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LIST 217 - PHILOSOPHY
The necessity of religion
1ANSALDI,CastoInnocente.DELLA NECESSITA E VERITA DELLA RELIGIONE NATURALE ERIVELATA. Ragionamento del Padro Casto Innocente Ansaldi, Domenicano. Venezia, appresso Pietro Valvasense ... 1755.£ 650
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. CCCCXVIX, [1] Catalogo; minor stain at head of title, otherwise a clean crisp copy throughout; in contemporary vellum, spine lettered in ink, lower board a bit spotted and spine ink slightly smudged due to damp at some stage, otherwise a fine and attractive copy.
Rare first edition of this defence of natural and revealed religion, by the Dominican theologian Casto Innocente Ansaldi (1710-1780).
Best known for his defence of Maupertuis against Zanotti, which had appeared the previous year, in the present work Ansaldi argues for the importance of religion in the proper functioning of civil society, drawing heavily on the work of Jean Barbeyrac, and in particular his notes on Pufendorf’s De Jure Naturae et Gentium, in which Barbeyrac had couched the theory of moral obligation espoused by Locke and Pufendorf in terms of the Divine Will. Following Barbeyrac’s arguments, Ansaldi criticizes Bayle, while also examining the ideas of Le Clerc, Barrow, Wollaston, Berkeley, Hobbes, and Leibniz, and discussing comments made on the subject by, among others, Swift and Beausobre.
The Dominican friar Casto Innocente Ansaldi published in fields as diverse as theology, hebrew antiquity and biblical exegesis as well as apologetics.
Not in OCLC.
All is well
2[BEAUSOBRE, Louis de]. ESSAI SUR LE BONHEUR, ou Reflexions philosophiques sur les biens et les maux de la vie humaine... A Berlin, Chez A. Haude & J. C. Spener. 1758.£ 285
FIRST EDITION. 12mo, pp. 220, 8 (advertisements); small dampstain to upper margin of first few leaves, not affecting text; some light spotting and browning, and intermittent pencil markings, but otherwise clean and fresh throughout; in contemporary sheep-backed boards, spine in compartments, decorated in gilt with recent morocco label lettered in gilt; spine rubbed and faded, joints cracked but firm, and corners bumped.
First edition of this defence of philosophical optimism by the Berlin-based French writer Louis de Beausobre (1730-1783).
Beausobre, while taking care not to plagiarise Leibniz’s arguments in the latter’s Theodicy, echoes the ‘tout est bien’ conclusions that many derived from Leibniz’s work. He elaborates on this theory - ‘Tout est bien, c’est- à-dire que tout ce que Dieu a fait, comme tout ce qui arrive aux hommes, sans qu’ils aient pû eviter, ne sçauroit être un mal’ (p. 12) - before entering into a detailed defence of it, examining the differences between what came to be known as natural evil and moral evil, and the ways in which both could be seen to be an expression of the benevolence of God, before concluding that ‘C’est dans l’etude de las sagesse et de la vérité, qu’on voit arriver en paix la fin de ses jours: à chaqeu instant de notre vie nous jouissons d’un bienfait inestimable: ne permettons pas que nous préjugés offusquent la lumiére du flambeau, qui nous éclaire: arrivez à notre fin nous sentirons qu’il est heureux de vivre, et très heureux d’avoir bien vêcu’(p. 220).
This advice may not have convinced many, coming as it did in the aftermath of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. Voltaire had already published his Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne, and was shortly to respond to the optimistic works of Bonheur and others in more devastating fashion with Candide, published in 1759.
Beausobre was the brother of the French general Jean-Jacques de Beausobre (1704-1784), and was a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. He edited the collected poetry of Friedrich II.
OCLC: 2903753 records six copies, at Southern California, Harvard, Washington, North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Wisconsin-Madison, and the London Library.
3BENDAVID, Lazarus and Georg Wilhelm BLOCK. ÜBER DEN URSPRUNG UNSERER ERKENNTNISS. Zwei Preisschriften. Herausgegeben von der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. Berlin, bei Friedrich Maurer, 1802.£ 650
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. [ii], 212; some spotting and foxing throughout; largely unopened in contemporary wrappers; extremities chipped.
First edition of this pair of epistemological essays by the Kantian philosophers Lazarus Bendavid (1762-1832) and Georg Wilhelm Block, winners of the Berlin Academy of Sciences essay prize for 1799.
Bendavid’s essay (entitled “Philotheos”), largely follows Kant, on whom the author had been lecturing in Vienna until his return to Berlin in 1797, while Block’s essay attempts to explain and criticize Kant’s epistemology from an empiricist viewpoint.
OCLC records two copies outside Germany, at Glasgow and Southern California.
Applied philosophy and the refutation of scepticism
4BONCERF, Claude Joseph. LE VRAI PHILOSOPHE, ou, l’usage de la philosophie relativement à la société civile, à la vérité et à la vertu, avec l’histoire, l’exposition exacte & la réfutation du pyrrhonisme ancien & moderne. Paris, chez Babuty fils [et] Brocas, 1762.£ 385
SECOND EDITION? 12mo, pp. viii, 418, [7] index, [1] errata, [3] Approbation, [1] blank; a clean fresh copy throughout; contemporary mottled sheep, spine gilt with label lettered in gilt, slight scuffing to boards, but still a very good copy.
Rare second edition, claimed by Cioranescu to be the first, of this guide to the practical uses of philosophy, the only work by Claude-Joseph Boncerf.
Noting in his preface that “un gout dominant pour la Philosophie semble faire le caractère distinctif de l’Age où nous vivons; c’est, disent toutes les Nations de l’Europe, le règne de la Philosophie”, Boncerf divides his work into three parts. The first examines the use of philosophy in relation to civil society. Here he discusses the character of the “philosophe sociable”, before discussing the nature and advantages of propriety, the rôle of prejudice and the necessity of respecting certain prejudices, and the use of talents. The second section discusses the use of philosophy with regard to the notion of truth, and describes the nature and existence of truth, the ways in which passions and prejudices can present an obstacle to the discovery of truth, and the extent to which the philosopher should pay attention to public opinion, and to the dictates of religious faith. In the third part, Boncerf examines the relationship of philosophy to virtue, discussing the nature of virtue, and arguing that philosophy on its own cannot reform the human heart, and that the true philosopher will only look to virtue for happiness.
The work concludes with a substantial supplement, entitled “Considérations sur le pyrrhonisme”. Here Boncerf seeks to counter the sceptical arguments of Huet, Deslandes, Crouzas and Hume, giving an account of the history of scepticism, its causes, and the character of sceptics. He argues that pyrrhonism is contrary to reason, and almost always self-contradictory, before concluding that sceptical arguments are against religion, morality, and the well-being of society, which it is capable of disrupting. In addition to the arguments of Hume and Crouzas, Boncerf also attacks Bayle, paying special attention to his entries on the subject in his Dictionnaire.
A further edition of this work appeared in 1766; all editions are scarce.
OCLC: 3237874 records five copies in North America, at UCLA, Carolina, Columbia, Mount Angel Abbey Library and Wisconsin.
The limits of reason
5BUCHNER, Professor. DIE VERNUNFTLEHRE. München, zu haben bei Fleischmann, 1808.£ 385
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. xx, [x] contents, 1-116, 2 [part-title], 117-228; occasional spotting, and library stamp on title and p. 55, but otherwise clean and crisp; in contemporary half sheep over marbled boards; with old library labels on upper board and base of spine; boards and spine rubbed and worn, but still a good copy.
Very rare first edition of this work on the limits and functions of reason, by the Bavarian Kantian philosopher Buchner.
After a preface in which Buchner traces the development of ideas concerning the mind/body relationship from Descartes through Malebranche, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Hume to Kant, Jacobi and Schelling, the work is divided into two parts. The shorter first part discusses the nature of the mind, describing its properties and powers (understanding and will), and the ways in which it is related first to notions of sense, beauty and art, and secondly to understanding, truth and science. Here Buchner acknowledges his debt to Schelling in particular. The second part, which takes up the majority of the work, presents an overview of logic. Buchner, whose treatment of the subject is largely Kantian in flavour, examines the nature and form of human thought, before discussing concepts, judgement, the objects of undestanding, the aims of judgment and reason, and the nature and extent of scientific reason and knowledge.
Little is known of the author; we have been unable to identify any other publications beyond the present work.
Not in OCLC; KVK records copies at Tübingen, Munich, Augsburg and Regensburg.
6CALEFFI,Giuseppe.SULLEVICÈNDE DELLAFILOSOFIAesull’estensione,utilità ed importanza di questa scienza. Discorso Storico-critico ... Firenze, coi tipi della Galileiana, 1837. £ 350
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. [v-], 112, [1] errata, [1] blank; apart from some light foxing and minor dog-earing, a
clean copy throughout; uncut and stitched as issued in the original printed wraps, repair to spine.
First edition of this brief survey of the key events in the history of philosophy, and defence of the importance of the discipline, by the Florentine philosopher and linguist Giuseppe Caleffi.
Caleffi describes the course of philosophy from ancient times, through the hellenistic and scholastic periods, through the renaissance to Locke, Hume, Hutcheson, Smith, Kant and Wolff, before, in the second part, attempting to explain the utility of philosophy, and the ways in which it informs other disciplines.
Giuseppe Caleffi was the author of several books on philosophy, the history of England, and the Italian language, among other subjects.
OCLC records two copies, at Harvard and the New York Public Library (both erroneously dated 1857).
Campbell’s First Work
7CAMPBELL, George. DISSERTATION ON MIRACLES: containing An Examination of the Principles advanced by David Hume, Esq; in an Essay on Miracles. Edinburgh: printed for A. Kincaid & J. Bell. 1762.£ 2,500
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. xii, [ii], 288; with half-title/errata leaf bound between the contents and introduction, which is not mentioned in Jessop (p.113); contemporary calf, raised bands, black morocco label, rubbed, joints tender, with the exlibris of Newbattle Abbey, a very good copy.
A Dissertation on Miracles was Campbell’s (1719-1796) first published book, and a response to what he regarded as ‘one of the most dangerous attacks’ on religion, Hume’s Essay on Miracles (1742). “Hume’s argument against miracles in based on an attack on the kinds of testimonial evidence adduced in particular reports, and on the reliability of testimonial evidence in general. He particularly examines ‘forged miracles’. Campbell replies with an analysis of testimonial evidence and an examination of particular accounts, some the same as cited by Hume. Campbell shows that science as much as religion is dependent on testimony, and that the testimony of persons attesting to miracles can be examined as rationally as that of scientists. He also examines several reports of miracles and finds some to be reliable and some to be doubtful. As Hume examined only the doubtful ones, his inquiry is necessarily distorted” (Kathleen Holcomb in Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century British Philosophers).
8CHIARI, Pietro. LA FILOSOFIA PER TUTTI. Lettere Scientifiche in versi Martelliani sopra il buon uso della Ragione ... Fermo, Presso Giuseppe Agostino Paccaroni. 1785.£ 250
THIRD EDITION? 8vo, pp. 86, [2]; cut close at head, but only touching two page numbers, some minor light foxing, 1cm torn from foot of title (removing an ownership signature and well clear of imprint), but still a clean copy throughout; in recent mottled wraps; a very good copy.
Rare edition of this extended poem on the benefits and practice of philosophy, by the poet, dramatist and philosopher Pietro Chiari (1711-1785), first published in 1756.
Writing in Martellian verse, a rather indigestible meter popularised by Goldoni, Chiari divides his exhortation to the correct use of reason into four letters, in which he first defines philosophy as the “buon uso della ragione nell’ intendere, nel giudicare, nel volere, nell’ operare”; he examines each of these aspects in turn, citing Locke, Malebranche, and, most extensively, Pope.
Chiari was a Jesuit, but left the Society in 1747 to become court poet to Francesco III d’Este. He is best known for his long rivaly with Goldoni.
OCLC: 23083831 records just one copy only in North America, at Chicago, with one further copy in Germany, at Göttingen.
9COMTE, Auguste. CALENDRIER POSITIVISTE, ou Système général de commémoration publique, destiné surtout a la transition finale de la grande république occidentale composée des cinq populations avancées, française, italienne, germanique, britannique, et espagnole, toujours solidaires depuis Charlemagne. ... Publié au nom de la Société Positiviste. Paris, A la librairie scientifique- industrielle de L. Mathias, Avril 1849.£ 875
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. 35, [1] blank; with faded library stamp on title; clean and fresh throughout; in later marbled wrappers.
First edition, rare, of this much reprinted and updated calendar by the positivist philosophe Auguste Comte, in which he proposes as systematisation, as a contemporary observer puts, it of the “worship by humanity of itself, as represented in its greatest men of all ages”.
Comte divides the year into thirteen months, applicable to any year. The months are each dedicated to an historical figure who epitomises a period, philosophy, or movement, including Moses (initial theocracy), Aristotle (ancient philosophy), Saint Paul (Catholicism), Gutenberg (modern industry), Shakespeare (modern drama, and Bichat (modern science).
OCLC records North American copies at Calgary, Columbia, Windsor, Indiana, and Harvard.
10COMTE, Auguste. THE CATECHISM OF POSITIVE RELIGION. Translated from the French
... by Richard Congreve. London: John Chapman, 1858.£ 385
FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH. 8vo, pp. vi, [ii] advertisements, 428, [5] tables, one folding; inner hinges cracked but holding firm; original green blind-stamped publisher’s cloth, spine lettered in gilt; later book-plate on front paste- down; a fine bright copy.
First edition in English of Comte’s key work on positivism, a systematic presentation in the form of a dialogue. Comte is famous for his Cours de Philosophie Positive, ‘one of the major documents of secular philosophy’ (PMM 295). He considered that man had passed through the Theological State and the Metaphysical State and had reached the Positive State, which was founded on a vast system of the sciences.
The Catechism belongs to his last phase, when he was outlining an humanitarian religion. Broadly speaking, it is a briefer and more concise exposition of the ideas contained in the four volumes of his Politique Positive (1851- 54). ‘This was his response to a general humanitarian trend in the philosophy, the art, and the literature of his time, which began with Honoré de Balzac and provisionally culminated in a system of humanitarian metaphysics as developed by Pierre Leroux...’ (IESS).
Comte’s influence on his generation was great: ‘... Comte has had and still has many distinguished disciples in France and abroad. He may be said even to have founded a school. We may quote among his disciples who are dead Littré, John Stuart Mill, and Grote the historian’ (Palgrave).
Also included are a ‘Positivist Library for the Nineteenth Century,’ and a folding positivist calendar. See Einaudi 1199 for later edition in French; see L. Landan in IESS for further information.
11 DANIEL, Gabriel. ENTRETIENS DE CLÉANDRE ET D’EUDOXE, sur les Lettres au Provincial. A Cologne, chez Pierre Marteau, 1694.£ 550
FIRST EDITION. 12mo, pp. [iv], 406; a good clean copy throughout; contemporary calf, spine gilt with red morocco label lettered in gilt, small chip at head and some surface wear, nevertheless still a handsome copy.
Rare first edition of the first and most important Jesuit response to Pascal’s Les Provinciales, published 31 years after Pascal’s death by the historian, philosopher and controversialist Gabriel Daniel (1649-1728).
The work, which in future editions appeared under the more explicit title of Réponse aux Lettres provinciales de L. de Montalte, was not a great success when it first appeared, largely because most of the copies printed were bought up by Jansenists in an attempt to minimize the number of copies in circulation, if Bayle is to be believed; however, its reputation among the Jesuits and beyond was strong enough to ensure that several further editions appeared in the 1690s and beyond.
The Jesuit Gabriel Daniel (1649-1728) was appointed historiographer of France by Louis XIV, in which capacity he wrote his best known work, the seventeen volume Histoire de France. His early publications, of which this is the most notable, were however devoted to philosophical and theological controversies; he also published two works on Descartes’ philosophy, and an exchange of correspondence with Natalis Alexander on the dispute between the Jesuits and the Dominicans over grace and predestination, as well as a series of shorter works defending his Society against the attacks of the Jansenists.
OCLC: 11800554 (calling for 12 pages of prelims, which is erroneous) records just four copies in North America, at Western Ontario, UCLA, Hofstra and the Newberry Library, with four further copies recorded in Dutch libraries.
12 [DESCARTES]. SCHNEIDER, Johann David. DISSERTATIO ACADEMICA QUA PRINCIPIUM CARTESII DE OMNIBUS EST DUBITANDUM, Secundante Divina Gratia, in Illustri Argentoratensium Universitate, Praeside Joanne Jacobo Ferbero ... Argentorati, Imprimebat Simon Kursner, [n.d., but c. 1700?].£ 225
FIRST EDITION. 4to, pp. [iv], 24; apart from a few minor marks, a clean crisp copy; in contemporary decoratively gilt wraps, slightly rubbed and dog-eared, but nevertheless highly attractive.
A good copy of this rare dissertation on Descartes’ principle of universal doubt, presented to the University of Strasbourg by Johann David Schneider.
Schneider’s dissertation is essentially anti-Cartesian; he draws attention to the absurdities and impieties of Descartes, citing philosophers ancient and modern, including Lactantius, Clauberg, Revius, de Bruyn and Vogelsang. Schneider seeks to support a more Aristotelian method against what he sees as Descartes’ scepticism. The respondent for the University was Johann Jacob Ferber (not to be mistaken with the Swedish natural historian of the same name), who was the author of several theological works.
Not in OCLC, NUC or KVK.
13 EHRENBERG, Friedrich. ÜBER DENKEN UND ZWEIFELN. Zur Aufklärung einiger Missverständnisse in der höhern Philosophie. Halle, in J. C. Hendels Verlage, 1801.£ 385
FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. xxxii, 184, [2] errata and advertisements; some foxing to title, but otherwise clean and fresh throughout; in the original blue boards, with printed paper label on spine; extremities and spine sunned, and label worn.
Rare first edition of this philosophical treatise by the Berlin theologian Friedrich Ehrenberg (1776-1852), in which the author aims to combat idealism and scepticism by explaining and clarifying misunderstandings concerning the nature of philosophy.
As the title suggests, the work is divided into two sections, dealing in turn with the nature of thought and thinking and the nature of doubt. Throughout, the distinction between the subjective and the objective is explored and analysed, as is the relationship of that distinction with that between perception and reality. Although unsurprisingly couched in Kantian language, and sharing Kant’s aim of refuting scepticism while avoiding dogmatism, the name of Kant is conspicuous by its absence.
The treatise proved successful and was reprinted in the following year.
Not in Ziegenfuss; OCLC: 22599273 records two copies, at Columbia and the Luther Seminary in Minnesota.