There is also a rather facile cataloguing of selections under headings such as "The Enlightenment Background of Internationalism and National-ism," and "Liberalism and Nationalism," though such rubrics may be useful for putting order into a complex field of study such as nationalism. The selections themselves represent well the thought of their authors, as well as the full range of positions taken upon nationalism from rabid nationalism to internationalism.

The choices from Rousseau’s works make the contrast between nationalism and internationalism evident. In "Saint-Pierre’s Project for Perpetual Peace" Rousseau states that the benefits of peace (to commerce, for example) are "certain" and "indisputable" to all States, but they are appreciated by none. Princes or States seek "exclusive" gains and not ones shared by other States. Hence universal peace has not been adopted because it is does not appeal to the rapacious princes and not because it is ridiculous idea. Perhaps the only consolation to mankind for the failure of the idea of universal peace (as might be attainable by a peaceful Confederation of States) is that it could be attained only by revolution. Rousseau’s "The Government of Poland," argues the nationalist position. While Rousseau accepts internationalism as possible but improbable, he also establishes the foundation of modern nationalism in his brilliant advice to the Poles. "There is one rampart, however, that will always be readied for its defense, and that no army can possibly breach; and that is the virtue of its citizens, their patriotic zeal, in the distinctive cast that national institutions are capable of impressing upon their souls. See to it that every Pole is incapable of becoming a Russian and I answer for it that Russia will never subjugate Poland." Thus Rousseau spans the entire range of positions between internationalism and nationalism. All of the other authors represent positions somewhere between these two extremes.

Ishay’s Introduction tries to show that nationalism may easily be adapted to lend political support to other ideologies. For example, many staunch liberals such as Johann Fichte, John Stuart Mill and Lord Acton, accept nationalism, although in very different contexts and for very different purposes. Even "Internationalists" or "Marxists" such as Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin accept the usefulness of nationalism for their own ends. Ishay helpfully distinguishes nationalism imposed from "above," as in Tsarist Russia from nationalism that emerges from "below" as in Poland. In that connection she notes that Stalin, who opposed the idea of nationalism and said that it was a dying force under capitalism, nonetheless encouraged forms of it in the Soviet Union.

Nationalism tends to be rejected by most people today. For that reason a selection from Lord Acton’s History of Freedom and Other Essays, was an essential choice for this anthology’s theme. According to Acton’s analysis, the link between nationalism and freedom has rarely been fully appreciated. His praise for the Austro-Hungarian Empire at a time when almost everyone in Europe was condemning it is a notable example of intellectual honesty and forthrightness. The national states that have emerged from that empire are no doubt much weaker and less significant politically than was the Austro-Hungarian empire at the beginning of twentieth century. Hence Acton’s words ring truer today than they seemed to most people when they were written: "Where political and national boundaries coincide, society ceases to advance and nations relapse into a condition corresponding to that of men who renounce intercourse with their fellow men. The difference between the two unites mankind not only by the benefits it confers on those who live together, but because it connects society either by a political or national bond, gives to every people an interest in its neighbors, either because they are under the same government or because they are of the same race, and thus promotes the interests of humanity, of civilization and of religion." Thus Acton’s reply to the question of freedom and nationality offers a useful alternative for students of nationalism today. National diversity, he argued, contributes to individual freedom rather than hindering it. Other readings attempt to demonstrate that nationalism "from below" is a useful or potentially useful force in the achievement of significant and worthy ends. Anticolonial and national liberation movements certainly have made effective use of some forms of nationalism. In fact, the sections on "American Perspectives on Nationalism" shows how a belief in the usefulness of nationalism was even espoused by such diverse Americans as Abraham Lincoln and Reinhold Niebuhr.

Of course this does not clear nationalism of its association with expansionism and jingoism. Perhaps the editors would have done well to assist the reader by distinguishing carefully between the various types of nationalism that have manifest-ed themselves in history. Ishay asserts, for example, that there are ideological transformations in the nationalism of Europe, the Third World and in the "federal framework" of the United States. But this claim would be less tendentious if we had been given some sense of the salient differences between the manifestations of nationalism in the modern world. If the author had explored some of the frightening, contemporary expressions of extreme nationalism (e.g., Bosnian-Serbian nationalism or African tribalism), she would have been able to see very regrettable similarities with Nazi policies of "ethnic cleansing." Some forms of nationalism are no doubt motivated by the desire for cultural self-preser-vation, or at least are naively thought to be so by many differ-ent people. Other forms of nationalism, however, are not so benign. Much more analysis is needed before any discussion of the value of nationalism can be approached.

The last section of this book concerns the contemporary debates about nationalism. The issue exploded in scope and significance after the ending of the Cold War. The selections offered here often represent pre-1989 ideological positions such as those of Habermas and Hobsbawn, who see nationalism as defunct and irrelevant. In fact Hobsbawn does not offer a response to present-day nationalism, believing it will wither away. His own position is basically internationalistic, a view based in the belief that the world economy will eventually overcome the aberrations of the extreme forms of nationalistic manifestations (xenophobic, reactionary and fundamentalist). He quite clearly states (pp. 368-70) that "Nationalism today is historically less important than it was in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. . . The basic political conflicts which are likely to decide the fate of the world today have little to do with nation-states, because for half a century there has not existed an international state system of the nineteenth century European type." Recent events have thus far shown the incorrectness of such confident optimism.

Although none of the contemporary liberal contributors to this volume has a comprehensive and acceptable answer to the value of nationalism, they all try to understand it to some degree. Michael Walzer seems to come closest to an appreciation of the phenomenon and an adequate response to it. He writes in The New Tribalism: Notes on a Difficult Problem, "the crucial commonality of the human race is particularism" (p. 332), that is, one of the most important issues at the heart of nationalism is that of so-called "minorities," which we see in almost every present-day "nationalistic" controversy from the former Yugoslavia to such regions of Europe as the Basque region of Spain and the Transylvanian Hungarians in Romania. In Africa and Asia also the minority issue colors discussions of nationalism. Walzer tries to overcome the minority impasse with considerable compassion and acumen, even if with little historical accuracy, when he discusses it in the following terms : "Consider for example, a minority community with a highly distinctive history and culture and a strong territorial base like the Albanians in Kosovo, for example. Their fellow nationals hold the adjourning state; they are trapped on the wrong side of the border as a result of some dynastic marriage or military victory long ago. The humane solution to their difficulty is to move the border; the brutal solution is to ‘transfer’ the people; and the best practical possibility is some strong version of local autonomy, focused on cultural and educational institutions and the revenues that support them" (p. 327). Hence an alternative to extreme nationalism should foster tolerance of cultural diversity. No doubt this solution is something of a paradox in which we are confronted with the notion that nationalism should imply toleration of other nationalisms. Although this approach seems possible in some parts of the world, it certainly would be difficult to carry out where the diversity is overwhelming. Is the distant ruler the answer, as was the case with the Roman, Austro-Hungarian, and British Empires? or rather some form of quasi-anarchism which permits local authority and freedom without any overseer? The editors of this book have remained aloof and reluctant to address this issue.

The major shortcomings in this book include a lack of any analysis of the readings included in the book and a paucity of information about some of the key contributors. Nonetheless given the difficulty of the task before the editors and the author of the Introduction, this book is well worth the effort required in piecing together the views and their tenability in an intellectual debate of so thorny a problem as nationalism. This book would be of use in an upper-class undergraduate course or a graduate course in political philosophy or the history of European political thought. It offers a vast and even detailed knowledge of the problems of nationalism from both a philosophical and a historical point of view.

Donald Rutherford. Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. xiii + 301 pp. Reviewed by Ursula Niklas, Indiana University.

Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature combines excellent scholarship with clarity and cogency of presentation. For its lucidity, the book is suitable for the undergraduate upper-level courses on Leibniz, modern philosophy, and metaphysics; for its comprehensiveness and interpretive novelty, it makes a valuable reading for the advanced student of Leibniz. Rutherford’s interpretation emphasizes the unity of Leibniz’s thought. On his reading, theodicy is an essential part of Leibniz’s philosophy and it is inextricably linked to his metaphysics and natural philosophy. As Rutherford puts it, "there is far more integrity to Leibniz’s metaphysical vision than has often been recognized. The signature doctrines of his thought-the theodicy, the theory of monads, the preestablished harmony of soul and body, the infinite envelopment of organic creatures-hang together in interesting and subtle ways" (p. 178).

Rutherford divides his book in three parts. Part I focuses on Leibniz theodicy, Part II discusses Leibniz’s conception of metaphysics and its fundamental categories, and Part III demonstrates how theodicy and metaphysics are brought to a unity in the doctrine of the best of all possible worlds. Although the book is organized topically, it manages to present the chronological development and maturing of Leibniz’s thought and places it within the historical context of the philosophical and scientific ideas of his time. Rutherford undertakes a "systematic interpretation" (p. 3) that aims at an analysis of Leibniz’s thought as well as its reconstruction on the basis of the published and unpublished writings, including voluminous correspondence between the philosopher and his eminent contemporaries.

Part I is devoted to Leibniz’s answer to the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil in the world with the infinite power and goodness of its creator. Leibniz’s argu-ment assumes the rationality of creation: God had to have a sufficient reason for bringing into existence this particular world rather than any of its equally possible alternatives (p. 10). It has been noted that Leibniz envisions God as the greatest geometer solving an engineering problem of coexistence of the greatest possible variety within a single order (p. 26). Rutherford’s interpretation, however, goes further and emphasizes a connection between the greatest metaphysical goodness, inherent in a harmonious system of most perfect substances, and the greatest moral goodness, that is, the greatest happiness and virtue of the intelligent creatures. The task of creation requires a harmony of the natural world and the moral world, one that is threatened by a possible conflict between maximizing the sum of perfections of all substances and maximizing human virtue and happiness. Rutherford shows that Leibniz’s God has to reconcile his metaphysical and moral ends and cannot sacrifice the perfection of the world as a whole for the sake of the happiness of minds since "neither the greatest perfection nor the greatest happiness and virtue are realizable without the other" (p. 49).

The interconnection of the metaphysical and the moral ends reveals a Platonic influence on Leibniz, who understood himself as a Platonic philosopher, as indicated in his remark quoted by Rutherford: "I have always been most satisfied, from my very youth, with the ethics of Plato and in some way with his metaphysics as well; these two sciences demand each other" (p. 19). That influence is visible in the concept of the best of all possible worlds as a unified whole whose parts cannot be judged in isolation but only relative to the overall metaphysical and moral goodness of the whole to which they belong. Our disappointment at the unhappiness of indi-viduals is based on the mistaken view that a part must be as perfect as the whole, while God’s ultimate aim is not to create the happiest individuals but the most harmonious system uniting the greatest variety of individuals (p. 8). The present reviewer is reminded here of The Republic and the disappointment of Adeimantus at the austerity of the life of guardians (419a). In building an ideal city in speech, Socrates explains, the task is not to seek the greatest happiness of any particular group of people but the greatest possible perfection of the city as a whole (420b).

In Part II Rutherford explores Leibniz’s conception of metaphysics as a demonstrative science. The distinction between the senses and the intellect as two sources of knowledge leads to the twofold method of metaphysics. Metaphysics aims at adequate definitions of the primary categories of being and it interprets sensory phenomena as the appearances of reality (p. 90). Part II develops an interpretation of Leibniz’s doctrine of substance and the theory of monads and it includes detailed accounts of Leibniz’s studies of the categories of being and of order that would be accessible to advanced students. Chapter 4, however, devoted to Leibniz’s view of metaphysics, seems especially suitable for undergraduate students. Rutherford offers there a clear and cogent presentation of the connection between Leibniz’s famous principle of the sufficient reason and his doctrine of truth. On Rutherford’s account, Leibniz’s metaphysics deals with the essences of possible or actual beings which are expressed in the ideas of the divine understanding. The region of eternal ideas, the archetypes of human knowledge, is accessible to metaphysics whose task is to develop a system of deductively related propositions that articulates necessary relations among the essences (p. 77). These relations can be discovered by conceptual analysis ruled by the "predicate in subject" principle. Because of the rational unity of all concepts, a complete analysis of a true proposition would reveal the logical links between the subject term and its predicate terms, and would demonstrate every truth about a given object. Leibniz’s concept of truth connects the predicate in subject principle to the principle of sufficient reason in the following way. In seeking a reason for a given state of affairs, we are asking why a particular predicate is truly asserted of a particular subject; the predicate in the subject principle answers this question by saying that "for any true proposition there is a real reason why it is true: an intelligible relation among the divine ideas" (p. 77).

In the final part of his book, Rutherford brings together Leibniz’s theodicy and metaphysics and argues that the best of all possible worlds, with its perfection, order, and harmony, had to be realized as a plurality of monads. God’s desire to maximize perfection leads him to creating as many monads of various ontological levels-rational minds as well as lesser creatures-as can coexist in a single world of greatest total perfection (pp. 199-200). The quest for harmony becomes the quest for interweaving harmonies at various ontological levels. According to Rutherford, Leibniz distinguishes three distinct and closely interrelated models of reality: the system of monads, the mechanistic system of extended bodies, and the view of nature as composed of organic creatures, and he integrates them into a single theory of the created world (p. 214). This part of the book discusses Leibniz’s ideas against a rich historical background and pays special attention to his anti-Cartesianism and his complex relationship to the new science of mechanics. Rutherford discuses the doctrine of the preestablished harmony within the context of the Cartesian problem of the mind/body interaction, and Leibniz’s science of dynamics as explicitly opposed to the Cartesian geometrical physics. Leibniz’s concept of body, based on the conception of substance as a principle of force rather than as res extensa, is linked to his recognition of final causes and his "principle of intelligibility" which regards nature as a system that can be comprehended by the human mind (p. 240).

The book’s importance and value to students of Leibniz undoubtedly lies in Rutherford’s demonstration of the integrity and unity of Leibniz’s metaphysical vision. To this reviewer the emphasis on unity has also been helpful in clarifying some persistent distortions of Leibniz’s thought. Leibniz’s philosophical reputation has suffered as a consequence of the popularity of the simple-minded notion of optimism famously ridiculed by Voltaire in his Candide. Voltaire has not been a careful reader of Leibniz and missed the connection between Leibniz’s practical philosophy and his metaphysics, the connection which stands out quite strongly in the light of Leibniz’s indebtedness to Platonism. Neither has Leibniz been entirely lucky with his more sympathetic readers. The reception of Leibniz in the twentieth century tends to be one-sided: it appreciates his predicate in subject theory, the ideas of universal symbolism and of the unity of knowledge, but divorces them from his metaphysics. Logic, unrelated to his metaphysics, is often regarded as the highest achievement of Leibniz’s philosophy.

• Letter from the Editors
• Articles
  • Compromising Standards, Jonathan E. Adler
  • Three Courses in Philosophy of Religion, Michael Martin
  • Values Analysis: An Experiment in Interdisciplinary Ethics, Charles Ess
  • Pre-college Philosophy Teaching as a Career Option, David Martens and Hugh Taft-Morales
  • A Syllabus for a Course on Virtue, Beth Singer
  • Ze, Zer, Mer, Richard E. Creel
• Book Reviews
  • A Hobbes Dictionary, Reviewed by Joseph Filonowicz
  • Political Justice,  Reviewed by William L. McBrid
  • Classics of Modern Political Theory: Machiavelli to Mill, Reviewed by Ramon M. Lemos
  • Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion, Eastern and Western Thought, Reviewed by Jerome Gellman
  • The Nationalism Reader, Reviewed by August Viglione
  • Leibniz and the Rational Order of Nature, Reviewed by Ursula Niklas
• List of Books Received
• News and Notes
• Addresses of Contributors