BOOK REVIEWS

The Theology of the Primacy of Christ according to St. Thomas and its Scriptural Foundations. By Thomas R. Potvin, O. P. Fribourg: The University Press, 1973. (Vol. 50 of Studia Friburgensia, New Series)

Under the direction of J. H. Nicolas, O.P., Fr. Thomas Potvin has published his thesis which is a thorough study of Christ's primacy according to the theology of St. Thomas together with its scriptural foundations.

Since any authentic theology must flow from God's revealing word as a reflection upon it Potvin begins his study by considering the biblical context for Christ's primacy or lordship. He finds this in the term, " Head," a multi-faced term involving the notions of leadership and influence as well as the biblical categories of " recapitulation " and " principle. " When Paul speaks of reestablishing all things in Christ he is speaking of making Christ the Head, and this implies the Semitic concept of authority based upon preeminence and the Greek concept of a life principle. The Greek and Latin Fathers emphasize the notions of plenitude and of influence on the part of the Head toward the members. St. Thomas underlines the preeminence of the Head in terms of dignity, nobility, and perfection; it is likewise a principle or source. The relationship between Head and members is one of distinction and conformity: distinction by virtue of its dignity, its role of governing, its causality; conformity through nature, order, and continuity.

Of great importance for the question of Christ's primacy is Phil. 2:5-11 which is possibly Pauline in origin, according to Potvin. In this text we probably have the beginnings of the Church's meditation on the preexistent Christ, a reflexion initiated by the experience of Christ on the part of the early Christian community. What seems to be emphasized here is the dignity of the preexistent Christ. The exaltation of Christ to the position as Lord of the cosmos, though mentioned in the context of his preexistence, would seem to be the result of God's gracious act toward the historical Christ who had suffered and died of obedience.

In regard to Col. 1:15-20 the author believes that modern exegesis sees an immediate reference to the second Person of the Trinity in his state of preexistence. Christ is seen " from above, " as God coming to man. Any reference to the Incarnate Christ is due to the communication of idioms. The preexistent Christ is seen to be already present in the cosmos before presiding over mankind's history; in Col. 1:18-20 there would be a

reference to Christ's earthly mission seen in the light of its fulfillment with his glorification.

Potvin considers John's doctrine of the Logos as in fact Johannine. Logos is not merely a functional title but also an ontological one, describing Christ's divine nature. Augustine and Thomas legitimately utilize the Johannine doctrine on the Logos to express the inner-Trinitarian life of God. He finds in the Prologue the pattern of preexistence, descent-ascent.

The message of Hebrews 1:1-4 is likewise centered around the preexistent Son who participates in creation. He has become one of us in order to deliver us from sin. His divinity and preexistent glory have been manifested to us through his glorification and enthronement.

The primacy of Christ in the scriptural message of the sacred authors is placed within the context of salvation history: the manifestation-actualization of God's salvific plan for man. Yet ultimate questions concerning the identity of Christ in terms of preexistence, equality with the Father and distinction from him are also posed and answered by the New Testament authors. Christ's authority and lordship, according to these authors, are rooted in his divine Sonship. As Son of God Christ is active in creation; as Incarnate-Son he is the summit and perfection of all creation. The New Testament provides the basis for such a systematization.

In chapter three Potvin undertakes a study of Christ's role in creation, beginning with methodological principles. " Functional " theology and " ontological " theology are not mutually exclusive. Revelation cannot be reduced to salvation history; there is a theology of the sacred authors which must be taken into account. St. Thomas's methodological schema is founded upon notions of causality implied in the " exitus-reditus " schema of Neo-Platonism and also in the scriptures.

In the fourth chapter the author considers creation in St. Thomas's theology. He begins by applying the theme of the " exitus-reditus ' to creation. God is the first and final Cause of all things; his goodness is the ultimate reason for creation. From a consideration of God as the one Principle of creative work he passes to a consideration of the doctrine and role of appropriation. This will contribute to a better understanding of Thomas's thought on Christ's primacy of order in creation.

St. Thomas speaks of creation according to the one divine essence and according to the Trinity of Persons. On the one hand, creation is common to the three Persons; on the other, the three Persons make an individual contribution to creation: as an artificer works through an idea and is motivated by an intention, so too God the Father creates through his Word and out of love. There is an order in this creative power: the Son receives his creative power from the Father while the Spirit receives his from Father and Son.

In considering the intratrinitarian relations in terms of creation we see

that the Father speaks himself and all creatures in his Word. The divine Word expresses not only the Father but all creatures, even though it is a personal name of the Son. This is so because the (divine) nature is included indirectly in the name of the Person. Because he is a principle from a Principle, the Word is a source of creation. From all eternity he proceeds from the Father as his Word and through his Word the Father is related to all creatures.

Appropriation is described by Potvin as " bringing a common name to play the role of a proper name. " It is founded upon a likeness between what is appropriated and the property of a particular Person within the Trinity. Appropriation enables us to express more clearly the mystery of the Trinity without falling into either Tritheism or a rigid monotheism (in the sense of a monopersonalism). Creation is a work common to the three Persons with attributions of its various aspects being made to the three Persons individually. The Father is the Source, the Son the Exemplar, the Spirit Love. Father, Son, and Spirit are commonly the Creator on the level of efficient causality; they likewise share commonly in exemplary causality; yet the humanity of Christ, God's most perfect work, is a subordinate model of creation. For St. Thomas, Father, Son, and Spirit alone can be and are the ultimate end of creation; Christ's human nature can be said to be the end of the universe in an intermediate, subordinate sense.

Chapter five deals in more detail with the question of Christ's role in creation. In the Summa the role of Christ's humanity in creation is described in terms of recreation. This role is ultimately due to the hypostatic union. In the Summa St. Thomas mentions many reasons for the fittingness of the Incarnation. There is some discussion as to the implications of these reasons, yet all agree, says Potvin, that they are based upon the " exitus-reditus " schema: God is the beginning and the end of all things.

The first reason given by St. Thomas for the fittingness of the Incarnation is an application of the axiom " Bonum est diffusivum sui," a principle based upon the notion of final causality: God's own goodness is willed by him of necessity; God, however, freely chooses to diffuse his goodness outside of himself; the actual order of creation is not proportionate to God's wisdom which is infinite. Potvin asks whether in order to speak of the fittingness of the Incarnation the only possibility is that of positing a necessity of supposition, namely, on the supposition that God chose to communicate himself to his creature, it was convenient that he do this in the highest degree possible, i. e., through Incarnation. We know only what God has, in fact, revealed to us: according to God's plan, the highest possible union with God is realized in the Incarnation and that is in conformity with God's goodness.

St. Thomas distinguishes between the common notion of person

emphasizing subsistence and particular modes of subsistence proper to each of the Persons of the Trinity. In speaking of the Incarnation he utilized the common notion of person and thus he never spoke in terms of an intrinsic, necessary reason why the Son assumed human nature rather than the Father or the Spirit. He did, however, give fitting reason for the Son's assumption of humanity.

In regard to filial adoption, the exemplar for this is natural filiation. In the Trinity the Father speaks the Word and he is the Son. In the spoken Word the Father knows himself, the Son, and the Spirit, and all created reality. Adoptive sonship through grace is intended to be a manifestation of the whole Trinity. Since the whole of creation is spoken in the Word, it is fitting that all creation be recapitulated in the Word. In this way the Son becomes the Exemplar of creation by appropriation. The reason why it is an appropriation is the fact that we do not have a scientific knowledge of the contrasting relations in the Trinity; we do not have a grasp of the absolutely singular character of each of the divine Persons.

Potvin then touches upon the fittingness of the Incarnation from the point of view of man's proper nature. He examines closely the notion of obediential potency and concludes that man's obediential potency (understood as a non-repugnance) to see God as he is, is the foundation for the fittingness of the Incarnation according to the nature proper to man. Because man is capable of God his nature can be assumed by the Person of the Word. This assumption was fitting because man's nature was in need of restoration.

Finally, Potvin arrives at the question of the motive of the Incarnation: if man had not sinned, would the Word of God have become man? There are two aspects to St. Thomas's answer: a) theological--we know God's will only from Revelation; b) ontological--there is no absolute necessity for a divine Person to assume a human nature. St. Thomas was inclined to hold that the Son of God would not have become man if man had not sinned because Revelation tells us that this is in fact why he did become man. He admits, however, that the other opinion is tenable.

For St. Thomas, those texts which speak of a predestination by which man is called to share in Christ's power and sonship do not mean that God's decision is determined by what he foresees will happen. Sin in no way causes the Incarnation; by one eternal, simple act God ordains that sin be permitted and that it be repaired by the coming of his Son into the world. Christ is no less Lord of the universe because he came into the world to destroy sin.

In chapter six the author considers the headship and judicial role of Christ. In the third section of this chapter he considers the lordship of Christ and its relation to merit. He had already spoken of Christ's headship, judiciary power, and lordship in terms of the hypostatic union as flowing quite naturally from it. Now he asks whether through his earthly

activity (passion, death, resurrection) Christ merited to be Lord. St. Thomas emphasizes the theandric (ontological) status of Christ in relation to glory: he is always glorified since he is always Son of God; his human soul enjoyed the beatific vision from the beginning. Yet St. Thomas also indicates the " functional " aspects of Christ's glory. His body is glorified in the resurrection; men do come to appreciate his glory through his resurrection because of which they recognize his divinity.

The seventh and last chapter presents a lucid synthesis of the major points under consideration.

This work has much merit. It clarifies and reiterates many points of Thomistic doctrine which have either been misunderstood or forgotten. The author is aware of the limitations of St. Thomas's thought on some issues; yet he helps one to better understand the reason for these limitations, and in so doing he creates an atmosphere for a greater appreciation of the contribution made by Thomas to the theology of the Incarnation.

The bibliography is quite extensive and well arranged. There are a few typographical errors as well as misspellings and expressions which seem to be literal translations of French expressions. These do not, however, detract to any serious degree from the overall value of this thesis.

George Kirwin, O. M. I.

Oblate College

Washington, D.C.

A Companion to the Study of St. Anselm. By Jasper Hopkins. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1972. Pp. 300. $10.50.

In his preface Jasper Hopkins speaks of a recent renascence of Anselmian studies. His own translations--with Herbert J. Richardson--of various theological and philosophical works of Anselm that were all too little known in the English-speaking world have made a major contribution to that renascence. The present work promises to prove equally beneficial.

First, it should be noted that Hopkins' Companion to the Study of St. Anselm is precisely what its title proclaims it to be--namely, a guide for those who intend to study St. Anselm and bring to that task all the serious effort which the subject demands. For those who would prefer a brief synoptic presentation of Anselm's spirit there are a number of simpler works available--notably Gerard Phelan's delightfully readable The Wisdom of St. Anselm (regrettably absent from Hopkins' bibliography). But for those intent on probing the wisdom of Anselm in all its wealth through careful study of the texts, there is perhaps no better starting point or

companion for their journey than the present work, whose chief merit lies in the fact that the author attempts to present the principal problems of Anselmian scholarship in all their complexity, setting forth for the reader the diversity of opinion on the questions under consideration and at the same time making his own position quite clear.

After an opening chapter on the general nature and background of Anselm's writings a chapter each is devoted to the relation of faith and reason and to the ontological argument. Then, in keeping with Hopkins' and Richardson's wish in publishing their earlier translations to extend the scope of interest beyond these perennially controverted issues, there follow three chapters on the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of man, freedom and evil, and on Christology and soteriology respectively. Finally, an appendix entitled " Anselm's Philosophical Fragments " provides the first complete English translation of the work published by F. S. Schmitt under the title Ein neues unvollendetes Werk des hl. Anselm von Canterbury.

I will here mention and comment on a couple of specific points, particularly with regard to faith and reason. First, while it is surely correct to assert that Anselm offers no formal definition of faith, it seems somewhat misleading to go on to affirm, as Hopkins does, (p. 37) that he never overtly explicates or distinguishes various notions of faith. For, over and above the numerous implicit distinctions which he makes (Hopkins on p. 102 mentions what seems to be a rather dubious distinction between fides catholica and fides Christiana), Anselm on several occasions compares and contrasts modes or aspects of faith. His most basic distinction is between fides viva and fides mortua. Since the faith which he as a theologian is concerned with is a living, fruitful, grace-filled reality, he asserts quite baldly that fides mortua is not really faith at all and proceeds in various passages throughout his writings to explicate various aspects of living faith.

Living faith, he says, is operative faith, which works through charity and leads to rectitude of will and the keeping of God's commandments. His favorite formula for the expression of faith as assent, corde credo et ore confiteor, shows how the believer's acceptance of the divinely revealed and ecclesiastically mediated truth leads him irresistibly to the worshipful proclamation of that truth. To illustrate the difference between the two basic types of faith, he employs (Hopkins says " we may be sure that he was familiar with and subscribed to ") the distinction used by Augustine between credere in Deum and credere Deum esse (or credere Deo). The first formula alone expresses living faith, he says, because it alludes to the believer's movement along the way toward full and complete union with the object of his belief.

Furthermore, as fides quaerens intellectum, Anselmian faith involves the quest for intellectual understanding of what one has at first simply believed. Here arise all the disputes concerning whether Anselm's elaboration of rationes necessariae for divinely revealed truths makes him or his theological

method rationalist and whether his derivation of arguments sola ratione for the existence of God makes him an apologist vis-à-vis the unbeliever. The dispute over the latter question has centered about the Proslogion with Karl Barth and Anselm Stolz each stoutly denying that it was written in order to lead the infidel by a rational demonstration from unfaith to faith. Such a procedure, they say, would subvert the order of the credo ut intelligam, and besides is ruled out by the genus literarium of the work In insisting on the apologetic character of the Proslogion, although agreeing that it was written primarily for believers, Hopkins follows a traditionalist interpretation and takes up a hard line against Barth and Stolz. He does not mention the middle way proposed by Henri Bouillard, who suggests that the argument is not an apologetic directed to the unbeliever but rather the product of the believer's contemplative reflection on the Psalmist's words about the fool's denial of God. It is thus a theological argument, arising from faith and developed in order to nourish the prayer of the man of faith. At the same time, Bouillard maintains against Barth, it is a philosophical argument inasmuch as it seeks to elucidate the rational structure of the experience of faith. Hopkins, it seems, maintains a good deal more when he writes:

The command crede ut intelligas is addressed fundamentally to the Christian. . . .The skeptic, on the other hand, is challenged first to understand. . .and on the basis of this understanding to believe. (p. 43)

Nowhere, however, does Anselm indicate that he expects by his argumentation to impart an intellectus to the unbeliever, nor does he ever speak of an intellectual understanding as either a possible or necessary foundation of faith. (Hopkins does affirm that for Anselm faith and the intellectus fidei are gifts of divine grace.)

On the question of the rationes necessariae Hopkins asserts that Anselm intended to keep them distinct from mere convenientiae and suggests that the two species are conflated in the Cur Deus Homo only when something is found to be inappropriate to God. (pp. 50-51) In doing so he neglects a text found toward the end of chapter 10 of Book I (Schmitt, II, 67: 1-6)--and which he himself cites later, on p. 65--which asserts that the slightest reason (either affirmative or negative, it would seem) concerning God assumes the force of necessity unless it is contravened by a weightier reason.

With regard to the question of demonstrating the existence of God, the reader--after years of having heard the positions of St. Anselm and St. Thomas simply contrasted--may be interested to discover that Hopkins finds a fatal similarity between the Anselmian " modal argument " (the second separate and distinct ontological argument, outlined in Proslogion, chapter 3, according to many modern interpreters) and the Thomist via tertia. For, although Anselm and Aquinas have somewhat

different notions of necessity, both, Hopkins claims, misapply the logic of necessary propositions and hence, in analogous ways, come up with invalid arguments. (pp. 78-89)

Finally, the detailed bibliography of texts, translations, and studies is excellent, although--as is perhaps inevitable--incomplete. Modesty forbids mentioning whose article the present reviewer particularly missed. However, a check among the listings of translations for Pedrizetti's " Letters of Saint Anselm and Archbishop Lanfranc " suggests that the author has simply overlooked one important, if little-known, journal--namely, The American Benedictine Review.

Victor W. Roberts, O. S. B.

St. Gregory's College

Shawnee, Oklahoma

Cardinal Newman In His Age: His Place In English Theology and Literature. By Harold L. Weatherby. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1973. Pp. 296. $11.50.

One fascinating aspect of Cardinal Newman's thought is its seeming coincidence of opposites. This stubborn individualist and arch-defender of the primacy of conscience is the most obedient of men; this insistent proponent of the subjectivity factors active in the mind's grasp of truth, above all religious truth, dedicated his life to a defense of the authority-based Catholic tradition. These and other intriguing polarities provide Harold Weatherby, associate professor of English literature at Vanderbilt University, with his subject matter and with a bold, clear thesis. Weatherby argues that, despite his best efforts, the epistemological principles which Newman embraced inexorably lead to the subjectivism and relativism which mark the rapid dissolution of Catholic thought since Vatican II.

In pursuit of his thesis Weatherby first strives to establish the idealistic nature of Newman's epistemology by contrasting him with the straightforward realism of Richard Hooker, the Caroline divines, and the Metaphysical poets, a realism inherited from the medieval scholastic tradition. Subsequently, he argues Newman's affinity for the platonized world-view of the Alexandrian Fathers, Coleridge, and Wordsworth. Weatherby then reviews and passes a detailed, negative judgment on the various " safeguards" by which Newman sought to reconcile his premises with Catholic orthodoxy. The consistent point of contrast here is the epistemology of classical Thomism. The closing, and perhaps weakest, section of the book considers the broad socio-political and literary consequences of Newman's thought. Newman's fixation on the " idea, " or " spirit, " of an institution, and his interpretative view of symbols, renders his approach to any and all

traditional inherently relativistic. Weatherby concludes that Newman's attempted synthesis of Catholic orthodoxy with his epistemological premises was a predictable, tragic failure.

Clearly Weatherby has written a provocative book. He states his thesis boldly and argues it tenaciously in clear, attractive prose. Yet, I fear, the end result is more caricature than penetrating analysis. Putting aside the assumption that the epistemology of St. Thomas Aquinas provides the sole philosophical validation for " the Catholic tradition of fifteen hundred years, " a large assumption indeed, Weatherby's exposition of Aquinas's epistemology leads to attributions scarcely different from the axioms of eighteenth-century rationalism as found, for example, in Paley's Evidences. Beginning with the premise that the only true knowledge of which the human mind is capable consists in the apprehension of the quiddity of sensible, external objects of this world, Thomism is made to assert the following. In the acquisition of all knowledge the human mind is essentially the passive recorder of intelligible species by a congenital process of abstraction universally operative in all men. The achievement of truth on any level proceeds by way of rigorous, rational scrutiny of the objective evidence, that is, evidence patently manifest to any reasonable man. The only valid religious experience of God possible to man in this life is by the way of abstract reasoning on objective evidence. The God of Christianity is plainly manifest in the objective harmony present in the laws of created nature and civil society, as well as in received moral and religious tradition. Christian faith is ultimately grounded neither on personal experience, nor on the authority of the Church, but on the rigorous exercise of autonomous reason. Other attributions might be added: man never really knows concrete, singular beings, only universals; the genuine Catholic assent of faith is necessarily " notional, " never " real " in Newman's sense; St. Thomas accepted the doctrine of transubstantiation not on authority but on grounds of its inherent reasonableness. In a word, Thomism is represented as irrevocably at odds with intuitive, interpretative reasoning.

To what extent this represents a balanced assessment of St. Thomas's thought, much less of the scope and drift of " the Catholic tradition of fifteen hundred years, " I leave to those more learned. Certainly Aquinas's intellectus agens demands an intuitive grasp of being itself, prior to the abstraction of particular intelligible species. Certainly Schillebeeckx, Rahner, and Lonergan find much in St. Thomas's epistemology that is interpretative and intuitive. Certainly the sacramental world-view, so deeply imbedded in the biblical, patristic, and Augustinian traditions, and so dear both to contemplatives and ordinary faithful, is more than a dangerous tendency in the body of Catholic thought.

Equally unconvincing is Weatherby's interpretation of Newman's epistemology. Newman certainly held that, both in the religious and

Christian faith experience, the believer achieves a knowledge of God which exceeds those instinctive processes of intellection necessarily operative in all men by the fact that they are men. Religious knowledge is personal in that it is in function of definite, prior judgments which arise in the mind only in proportion to a man's fidelity to conscience, and hence, viewed psychologically, are man's personal achievement. Moreover, for Newman, this pre-conditioning of the knowing subject fits the general pattern of all human knowing once one passes beyond the immediate knowledge of sense objects imposed by our nature. The ability to achieve truth, wherever truth is not self-evident, is always in function of certain antecedent judgments, or " first principles," which we bring to the data, judgments gained from experience in the light of some interpretative standpoint. This is why otherwise intelligent men evaluate the same objective data differently; this is why some men consistently achieve true judgments in a given field while others do not. The intellect which is informed by the right antecedent judgments necessary to a given field of inquiry is called by Newman the " illative sense. " In the ethical and religious sphere the right judgments necessary to arrive at truth are formed only through exact fidelity to conscience. Hence, Newman certainly held that human knowing is much more interpretative than we normally realize, and that the validity of the process of interpretation rests on the validity of the mind's habitual, antecedent judgments, or first principles.

Weatherby understands this in a general way, but two misrepresentations largely vitiate his interpretation of Newman. First of all, Weatherby strongly implies that Newman's theory derives from his temperament, which is defined in terms of fragmentation, alienation, and fear in face of the visible world, whereas Newman himself claimed to base his view on empirical data, namely, the teaching of Scripture and our experience of how men actually do come to believe. Moreover, Newman consistently pointed out serious difficulties in the object-centered epistemology which Weatherby defends. For example, if all valid knowledge consists in the instinctive abstraction of quiddities, then there can be no fundamental difference between the way we know a tree and the way we know a person. If the religious and Christian faith experience does not bring a distinctive, personal knowledge of God beyond that available to any intelligent man, then faith belongs to the purely affective order; believer and non-believer possess exactly the same cognition of God. If faith, to be valid, must be grounded on the rigorous assessment of patently objective evidence, then faith in children and the uneducated can never be more than superstition. If the cognitive content of faith is grounded on demonstrative reasoning, then unbelief is either inaccurate reasoning or hypocrisy, never a consistent or honest state of mind. If faith is grounded on objective reasoning, then there can be no ultimate deference to the authority of a teacher guided by the Hoy Spirit, that is, the Church. For Newman,

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none of these inferences squares either with scriptural teaching or with experience. Yet Weatherby never presents Newman's objections to the interpretation of human knowing which he defends, nor does he take any noticeable account of the strong empirical bent of Newman's mind.

Secondly, Weatherby misrepresents Newman's teaching both on conscience and on human reasoning. Conscience is portrayed as an epistemological faculty which impresses a clear image of God directly on the mind, independent of the normal rational processes which accompany the reception of sense data. This image, fully constituted, precedes all reasoning and can be known by a simple turning inward. Weatherby then easily reduces Newman's conscience to an innate idea or infused species and represents the inward-turning process (which he identifies with Newman's " implicit reasoning, " informal and natural inference, " and " illative sense ") as an esoteric mode of cognition which is known only to the privileged few and remains beyond the reach of rational discourse.

But this is a serious misrepresentation. Newman's descriptive analysis of the genesis of religious and Christian faith purports to be grounded on an empirical analysis of all human knowing, and he consistently gives the data. This is true of his fundamental insight that, beyond what is self-evident, the mind does not simply record but achieves truth, and achieves it in terms of definite foundational judgments which are the personal acquisition of the knowing subject. Moreover, Newman insists that in the ethical and religious sphere these foundational judgments are timeless and true; they do not arise in function of temperament or culture but in function of submission to that sense of sanction (conscience) which is a constitutive element of human nature. They are, then, grounded in the objective real. It is unfair to dismiss such an epistemology as hopelessly at odds with metaphysics, or as bearing a tendency toward scepticism and idealism. Weatherby's object-centered epistemology bears an equal tendency toward a crude rationalism which can never escape a desiccated natural theology.

Furthermore, for Newman, conscience is not a kind of second intellect which imposes a fully constituted image of God, much less the God of Christianity, independently of our normal cognition of the visible world. By conscience Newman normally means that vague, undefined sense of moral contingency which is achieved intuitively in our immediate awareness of ourselves. This instinctive sense that we live under an imperious summons to transcend our natural desires is the necessary, prior condition for acknowledging the binding force of those particular moral judgments which, in their initial state, are partly instinctive and partly derivative from one's culture. Conscience, then, is not a faculty so much as a descriptive term for one aspect of the human person's self-awareness; it is an insistent pressure, a horizon which, when faithfully submitted to enlightens our normal intellection. Seductively this awareness of sanction

is an intuitive awareness of God, but only reductively. The image of God arises in the intellect slowly, laboriously, in proportion to strict fidelity to conscience, yet, in the end, never of itself represents more than a supreme Someone. It is only in and through the Christian tradition that the vague God of conscience is known clearly. Hence, for Newman, conscience can never directly impress the image of the God revealed in Christ, as Weatherby implies, nor can it be an independent judge of the content of Christian revelation. Conscience inherently needs Christian revelation, though the judgments it induces are the necessary preconditions for seeing Christianity as true. Hence, Newman's firm adherence to the received Catholic tradition is not a voluntaristic leap but an exigency of his own understanding of the function and limits of conscience.

Professor Weatherby, then, has written a thoughtful, earnest book which defends the kind of epistemology which Newman rejected as consonant neither with empirical facts nor with the teaching on faith implies in Scripture. This is fair enough. To what extent his attribution of this view to St. Thomas is accurate, I have severe doubts. His interpretation of Newman's mind I find unconvincing, for it is based on misrepresentations which are pervasive and cumulative.

Robert E. O'Donnell, S. J.

Fairfield University

Fairfield, Connecticut

Dogma 4: The Church Its Origin and Structure. By Michael Schmaus. Translated by Mary Ledderer. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1972. Pp. 214. $3.95 (paper).

Professor Michael Schmaus presents a straight-forward description of the Church which is sensitive to the contemporary theological questions of ecclesiology but avoids becoming involved in controversies. The simplicity of his arguments belies the depth at which he treats problems and the care with which he balances disputed questions. We have here the work of a master dogmatician suitable for use as a textbook in the college classroom or the adult study club.

The basic research upon which this work rests is Schmaus's Die Lehre von der Kirche (Munich 1958). This monumental 933 page treatise which includes 46 pages of bibliography, which ranks with those of Journet and Congar as preparatory of Lumen Gentium, considers the origin of the Church from the viewpoint of God, salvation history, and the foundation in Jesus Christ. This conditions the divine-human character of the Church which is presented around the biblical images People of God, Body of Christ,

and Spouse. From the nature of the Church flows the mission and structure of the visible organization, treated in terms of services for salvation.

Dogma 4 follows the outline of the Die Lehre but updates the treatment to incorporate Vatican II documents and the ecclesial theses of contemporary theologians, especially colleagues and former students of Schmaus at the university of Munich. There are four parts to the work: a kind of introductory section on the Church as mystery of faith; next, the substantial treatment of the role and the relation of Christ and the Spirit in the Church; thirdly, the development of the theology of the Church; and finally, the extensive section on the structure of the Church.

Schmaus shows his awareness of contemporary Protestant exegesis, e. g., that the Church was born out of the common faith of Jesus' disciples, but argues for the Roman Catholic interpretation, e. g., that Christ is the origin of the Church and the continuing ground for its life and existence. His teaching on the activity of the Holy Spirit in the Church exemplifies the celebrated thesis of Schmaus's student, Heribert Mühlen, which expresses the relation of the Spirit and the Church analogously with the mystery of the Trinity and the Incarnation: " One Person in many persons. "

Schmaus's historical study of the development of ecclesiology follows Yves Congar's treatment of this subject and traces three periods of development: the age of the Fathers to the seventh century (Isidore), the Middle Ages, and the modern era.

Ecumenists will find that Schmaus is faithful to the Vatican II documents on the unity of the Church's structure; his presentation is open to development, but it does not go beyond the Decree on Ecumenism. He follows a theme on the unity of the life of the Church in faith, hope, and charity which is very close to that of Congar and Thomas Aquinas.

The treatment of the laity reads like Congar's revision of Lay People in the Church. The sections on the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome and Papal Infallibility manifest a greater originality on the part of the author but a similar balance or orthodoxy and openness to development.

The quality of this volume of Dogma matches that of the first three volumes and leads us to anticipate the fifth and final volume on the Church's sacramentality.

John M. Donahue, O. P.

Dominican House of Studies

Washington, D. C.

John of Damascus on Islam. The " Heresy of the Ishmaelites." By Daniel J. Sahas. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972. Pp. 187. 61 guilders.

The present work, arising out of a dissertation for the Hartford Seminary Foundation, is a contribution to the Christian-Islamic dialogue from the historical point of view, and, in this case, to John Damascene's role in that dialogue. The author investigates the relevant declarations of the Synod of 754 and their significance in the first chapter, the familiar background and the political developments in Syria at the time of the Islamic conquest in the second, and the life of John Damascene in his Islamic environment in the third. With the fourth chapter the author enters into the most important part of his work, an examination of c. 101 in John Damascene's catalogue of heresies--first of all, its tradition. Then, in the fifth chapter, he deals with its contents, particularly (and in great detail) with the express reference to the Koran; but he also seeks to uncover traces of the Koran which appear in a general sort of way throughout the Damascene's theological writings. The sixth and seventh chapters are dedicated to the Dialogue between a Christian and a Saracen, and this is analyzed in the same fashion that c. 101 of the catalogue of heresies is analyzed. The author comes to the conclusion that both works (the latter at least according to its contents) are original texts of John Damascene and betray a great familiarity with the Koran and early Islamic theology. In its present format the Dialogue does not come from the Damascene, although its contents seem to; it is an expansion and a development of the introductory questions in Haer. 101, a summary of the most essential doctrines of early Islamic theology and thus an aid for the Christian in an encounter with Islam. Between Haer. 101 and the Dialogue there is a mutual dependence. In the eighth chapter the author touches upon still more writings, whether rightly or wrongly attributed to the Damascene (De draconibus, strygibus, The Life of Peter of Capitolias, The Refutation of the Moslems, the Formula of Abjuration), and he shows that these contain no position regarding Islam and should not be denied him. In the appendix the texts of Haer. 101 and the Dialogue are given in both Greek (Migne) and English. Pp. 160-168 list pertinent literature, and an index of names and of subjects follows on pp. 169-171.

Sahas is repeatedly obliged to note that particular questions cannot be answered because of the lack of a critical text (e. g., pp. 66, 67¹, 74) . The relevant selections in the new edition of John Damascene are not yet ready for publication. Of Haer. 101 only the most important manuscripts have been collated so that, as a preliminary, some things can be brought up, namely, the discussion concerning skeiva in place of qrhskeiva (p. 68) ; this reading is either the peculiarity of a previously unestablished manuscript or simply a printing error. In 769 A2, as a more serious variant to thVn

cabaqaVn  there is still only toVn caboqavn ; toVn gaboqavn and toVn bacqavn probably have no significance whatsoever. Four manuscripts read cabavr instead of cabevr (769 B5; cf. p. 86). The epilogue of Haer. (777B2 ff.) is no longer considered certainly genuine, so that its statements prove nothing more with reference to the extent of the 100 chapters (cf. p. 57). It should be stressed here, however, that, according to the witness of the manuscripts, Haer. 101 is authentic (pace Poggi in Or. Chr. Per. 38 [1972] 514) and that the conclusion of Haer. from Migne cc. 99 and 101 is able to stand. Whether c. 101 ends with 772 D8, as is the case in nine manuscripts (cf. my Überlieferungsgeschichte, pp. 196 and 200 gen. tree g), or with 773 A5 has yet to be determined.

The current edition of the chronography of Theophane the Confessor would be that of C. de Boor, Leipzig 1883, reprinted in Hildesheim 1963, that of Georgios Kedrenos by I. Bekker, 1838/39 (cf. p. 3¹), that of John Zonaras by Pinter and Büttner-Wobst, 1841/97 (cf. p. 11n.)--both likewise in the Bonn Corpus. With regard to Beser (p. 10²), in Byz. Z 56 (1963) 6 B. Hemmerdinger gives a newer meaning; he is answered in Byzantion 33 (1963) 502. For Byzantine theological literature Ehrhardin Krumbacher has been outstripped by Beck's monumental opus; this should be indicated (cf. pp. 44², 59⁶, 62⁴, 99⁴). In the survey of the Damascene's writings (pp. 51f.), and especially when dealing with questions of authenticity and tradition (e. g., p. 99), the work of Hoeck or Beck should have been mentioned. Probably contemporaneous with Sahas, N. Q. King worked on what was to a large extent the same subject, " S. Joannis Damasceni De haeresibus Cap. CI and Islam," in Studia patristica VIII 2 (TU 93) Berlin 1966, pp. 76-81. E. Trapp also deals with the Formula of Abjuration (pp. 124 ff.) in the introduction (p. 15*f.) to his work on Manuel II. Palaiologos, Dialoge mit einem " Perser " (Wiener byz. Studien 2) Vienna 1966.

For John Damascene's acquaintance with Arabic the author adduces the fact of the Arabic environment of the monastery of Mar Saba as well as the fact that Arabic was spoken within (p. 47), but no proof for this is given. Thus it is an arguable point. Two hundred years earlier the monastery had been a polyglot community, and the different groups had celebrated the Liturgy of the Hours each in its own language, coming together in the church only for the Eucharist. Sahas contests the common opinion that the Damascene had already died by the year 754, and he mentions Vailhé's demonstration, but he puts his own argumentation, with a reference to Sauget, in some doubt (pp. 47, 48⁴). Garitte's article in Anal. Boll. 77 (1959) 332-369 or Hoeck's in LThK on John Damascene would have been valuable here. " Codex 2926 of Regium " should read " Paris., B. N. gr. 1122 (Fontebl. Reg. 2926) " (p. 56¹), and " Codex R. 2508 " should be ibid. gr. 1320 (Mazar. Reg. 2508). " The Damascene

could hardly agree to all if, in Sahas' opinion (p. 76), he was concerned in the Expositio fidei primarily with the knowability of God and not with his existence and his essence. Otherwise why would he have devoted his first chapters to a proof of God's being and unity and set down at length his Trinitarian doctrine in the eighth chapter? With reference to Peter of Capitolias on p. 124, his Passio has only been transmitted in Georgian, and it is ascribed here to the Damascene; cf. the pertinent literature in Hoeck's article (Stand und Aufgaben), no. 80. The Damascene's encomium of Peter is mentioned by Theophane in his chronography (ed. de Boor I 417, 14s). Mansi is not numbered by pages but by columns (cf. p. 95). " BS " (p. 48⁴) is not explained in the index of abbreviations.

On p. 78, line 7, kaiV toV tineu`ma (765 A15) remains untranslated. In the same place as well as on p. 135 the translation is free, not to say incorrect; the reader wonders why what was correct was not immediately put in the text and why the mistake was only mentioned (as an afterthought?) in footnote 12. In the same place add the word " for " at the beginning of line 11. If it had already been determined on p. 62⁴ that Akominatos was a pseudonym it should not have been used thereafter; cf. excursus 4 in G. Stadtmüller's monograph on Michael Choniates (Orientalia Christ. 91) Rome 1934. The sayings on the cow in Sure II of the Koran appear in verses 63-66 and not 67-71. The index is not exhaustive, which is a pity.

The following typographical errors are to be noted: p. 19² should have " Delespine " rather than " Delessine " ; p. 53¹ " Hans-Georg " rather than " Hanz-Georg " ; p. 100⁴ " Vorsehung " rather than " Forschung " (cf. also p. 161) ; p. 113² " Book III " rather than " Book IV "; p. 123 " Strygibus " rather than " Stygibus " (twice); p. 142, line 3, " XCVI " rather than " XCIV " ; p. 156, line 2, " XCIV " rather than " XCVI " ; pp. 66³ and 163, under Hoeck, " XVII " rather than " XVI " (p. 123⁸ and ⁹ are correct). Typographical errors in the Greek, aside from the frequently unusual accentuation taken over from Migne: p. VII, line 4, should have ejstiVn rather than ejstin; p. 4, line 1 of the Greek text, pavnte" rather than paVnte"; ibid, line 8, touV" rather than touv"; p. 6² , eujaggelivzhtai rather than eujaggelizetai; p. 9, line 11, MansouVr rather than MansouVr; p. 12³ ejkklhsiva/ rather than ejkklhsiva; p. 27⁶ o}n  rather than o{n; p. 40, line 9, taV" rather than tav"; p. 54⁵ kaiV rather than kaiv; p. 73¹  JEbraivoi" rather than  jEbraivoi"; p. 104⁶ taV rather than tav; on p. 134 insert kaiV after Mwu>sevw" in C7, and deV after ou[te in B1; p. 136, line 1, qeovn rather than qeoVn, and in A3  jAgavr rather than   [Agar.

The mistakes that have been pointed out do not detract from the essential value of this book, which seems to me to lie in the fact that the author introduces into the study of Christian-Islamic relations the invaluable element of a solid professional knowledge of the Koran and of the spiritual and intellectual history of early Islam. This together with his

listing of the relevant literature and his calm, factual point of view, puts the reader deeply in his debt.

Bonifatius Kotter, O. S. B.

Byzantinisches Institut

Scheyern, Germany

Savoir et Pouvoir. Philosophie thomiste et politique cléricale au XIXe siècle. By Pierre Thibault. Québec: Les Presses de l'Université Laval, 1972. $10.00.

The thesis of this book is simple: theories of knowledge are theories of power. Pierre Thibault originally presented and defended this work as a thesis at the Sorbonne early in 1970. It was then entitled L' origine et le sens de la restauration du thomisme au XIXe siècle and had been directed by Henri Gouhier. He was awarded the title, docteur de l'Université de Paris. M. Emile Poulat, who wrote the Preface to this volume, had sat on the jury.

It is an exciting book: it will excite some to fear, resentment, even fury; it will excite others to further research. The author applies the sociology of knowledge to a philosophical development in the 19th century. The great discovery of the sociology of knowledge was that thought, the content of the mind and its structure, are socially grounded, are reflections of the social and political conditions of the thinker's world. While in biblical studies this principle has been accepted and is referred to as Formgeschchte (with its interest in the Sitz im Leben), philosophers and theologians have in general overlooked this. The author tries to show that various philosophical trends in Catholicism have built into them certain social and political consequences and that the struggle of the papacy to affirm neo-thomism was not only a wrestling in the intellectual order but also an affirmation of a particular view of society over against the social and political implications of the competing philosophies.

It is not a thèse de recherche (in the French sense) ; it does not offer new documentary evidence; indeed, the author leans heavily on the work of Hocedez, Aubert, Foucher, Pelzer, Dezza, Masnovo, Walz (spelled "Waltz" in the text), Van Riet, T'Serclaes, Des Houx, Daniel-Rops, Rougier, Lagarde, Arquilliere, Gilson, et cetera. However, he interprets the evidence in such a way that it opens up new perspectives on the whole history of thomism, not only in the 19th century but in the 13th as well. In the Avant-Propos the author tells us that his book is a settling of accounts. " But one settles an account to the past only by rendering an account " (" On ne regle son compte au passé qu'en rendant compte," p. xxiii). In a sense, then, the work is a therapeutic exercise.

According to Thibault, the restoration of thomism in the 19th century is the restoration of an ideology. Thomism (with its conception of the world in general, its naturalism, its theory of ideas--especially that!--and its theory of indirect power (Taparelli d'Azeglio and Leo XIII) was precisely the savoir the Church (the clergy, especially the Pope) required to legitimatize its strategy, namely, to maximize priestly power (pouxiors) in the new order: "le savoir y est discours de légitimation." (p. xxvi) The epistemologies of traditionalism (Louis de Bonald) and ontologism (of Kantian variety, Rosmini; of Malebranchian-Hegelian variety, Gioberti) were unsuitable for the Church's purpose: traditionalism because of its irrationalism; ontologism because of it subjectivism. In France, traditionalism, while it supported Rome's ultramontane claims and seemed to be an antidote to Cartesian skepticism, " upset the bases of Christian polemics, of religion itself, and of all certitude " (Chastel, quoted on p. 55). Ventura presented St. Thomas as a traditionalist. He denied any natural metaphysics in the name of a thomism that required the absolute subordination of reason to faith. The damage done by traditionalism was great. However, in its polemic with eclecticism (Cousin), it was the unconscious promoter of ecclesiastical thomism (the thesis of Michelet and Foucher adopted by Thibault, see pp. 3-5).

In Italy, ontologism was the Christian platonism or augustinianism of the 19th century. Kleutgen, the German-Roman thomist, said that ontologism attributes to the natural power of reason a knowledge which belongs to the supernatural order. The divine essence could be grasped directly by the intellect. It was antischolastic and anti-aristotelian. It was unfavorable to any extension of the doctrinal and dogmatic authority of the Holy See. In a way, ontologism was the ideology of the Italian national movement. Paradoxically enough, Rosmini and Gioberti were the harbingers of neo-guelphism! After 1848 the Pope and the Jesuits were opposed to this kind of liberalism and modernity. At Vatican I the most eager adversary of ontologism was Cardinal Joachim Pecci (future Leo XIII). He demanded that the proposition, naturalis est homini cognitio Dei immediata et directa be condemned.

In Germany, the attempt of Hermes to assimilate kantian criticism to Catholic philosophy failed because he made faith the term of a philosophical reasoning process. He was condemned by Gregory XVI because he denied the liberty of the act of faith, et cetera. The hegelian Günther gave Catholic thought the kind of rationalism the époque sought, but he made faith the very object of philosophical reasoning. This eliminated the notion of mystery. His writings were condemned in 1857 by Pius IX. The criticism of Hermes and the idealism of Günther were too threatening to the teaching magisterium (clerical power) because they were philosophies either deprived of objective ideas or in which ideas could be grasped directly by the individual subject.

After the Avant-Propos and Introduction Thibault's book comprises three parts, an appendix, a conclusion, a bibliography and an index of proper names (in that order).

In the Avant-Propos the author briefly outlines the history of his own research and explains his thesis in sociological terms. Aeterni Patris had been his point de départ at the start of his research; it became, however, his point d'arrivée. His initial proposal was to examine how the encyclical Aeterni Patris of 1879 had been so effective in Catholic milieux. He laid aside certain commonplaces regarding the restoration of thomism (e. g., that the focus was the Dominicans, that thomism was essentially a response to the need for an apologetics, et cetera) when he realized that the political implications of thomism were overwhelming. It was the political dimension that would explain the extraordinary interest Leo XIII took in thomism--Leo XIII who was not much of a philosopher at all. Thomism had an essential meaning and function beyond its explicit discourse.

Part I, the longest portion of the book, is " The origins of neo-thomism, " and covers a lot of ground. The first chapter deals with the various philosophical orientations in Europe in the 19th century, e. g., ontologism in Italy, traditionalism in France, critical rationalism in Germany, scholasticism in Spain, the reappearance of thomism in Italy (Piacenza, Rome, Naples), and the good relations that obtained between the early thomists and the other catholic intellectuals (Buzzetti and La Mennais, Taparelli and Rosmini, Gioberti, Cousin). I feel Thibault could have taken G. F. Rossi's work more seriously, especially in view of the retractation of A. Pelzer and the review of A. Mansion. He incorrectly allies Fabro with Pirri. (p. 29, fn. 67)

Chapter I dealt with the reappearance of thomism; chapter deals with its restoration. The story of the foundation of the Civiltà Cattolica in Naples, its transferral to Rome, and its conversion to thomism in 1853 is told briefly and in an interesting way. This doctrinal review would be the antidote of revolutionary ideas and be the ally of papal politics in the 19th century. It would go back to the Middle Ages and restore in the modern world the role played then by the Church. A number of events paved the way for this restoration: Ventura's lectures in Paris, Taparelli's defense of Ventura, the diffusion in Rome of Balmes' Filosofia fundamental in 1853 and Kleutgen's Theologie der Vorzeit in the same year, the Jesuit Ordinatio Studiorum of 1858 prepared by Liberatore, Taparelli, Kleutgen, Sordi, and Curci, the debate on hylomorphism between the Roman College and the Civiltà Cattolica in 1861, Minerva's support after 1860 and that of the Syllabus in 1864.

A whole section is devoted to les grandes Polémiques (pp. 52-67) : traditionalism, ontologism, and German rationalism. The author finally underscores the importance of Vatican I. Quanta cura and the Syllabus

of 1864 condemned practically everything that was not scholastic. The proclamation of papal infallibility was in conformity with the spirit of thomism and created the conditions which made its official and authoritative restoration possible. The relative impenetrability of the mysteries (proclaimed by the Constitutio dogmatica de fide catholica) rendered the role of the ecclesiastical magisterium necessary to explain them. Thibault then outlines briefly the effects of the Council in France, Italy, Spain, and Germany. Throughout this whole development the author keeps us very aware of the influence of Pius IX's struggle with the Risorgimento on the restoration of thomism. Restoration meant the setting up of things in the closest approximation to conditions as they had been before the Revolution (of 1848).

Chapter III is entitled " A Certain Apologetics at Stake. " The early thomists were obsessed with epistemology or its anthropological foundations. Thibault contends that it was not primarily a question of saving Catholic dogmatics by saving the Aristotelian ontology integrated in it. Rather, it was a question of restoring in philosophy a catholic, social, practical frame of mind so as to dislodge an omnipresent subjectivism which engendered a heterodox and anti-social spirit, hardly suitable for action. What was involved was a certain conception of the Church and of clerical power. The fall of monarchies and the weakening of national churches allowed one to envisage the restoration of that conception. The ultramontanes wanted to restore the bureaucratic design of medieval Christianity which had elaborated the Catholicism of the Counter Reform and which had clashed with royal absolutism and the autonomy of universities and national churches. Of course, with Leo XIII, political ultramontanism under the form of indirect power became a reality. The Jesuits were the chief force behind its establishment. Thibault says that Döllinger knew what the real stakes were. In 1863 he uncovered the sociological conflict within the clerical world that the philosophical polemics of Roman scholasticism masked. The epistemological problem did not arise from philosophical research. It was imposed by disciplinary and political imperatives and the expediency of their theological implications. In other words, theological and political objectives had posed the problem. The political objectives needed no justification. To realize these, a suitable formulation of the problem had to be found a posteriori. Thibault proceeds to demonstrate why traditionalism failed to provide a rational apologetics and a natural foundation for the preambula fidei. The obsession of the Roman thomists with authority and spiritual unanimity is manifest. Spiritualism and anthropological dualism had to be suppressed also, because they constituted the soil in which cartesianism, criticism, and ontologism grew. For example, the theory of innate ideas in Descartes implies human dualism, human dualism implies idealism, and this leads to pantheism.

Subjective and idealistic pantheism exalts the autonomy and dynamism of the individual soul in religious experience and hence is a constant threat to the authority of the clerical machine. Taparelli had said in 1854: " In spiritual matters, lay people are incompetent and powerless. " Thirty years later Liberatore will defend clerical supremacy. It is of divine institution. "The church of Jesus Christ is essentially clerical, because the clergy is the formal element in it. " (see p. 94) In a section on " Thomism and Clericalism " the author contends that clerical power, an institutionalized spiritual power, is a ministerial power. It becomes absolute when its source and mandate are undisputed and are directly accessible only to the one who exercises it. This power is exercised in the moral and metaphysical domains; it is founded on the monopoly of essential theological truths and the exclusive right of access to the source of their revelation. The justification for such a prerogative is the object of apologetics and cannot be accommodated by any epistemology. Thomism, however, was appropriate.

In Chapter IV, "A Certain Politics at Stake," Thibault shows that the history of Catholic philosophy in the 19th century has a political dimension without which the rise of thomism is unintelligible. Political thomism did not appear with Leo XIII; it was advocated by the neo-thomists from the beginning. Social and political considerations won Taparelli, Sanseverino, and Liberatore to thomism after 1850. Taparelli and the Civiltà Cattolica were the formulators and promoters of indirect power. Balmes had set forth the thomistic political naturalism that was the basis of the doctrine of indirect power. In 1872 Liberatore wrote La Chiesa e lo Stato defending papal supremacy in Hildebrandian fashion. So that, Thibault concludes, as far as ecclesiastical politics go, thomism already had the characteristics and ambitions it will display under Leo XIII--once he officializes it. Aristotelian-thomistic epistemology responds to the need of establishing precise apologetical and political positions, characterized by the absolute supremacy of the Holy See over bishops and theologians and over civil authorities. (p. 113) Throughout the chapter the author emphasizes once again that it is against the backdrop of the vicissitudes of papal politics (especially the internal situation of Italy and its alliances with the Holy See) that one must see the astonishing dialect which characterizes the history of Catholic liberalism into which neo-thomism will be inserted. (p. 114)

Part Two deals with the intervention of Leo XIII in three chapters, culminating in chapter VII, " Papal Thomism. " Thibault gives a résumé of some twelve encyclicals and official acts of Leo XIII (from 1878 to 1901) to recall how he has systematically sought to restore a certain politics, the philosophical framework of which was the thomistic doctrine. Leo XIII's " grande politique " assumed a certain relationship between the

Church and secular governments: the latter were indirectly subject to the former. The Church alone possesses the solution of social problems. She can offer her services to the established powers disquieted by the rise of socialist aspirations.

Part Three is concerned with the permanent vocation of thomism. While reading this section the reviewer remembered a statement from one of Christopher Dawson's Medieval Essays: " It is impossible to understand the history of the medieval church, and its relations with the State and to social life in general if we treat it in the analogy of modern conditions. " Thibault contends that what thomism was for Leo XIII in the 19th century has always been its vocation. In the Middle Ages the success of thomist politics precedes that of its apologetics. The thomists rallied to the defence of Boniface VIII over the gallican question (Phillip le Bel). Thomism is situated in the long tradition of clerical theocracy. Thibault says, quoting Gilson, that " with St. Thomas, we remain on the level of papal theocracy, which does not consist in suppressing the temporal power of princes, but in subordinating it to the royalty of the earthly vicar of Christ the King. " (p. 207) He seems to think there is a connection between the career of St. Thomas at the papal court (1259-65, 1267, 1268) and the content of his doctrine. The pattern set by St. Thomas vis-à-vis the augustinians and averroists is the very same pattern we find throughout the history of thomism. An important section in this part of the book is " Epistemology and Power. " I think this Part Three needs to be challenged most. I wonder what Ignatius Eschmann would have said about it. His edition of the De Regimine Principum is not listed, but apparently it has not been studied.

Recently J. K. Galbraith wrote a book in which he demonstrates that economics is a branch of politics in contemporary America. Pierre Thibault has written this book in which he shows, with the help of the sociology of knowledge, that theology and philosophy in the 19th century were branches of papal politics. It is indeed a challenging book. In the age of Watergate the language is alas too familiar! Let the author have the last word:

Pour le thomisme, donc, l'exigence de la transcendance et de sa révélation surnaturelle est en droit accessible à tous. On peut prétendre sommer l'intelligence de la percevoir, ou au moins taxer d'infirmité ou de malhonnêteté quiconque prétend n'en avoir pas une vision claire. Mais cette démarche de l'intelligence ne peut que la conduire humblement à la porte de l'Eglise--le thomisme est une sorte of Canossa intellectuel--laquelle détient seule l'essentiel de la vérité. (p. 221, author's emphasis)

Thomas J. A. Hartley

Centennial College

Scarborough, Ontario, Canada

Problems of Marriage and Sexuality Today. By Peter J. Riga. New York: Exposition Press. Pp. 126. $5.00.

The prolific Peter J. Riga has in this book turned his hand to some of the problems surrounding the understanding of sexuality and the meaning of marriage in a way that is much less than the " definitive treatment " advertized on the jacket of the book. What we have here is a popular exposition of some of the themes drawn from the biblical and phenomenological fields that are now the argot of a renewed moral theology. There is also a treatment of several specific problems arising today: " The New Morality, " Abortion, Over-Population, Women's Liberation, etc., as well as several pages of advice to pastors on how to direct their apostolates towards the needs of the threatened nuclear family. This is a useful book for young adults, young marrieds, and those who serve them.

William J. Hayes, O.P.

The Catholic University of America

Washington, D. C.

Psychology for Church Leaders Series. By Gary R. Collins. Vol. III. Fractured Personalities: The Psychology of Mental Illness. Carol Stream, III.: Creation House, 1972. Pp. 217. $2.95.

This volume is not intended to be a comprehensive introduction to the field of mental illness but psychological conclusions which are most relevant and practical for a church leader. An earlier volume imparted an understanding of counseling skills. More than skills are needed, and so this book's purpose is to give the church leader some knowledge about the nature and causes of mental illness. The author does this very well.

According to Collins, a normal person is one who is at peace with society, himself, and God. A person is abnormal if he is at odds with the social expectations of his society or experiences internal conflict which leads to intense and prolonged feelings of insecurity, anxiety or unhappiness. Finally, a person is abnormal if he is alienated from God.

Abnormality is considered under the concepts of cause, symptom, diagnosis, treatment, and types. Collins is more successful in integrating the religious dimensions than in previous volumes of this series. Each chapter contains a discussion of the related religious dimensions, and he is convinced that religion has a role in overcoming mental stress. In fact, the pastor has a unique role in dealing with the mentally disturbed, and he should be a member of the hospital team. Clinical Pastoral Education and similar programs are assisting chaplains and pastors to handle this

role in hospital settings. Collins is of the opinion that many forms of therapy ignore the spiritual needs of man.

The church counselor should let his values be known, because " the counselor's ethics, values and philosophy influence and even determine the goals of therapy. It follows that counselor values will also influence the methods and techniques which are means toward these goals. " (p. 109) He seems to opt for the idea that a client should choose a counselor with the same value system.

The rather complex material of abnormal behavior is handled with great clarity of language. Its intended audience should be able to grasp the material with relative ease.

The present volume makes more generous use of case studies and overcomes one of the criticisms this reviewer made about volumes I and II in the series. Each chapter has a short annotated bibliography, and the general bibliography and index are also most helpful.

Fractured Personalities is a good introduction for the seminary student or church leader with little background in abnormal behavior. It can also serve as a refresher or a handy reference book for the busy experienced pastor.

William J. Nessel, O. S. F. S.

Cluster of Independent Theological Schools

Washington, D. C.

The Self Beyond: Toward Life's Meaning. By Benjamin S. Llamzon. Chicago: Loyola Press, 1973. Pp. 184. $5.95.

The meaning of life is correlative to the nature of personhood; the meaning of life is the meaning in terms of the person, and a person, as reflective consciousness, is perforce intimately connected with " meaning. " As the author puts it: " the problems of the self and the meaning-of-life question are merely two different aspects of the very same reality. " (p. 37)

Granting the correlation, there are many ways the reality may be approached. Dr. Llamzon, whose book is a moderately long philosophical essay on the topic, chooses to strike for the heart of human personhood and, in terms of his solution of this long-debated puzzle, unfold what he conceives to be the essential dynamic in terms of which its meaning-of-life emerges.

He selects, for the essence of the person, the free and reflexive will, the juncture in man of being and becoming, the meeting ground of the " is " and the " ought. " He proposes, as the meaning-full process of the self, the growth in love as a wholing process, the impulsion of the fragment towards the whole.

By way of evaluation, we should note what this procedure accomplishes and what it leaves unaccomplished. The first point at issue is, of course, the election of " free and reflexive will " as the essence of human personhood, which invites us to re-introduce the unending debates of the intellectualists vs. the voluntarists. It is probably wiser, however, to resist the invitation. A review of this caliber is not the forum in which core philosophical controversies are best debated, nor is Dr. Llamzon concerned in his work with the final distinctive nicety which most aptly defines the person. As long as voluntarists admit that the will is the will of a conscious being whose knowing what he is willing is the significance of the willing, and intellectualists allow that a self-consciousness without a self-determinism is an unreal and eviscerated conception, there is enough agreement for progress. In any realistic consideration of human personhood both aspects have to be given full valuation, and if it exercises and intrigues subtle minds to inquire into their relative preeminence, minds with other concerns can validly, without prejudice to the arguments they are further developing, decide the issue by simple election.

Dr. Llamzon is, in any event, not presenting a tightly argued position. He proceeds from point to point juxtaposing his progressive steps rather loosely, depending on the appeal of the over-all position more than on the intrinsic necessities of his series of links. Furthermore, he does not aim at presenting a total picture of the dynamics of the human person in relation to the meaning of life. He singles out what he considers the primal and ultimate dynamic--love as a wholing process, and relates this dynamic and its implications to several of life's crucial issues--encounter, infinity, marriage, death, and rests his case. This procedure leaves essential elements of the human person unconsidered and unrelated. There are the vital differences of sex and individuality, the intricate process of growth and maturation and the critical issues of " timing " in relation to a person's successful wholing. There are the issues of love as a sharing process and reverence as a recognition of the unsharable, the relation of achieving and sharing as mutually enhancing one another or as mutually opposing each other, the relation of the individual to those he loves within the system of rights and obligations established by community, the relations of needs to be fulfilled to the call to transcend needs, the relations of individuals as fragments to each other's whole and participations in a divine whole, the relation of urge and affect pressures on the cognitive processes and the subrelation of their effect on the actual process of arriving at meaning in life.

There are the inequalities of persons and their consequent distribution into hierarchies and the effects this has on their modes of wholing, and there are the balances of freedom and commitment and submission to restraint to be worked out as the wholing process unfolds. There is personal vocation and destiny to be sought within and perhaps outside of

wholing and incidentals like premature tragedy and unforeseen good fortune. And finally, if the thrust toward wholing is the supraordinate dynamic in life, the subordinate dynamics must somehow be related to it: tension discharge, unfolding, adaptation, homeostasis, personal fulfillment.

It would be unfair to demand that the author engage in the discussion of all these issues in a book that purposes to limit itself to one vital issue, but it is fair to point out that they exist and must be considered eventually.

What Dr. Llamzon does is simpler. After an introductory chapter pressing home the depth of the obscurity of the mystery of the meaning of life, he argues to the conclusions that the heart of man is the free, reflexive will, and the meaning of life is the wholing process of love. He touches briefly on Greek and Medieval ideas of love as wholing, and then, more extensively, on Christian love as purely altruistic (Bishop Anders Nygren) and Christian love as both self-and other-centered (Martin D'Arcy, S. J.), with additional insights from Kierkegaard and Bonhoeffer. He enlarges the concept with contributions from depth psychology (Freud), and existentialism (Marcel), and finally, to bring all the preceding into focus and to indicate where his own preferences lie, he presents Jules Toner's theory of radical love. In the last three chapters of the book he applies his conclusions of love to friendship, to love in marriage, and to love and death.

In sum, Dr. Llamzon has presented the results of his own earnest study of the meaning of self and self's meaning in life, not to end but further the search.

Michael Stock, O. P.

St. Stephen's Priory

Dover, Mass.

Plato. By George Kimball Plochmann. New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1973. Pp. 543. $1.95.

The Unity of the Platonic Dialogue. By Rudolf H. Weingartner. Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1973. Pp. 215. $2.95.

Despite the different aims of these two books there is a common ground: their authors share a conviction that interpretation of Plato must take into consideration the wholeness and unity of the Platonic writings. Indeed the authors see their task as partly the rescue of Plato from the hands of contemporary philosophers who persist in dissecting his writings into short passages and subject them to analysis, apart from the context of his dialogues.

Thus Weingartner is critical of approaches to Plato that tend to isolate and interpret independently parts of what Plato wrote from the context of the whole dialogue, and also of those scholars who take the pronouncements of the participants of the dialogues to be in a sense beyond the dialogue in which they occur, to be contributions to a Platonic doctrine. He sums up this approach--which he calls the " doctrinal view "--as follows:

Whatever the variations, however, the distinctive mark of this approach to Plato's work is the dual assumption that some personages in his dialogues are merely masks for their creator and that the words they speak may be removed from their dialogic context and then conjoined to make up a continuous exposition of the Platonic doctrine. (p. 2)

He is also critical of the approach whereby

Particular arguments, conceptions, or myths, as well as passages that contain more or less elaborated philosophic principles, are detached from their contexts and subjected to detailed scrutiny. That Plato wrote dialogues is more often than not ignored: the words are taken as if they were asserted by their author; no attention is paid to the fact that they are spoken by one of the characters of his creation. (p. 3)

Weingartner insists that, despite the fact that the extraction of Platonic doctrines and the scrutiny of individual passages might produce important philosophical insights, these approaches are inadequate for understanding Plato and most probably will lead to distortions of his thought and intentions. What Plato said cannot be understood without considering the whole of which isolated passages, arguments or speeches are parts:

Plato wrote dialogues. The dramatic context of a particular argument or speech may have important bearing on its meaning; to consider a speech or argument in isolation--however interesting it may be when taken up for its own sake--may not lead to an understanding of what the dialogue actually says. And because Plato wrote dramatic works, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It therefore cannot be taken for granted that when interpretations of isolated passages are placed side by side, the result will be an understanding of a Platonic dialogue as a whole. (pp. 3-4)

Similarly, Plochmann is concerned with the dangers of scrutinizing individual passages without considering the unity of the Platonic dialogue:

Not everything is of equal weight in assuring the unity and coherence of a dialogue, not everything is of equal weight in forcing a correct interpretation upon us. The " seeing " of truth which the dialogues in some measure afford us is contingent upon our being aware of the sources of the unity of each work; this is a far cry from happening across some impressive passage and pulling it out of the dialogue and merely agreeing with it, for such a reading, however sympathetic, is really a dismemberment, and plunges us back into the particular, the episodic-- into becoming (p. 98).

In fact, Plochmann finds faults with the common ways of interpreting Plato. (pp. 31-34) And although he will use the good features of these types of interpretations, he himself insists that the Platonic writings must be looked at in the way that is appropriate to a dialogue. He distinguishes three components of the dialogue form as perceived by Plato: (a) Sentences of opinion and of reasoned conviction; (b) The dialogic component--i. e., the participants of the dialogues, each with his character, experience, background (pp. 28-30) ; (c) The dramatic devices--i. e., scene, movements of participants, entrances and exists, gestures. (pp. 25-26) And although the author seems to agree with most scholars that philosophical ideas are of paramount importance for Plato, he nonetheless claims that Plato wrote as he did for good reasons, namely,

. . . to demonstrate the relation between what a participant says and what he himself is. . . Philosophical concepts are not connected in propositions in a vacuum, but in a concrete context of human beings and their very complex interrelationship. What Plato is attempting to accomplish is nothing less than a union, little tried and very rarely succeeded in by other philosophers, of a drama and conflict of ideas and the similar but not quite parallel drama and conflict of persons... .To both of these the " dramatic touches " provide vivid clues, but only clues, for they are not substantive statements and proofs. (pp. 26-27)

I do not think many scholars would disagree with Plochmann's contention that the dramatic elements of the Platonic dialogue must be taken into account. To do so, however, in a way that is both interesting and illuminating philosophically is not an easy task--and is moreover a task at which Plochmann largely fails. He contents himself with sporadic generalities and vague statements about the dramatic elements of the dialogues which fail to provide insight into the philosophical ideas Plato is examining.

Plochmann's book consists of selections from Plato's writings with schematic outlines (pp. 155-534) and a long introductory essay. (pp. 9-155) The selections include the Ion, Protagoras, Symposium, Apology, Phaedo, Republic (Books VI in part, VII, VIII, IX in part), Timaeus (in part), and Critias. The author uses the Jowett translations but only mentions this indirectly on p. 158, an unhelpful omission. The introductory essay contains some biographical material (pp. 11-22) and some general remarks about the Platonic corpus and the problems with interpreting it (pp. 22-35) ; but the greatest part is devoted to a discussion of the Platonic Philosophy, (pp. 35-129) and of Platonism and the History of Western Thought. (pp. 129-155) The discussion of the Platonic Philosophy covers God and the Gods, Cosmos and Animal, Man's Soul, The Virtues, The Arts, The State, Education, Mathematics, Types of Cognition, Ideas or Forms, Truth and Being, Dialectic, Eight Impostor Methods. These same topics are then discussed in the section on Platonism and the History of Western Thought, where the author traces the influence of Platonism in subsequent Western thought.

It would be impossible to discuss all of the above topics critically and in detail here. I will therefore make some general comments and then briefly touch on two or three of these topics. Plochmann's writing is certainly neither the most clear nor the most precise in the philosophical literature. Excessive use of figurative, metaphorical, and allegorical language often makes it difficult to see what he has in mind. What is gained, for example, by writing in the following manner?

It seems that something would try to creep in and occupy the honorable place of dialectic, unseat it, shame it, and dismiss it as being of no consequence. To accomplish this such an imposter would be required either to look very much like dialectic--so that only a close dialectical examination could show up the differences--or else be able to refute dialectic, or both. (p. 116)

At other times it is hard to believe that Plochmann is serious--especially in his discussion of the history of Platonism. This part of the introductory essay consists primarily of vague generalizing statements without clearly defined terms, and of assertions without evidence, concerning the influence of Platonism that will certainly amaze even the most fertile imagination. On p. 131 he writes that

. . . the conception of a host of lesser divinities and demigods which we find in the Timaeus, Republic, Phaedrus, and elsewhere, is transmuted into the Christian doctrine of the angels, principalities, and powers, levels of goodness and semi-divine strength.

And noticing that in contemporary thinking the existence of these divine beings has been denied, Plochmann concludes by saying that

This does not mean that the issue is settled, but we should point out again that the struggle in the pulpit mirrors exactly the dilemmas which Plato's Socrates had to face, both within himself and in the court of his accusers.

On the same page, commenting on Plato's influence on later conceptions of the Cosmos and Animal, Plochmann writes:

Plato's atomism is joined with his theory of an active soul in the monadic centers of spiritual force that are forever associated with the name of Leibniz, and his atoms, deprived of their ability to develop spiritually, are again found in the " hard, massy particles that never wear " of Sir Isaac Newton.

On p. 132 we learn that " a theory, called vitalism, is a simplification of what Plato says concerning the primacy of reason and soul. " On p. 134 that " one interesting sidelight on the influence of Platonism in the twentieth century, especially in the United States, is the tremendous upsurge of enthusiasm for the art of astrology." The list of assertions of this type is far too long to be given in its entirety here. But no reviewer of this book would want to deprive his readers of the following two passages

which seem to me to be some of the more bewildering assertions about the history of Platonism. Discussing Plato's contribution as a philosopher of education on pp. 140-141, Plochmann writes:

Socrates' method seems to require individual attention, penetrating insight, and many gifts of patient and inspired explanation and interrogation. Where does one get a chance to practice this? Perhaps in the best graduate colleges or tutorial systems, but certainly nowhere else. Consequently the educators have proposed that machines supplement live teachers, and do the drilling. This overlooks the fact that the drilling is not always a matter of bare repetition, which thus far is all that a computer can perform. On the other hand, computers are barely three decades old, and perhaps some day a little part of the Socratic ideal might be realized in them.

And concluding his discussion of the influences of Plato's theory of Forms on subsequent thought, Plochmann writes:

Because devices of persuasion of the masses have received so much suspicious attention in the past four decades, we have become highly sensitive to the use of universal expressions. Thus, " glittering generalities " is a term of disapproval, and indeed one need do little more than charge an opponent with using one of these in order to discredit him. By coincidence, we have in these same decades seen the decimation and even the disappearance of species after species of animal, owing to the befouling of earth and atmosphere, and this too has shaken the belief in any kind of type or form more permanent than the individual. At the moment, then, the existence of the species as anything more than a word is generally held up to doubt, if not to scorn.

Turning now to the discussions of the various topics that make up the Platonic Philosophy, it is obvious that, although the discussions vary somewhat in quality, all suffer from lack of clarity, vagueness, and the author's unwillingness to discuss in depth the main ideas of Plato. Although the discussions of Cosmos and Animal, Man's Soul, and Dialectic fare better than those of other topics, some of the important topics of Platonism, however, are treated in the most inadequate way. Take for example the discussion on the State, and in particular Plochmann's account of the Republic. Plochmann in one paragraph mentions very briefly the whole problem of social justice and its relation to the individual soul. His account is simply that,

The excellences, or virtues, of the three pairs [three parts of the soul and three classes] are, in order, wisdom, courage, and temperance. But this ignores the unity, the cohesiveness, both of the soul and of the state, and justice is the principle of this balance in the soul and the state. To each faculty, to each class, belongs its own function; this is the essence of political justice, as opposed to busy-bodying or meddling, which is the principal meaning of injustice. (p. 65)

I doubt that this discussion will be of any use to a student of Plato attempting to understand the important problems of the Republic. I find

the discussion on Education equally inadequate. Commenting on the apparent contradiction between the conclusions of Meno--that virtue comes from divine dispensation--and that of the Protagoras--where Socrates claims that virtue is not knowledge and hence is not teachable, and Protagoras claims the contrary--Plochmann says that this seems to be contradictory till we see the following: (a) In the Meno, unlike the Protagoras, " we are dealing with rough-and-ready formulas about virtue which may or may not be satisfactory (the gods will decide!) as a guide to action in the community. " (b) " In the Protagoras the issue is between the Sophist's day-to-day compound of instruction and persuasion which is evidently not based upon sound principles . . . and Socrates' more exact, thoughtful instruction which uses the most careful tests for all ideas at issue, and which is aimed at the reform of one's character. " (p. 74) Plochmann never makes clear where the apparent contradiction between the conclusions of Meno and the Protagoras is nor how the above distinctions do away with it. He then argues that this same problem can be viewed from a different perspective, i. e., the role of tradition in education. He takes Plato and Socrates to have emphasized this role of tradition and writes:

Plato, then, is telling us that tradition is one of the fundamental factors required in any successful grasp of teaching, whether it be the dry and pedestrian arguments of Parmenides or the lightfooted treading by Socrates in his more prankish moods. The sense of time and of the past and change is of the utmost importance to Plato, who evidently scorned those who thought they had been born yesterday. (pp. 75-76)

He then turns to the " politics of education " where he discusses Plato's account of education in the Republic. This discussion stays on the whole close to the surface and fails to bring out any of the philosophical issues and problems. Why does Plato think that his account of education would be conducive to virtue? What are the psychological theories underlying his views on education?

The discussion of the Forms and of Being and Truth seem to me, however, to be the most inadequate. In reading Plochmann's account of the Forms I found it impossible to determine what he takes these entities to be. He writes,

It makes a difference to man whether ideas exist; the only thing is, they exist in many senses, but to assert that they also exist in certain other senses winds up in nonsense. Socrates is not impartial, but he is highly selective. We might say that all beautiful girls are beautiful, for example, not because of certain details of nose, eyes, hair, etc., but because they imitate or participate in an idea of beauty--this is Socrates' proposal, and Parmenides misses the point in thinking that there must be a part-by-part or whole-by-whole correspondence between thing and idea. (p. 94)

Whatever the first part of this passage means, the last part of it is certainly mistaken. Parmenides had a point and Plato was well aware of its significance, which Plochmann misses. In trying to elucidate the permanence of the Forms, he writes:

We should say that the idea of the number three, which is different from the number two, is permanent in the sense that whatever is two will never become three, what is even will never become odd (Phaedo 106b), and what is intelligible in this way will never become unknowable. (p. 96)

This cannot be true. If it was, then the idea of Beauty (Justice, Piety, Goodness, Largeness, etc.) is permanent in the sense that whatever is beautiful (just, pious, good, etc.) will never become ugly (unjust, impious, bad, etc.). If Platonists ever agreed about anything, it seems to me they agree that Plato never said anything like the above.

I will conclude by touching upon Plochmann's discussion of Being. He says with regard to change that there are four possibilities: (1) "No changes, only static being " ; (2) " only uniform change, with no other being, no fixity " ; (3) " only random change " ; (4) " If, on the other hand, the world at large is made up of all of the first three . . . then what we have is a vastly complicated set of adjustments as being, uniformity, and randomness rule, now in one way, now in another. " (p. 99) Plochmann thinks that Plato takes the cosmos to be as described by the last alternative, i. e., that it has all three aspects. He then tries to show that the dialogues themselves display this threefold " layered " aspect: fixed structures, e.g., the necessities of proof; transient but predictable events, e. g., the execution of Socrates after sentence had been passed and after he had refused to escape from prison; chance occasions, e. g., unforeseen meetings, interruptions, misunderstandings. He then goes on to argue that all these aspects must be reconciled in order to see the true relation between being and becoming in Plato's thought:

These three are not easy to reconcile, but they must be reconciled, or we miss what is most important in Plato. Nor is it easy to tag a single incident or personage with a single designation: we are tempted to think of Socrates, the man having wisdom, as representative of being, of stability, of permanence. But at the end of the Symposium--a colossal masterpiece, by the way--he is not deified, he is not revealed as anything more than a man who is somewhat baffling to his admirers: and he goes about the business of the day, which is to say he is again taken up with becoming. In the Phaedo, which can well claim to be the literary equal of the Symposium, Socrates really dies and is not resurrected, as we have already pointed out. So in any literal sense we cannot assume for him any special privilege of a higher cosmic rank, a divine nature. (p. 100)

I hope the reader will find this explanation of Being and Becoming more illuminating than I do--otherwise he will be in the dark.

I am quite certain that the reader will find Weingartner's book vastly

superior to Plochmann's. Weingartner writes clearly and precisely. He judiciously examines the Platonic texts as well as the secondary literature on the topics he discusses. The reader will profit from the careful analysis of these texts, even if he disagrees with some of Weingartner's interpretation. The most important aspect of Weingartner's book is its thesis about the way the Platonic texts must be interpreted in order to determine what Plato himself wanted to say, convey, or show.

Weingartner points out that Plato wrote dialogues in which he never himself appears as participant. It would be a mistake therefore to disregard this dramatic idiom and take the utterances of the participants of the Platonic dialogues as being statements of Plato's own philosophical positions:

Plato wrote dialogues: a mind--one that is not identical with the minds of Socrates, the Stranger, Parmenides, Callicles, Protagoras, Meno, and all the rest--composed each of the works, and for a purpose that is not the same as the purposes displayed by these characters. (p. 6)

It would be equally a mistake, according to Weingartner, to take the dialogues to be historical accounts of what these participants said and did at particular places and times. Rather

The existence of those words and gestures can be accounted for only by reference to the author of the dialogue in his role as philosopher-artist. . . . Once again we must interpret the various components of the dialogue as fulfilling an author's purpose, a purpose that goes far beyond recording what might in fact have happened. (p. 10)

Plato's purpose, according to Weingartner, is to "speak to his readers through his dialogues. " Plato, by means of his dialogues, conveys philosophical themes. A theme is something that unifies a particular dialogue itself:

Plato is not reduced to choosing between showing and saying: a dialogue may have a theme--even a conclusion--which is Plato's and not that of his creatures, a theme which is upheld by the entire work, although it may never be explicitly stated within it. . .The theme of a Platonic dialogue is extrinsic to it only in the sense that it is not stated as such by one of the participants in the discussion; in a vital, though different, sense it is an all-pervasive feature of the work. (pp. 6-7)

But if a theme is not stated in a dialogue, what is the evidence that Plato was conveying such themes? We can only support a claim about the theme of a particular dialogue by a close examination of that dialogue, by showing how the theme unifies the dialogue and makes its parts intelligible:

No evidence can be given for such a claim about the Platonic dialogues in general; support must come from the detailed examination of particular works. . . Evidence that Plato was conveying specific philosophical themes by means of his dialogues

must take the form of showing how, on the one hand, that theme unifies the work and renders it a whole and, on the other, how it makes intelligible its component parts-- speeches, arguments, characterizations--in relation to each other. (pp. 7-8)

The aim of Weingartner's book is precisely this: to examine three of Plato's dialogues--Cratylus, Protagoras, and Parmenides--and show how each one of them conveys a philosophical theme. But, first, it is not clear to me on what grounds we can make the general claim Weingartner makes that what the participants assert are not their own nor Plato's philosophical views. Undoubtedly this is true in some cases. But are we to say that what Socrates asserts about the Forms in the Phaedo and Republic are not Plato's positions--at least at that stage of his philosophical development? And are we to say that Socrates' assertions in the Republic regarding Justice, the State, etc., are not accounts of Plato's views on these matters? I doubt that Weingartner would want to say this. For he himself takes the Parmenides to be primarily an effort to resolve some of the difficulties with the theory of Forms of the Middle Dialogues, a theory which he takes to be Plato's own theory. Second, there is a danger in finding a theme extrinsic to a dialogue--even if such a theme unifies the whole dialogue--and claiming that this is what Plato wants to convey. For there is always the danger of leaving the texts behind and making claims about Plato's philosophical beliefs which are not to be found stated anywhere in the texts. We shall see below that Weingartner himself does not manage to avoid this danger.

Turning now to a brief discussion of the individual dialogues, Weingartner claims that, through the subject of discussion in the Cratylus is the true nature of names, the " single overriding purpose " (p. 15) is to convey the following theme: " Hermogenes and Cratylus maintain theories of naming which, were they sound, would make dialectic impossible. Plato's aim is to keep the way clear for dialectic inquiry. " (p. 8, see also p. 16) Weingartner then sketches the theories of Hermogenes and Cratylus about the nature of names and attempts to show how they would make dialectic impossible. He then argues that Socrates puts forward a third theory which would make dialectic possible. I cannot discuss here all of Weingartner's contentions about the Cratylus, although I think that many of them are not borne out by the text. I will say a few things about the three theories of the nature of names and their relation to dialectic. In discussing Hermogenes' theory Weingartner focuses only on Hermogenes' extreme form of conventionalism, or what we should rather call naming by fiat or autonomous idiolects. He fails to see that Hermogenes puts forward several other forms of conventionalism. Weingartner then claims that Hermogenes' naming by fiat makes dialectic impossible. (p. 18) However, even if this were true, it is not clear that it applies to all the other forms of conventionalism

advanced by Hermogenes at the opening of the Cratylus. In any case, one would not find in the text any indication that even naming by fiat makes dialectic impossible. No such thing is discussed in Socrates' attempt to refute Hermogenes' extreme form of conventionalism. And Weingartner's only evidence comes from Socrates' remarks against Heracliteanism at the end of the dialogue. But I fail to see what this has to do with Hermogenes' position. Concerning Cratylus' theory Weingartner claims that, if the nature of names were what Cratylus claims it is, one would have the nature of the thing named represented in the name. And therefore there would be no room for dialectic inquiry into the nature of things. Again there is nowhere in the dialogue a discussion that I know of concerning this claim. In any case I find this a worthless argument against Cratylus and one that it is not likely to be Plato's argument. I know of no place where Plato makes dialectic an end in itself. He rather thinks of it as a means to attaining the truth about the nature of things. And if one has the truth in the names of things, so much the worse for dialectic. Indeed, Socrates expresses a preference for a language consisting of natured names--in Cratylus' sense--precisely for the reason that such names would give one the truth about the nature of things. Weingartner claims, contrary to what practically all others have written, that Socrates puts forward a theory on the nature of names which is different from the ones advanced by Hermogenes and Cratylus. He nowhere, however, states precisely what his theory is. At one point he says that "If the shift from names to naming is not seen, the fact that Socrates and Cratylus maintain very different positions can never become clear. " (p. 29) He then goes on to say that it is the user of names who determines their adequacy in relation to their function. (p. 34) And that for Socrates the correctness of names is measured by their suitability for the dialectician's work. (p. 35) I do not see, however, how all this constitutes a theory. And I think a close reading of the text shows that Socrates' discussion of the function of names is but one step in a long argument to refute Hermogenes' conventionalism and establish that there must be what Cratylus calls natural correctness in names. All in all, I believe a close examination of the text will show that Weingartner's claimed theme has very little to do with what the Cratylus is all about--but this is no place to discuss what the theme of the dialogue is.

Weingartner's discussion of the Protagoras, to which the greater part of his book is devoted, is certainly on better grounds. The author makes many insightful remarks about the personages of the dialogue--their background, mannerisms, behavior, speeches, claims to knowledge--and carefully analyzes what is asserted by them. At the same time he continuously focuses the discussion on what he takes to be the theme of the dialogue and tries to show how each part of the dialogue points to this theme:

Plato pits two conceptions of morality and education against each other and shows, by means of a dramatic interchange between Socrates and Protagoras, that the very problems the Sophist aims to solve require the philosophic methods and commitments of Plato's Socrates. The many components of the dialogue can, in this way, be seen as constituting a unified work. (p. 10, see also pp. 45, 46, 47)

Protagoras, according to Weingartner, represents the uncritical educator and moralist. He accepts without examination the customs, practices, and precepts of the many as being what the good life is--although, unlike the poets, he reflects upon these practices, customs, etc., by finding and articulating the principles that are implicit in them (p. 65). And he professes to be an educator of virtue without examining whether and how it can be taught. Socrates, on the other hand, represents the critical mind. He forces Protagoras to see the problems and even contradictions in the views of the many about morality--e. g., the unity of virtue, the relation of knowledge and virtue, the involuntariness of evil, the role of knowledge in action, etc. He also forces Protagoras to examine what he takes for granted in his role as the great teacher: that virtue can be taught. Here then Plato paints a contrast of two types: the unphilosophic one who does not inquire but settles for easy answers, and the philosophic one whose method is critical and whose goal is truth.

The last chapter of the book deals with the Parmenides. The relation of the two parts of the dialogue has always been a puzzle. As Weingartner points out, even Ryle, who ventured a suggestion as to how the two parts are related, later admitted his attempt to unify the dialogue " may have been gratuitous. " Weingartner thinks that Ryle gave up too easily. He claims that there is a theme which the dialogue conveys and which in turn unifies its two parts:

Plato is here [in the Parmenides] engaged in revising his views on both the method by which knowledge is attained and on the nature of the objects of knowledge themselves. This principal not only holds together the two major parts of the dialogue, but serves as a key, as well, to the puzzle of the first section . . . .I propose to show that if the arguments Parmenides makes against the forms are taken cumulatively, that is, in relation  to one another and to the purpose of the entire series, a good deal of the mystery that has surrounded them disappears (pp. 11-12).

Weingartner concentrates almost exclusively on a discussion of the first part of the Parmenides, and at the end of the chapter indicates how the problems raised in the first part are related to those raised in the second. He claims that in the first part Plato is re-examining the theory of Forms that was presented in the Middle Dialogues. In that theory Forms play various roles: they are paradigms, exemplars of the highest reality and value, having causal functions, and they are also universals. The Forms are the only objects of knowledge and the method of knowledge in the Middle

Dialogues is " hypothesis and deduction." In the Parmenides he came to realize that there are problems and contradictions involved in the above conception of the Forms. In a careful discussion of the two versions of the Third Man Argument, Weingartner argues that Plato comes to realize that it is the self-predication of Forms--a necessary element in the conception of Forms as exemplars--that leads into infinite regress and that therefore it must be abandoned. (pp. 155-178, 191-194) This criticism, together with the other ones raised by Parmenides, of the conception of Forms as exemplars, is related to what Plato discusses in the second part of the dialogue. For Plato there, according to Weingartner, " investigates a number of hypotheses regarding the relation of the One to the other Forms. " (p. 195) That is, we have here a preliminary working out of the method of Collection and Division which is to be developed fully in the Sophist and Statesman. This method studies the " weaving together " and " blending " of the Forms. But, Weingartner argues, " self-predictional paradigms are eminently unfit for such exercises, " since paradigms are viewed as " super-particulars " which do not blend. (p. 196) Thus emerges is a new theory of Forms, which is articulated fully in the later dialogues.

Such forms cannot be model instances, but are more likely criteria which models of that sort must satisfy. They are not super-things to be seen by the mind's eye, but definitional principles to be arrived at by reflection . . . the form of Plato's late dialogues are genuinely objects of knowledge: while it would be wrong to say that they are linguistic in nature, they are very like the definitions that tell what characteristics things have (p. 197).

I certainly find the above suggestion of Weingartner concerning the unity of the Parmenides to be interesting. It seems to me, however, almost impossible to determine its validity without a careful examination of the second part of the dialogue. Weingartner does not offer an analysis of that part to show that in fact Plato there investigates how the One blends with the other Forms. But whatever the results of such an analysis might be, it seems to me there is a puzzle here in calling the suggestion about the unity of the Parmenides the theme of the dialogue. For in what sense is this extrinsic to or conveyed by the dialogue? The arguments of the first part are explicitly a re-examination and criticism of the Forms and do not merely " convey " or " point " to a certain theme. This, however, does not detract from the value of Weingartner's suggestion concerning the unity of the dialogue; it only raises a doubt about the preciseness of the notion of a theme as a tool for interpreting Plato's writings and the usefulness of its application to every dialogue.

Finally, the book closes with a brief discussion of the place of the Timaeus in the order of the dialogues. Weingartner is aware that the theory of Forms in the Timaeus is the theory we find in the Middle Dialogues and not the theory which, according to Weingartner, Plato held in the late

dialogues. And this conflicts with the traditional view that the dialogue is one of the latest. The author is not eager to accept G. E. L. Owen's thesis that the Timaeus belongs to the period close to the Republic, although it would be consistent with his own view of the development of the theory of forms. And he is not willing to accept that the dialogue belongs to the late period and " exemplifies a reversion, on the part of Plato, to an earlier view; the dialogue is a symptom of a relapse, so to speak. " (p. 200) Weingartner then offers an interesting suggestion which is consistent with placing the Timaeus in the late period but does not fall back to claiming a relapse on Plato's part. Rather, he claims that the different conceptions of Forms were arrived at by Plato in order to solve at least two types of problems: logical and metaphysical. And that in the Parmenides Plato does not really abandon either of these conceptions but rather separates them or sorts them out. Plato, then, never made a final choice between these conceptions but utilized the one which was appropriate to the problems that concerned him at the moment:

One conception of forms is subsequently utilized in the late " analytic " dialogues as the object of a dialectic that is understood to be collection and division, while forms as exemplars are utilized in the cosmology of the Timaeus. . . .Without impatience, he [Plato] refrains from a final commitment and eschews converting reflections into doctrines. (p. 201)

Georgios Anagnostopoulos

University of California

San Diego, California

Language and Belief. By Jean Ladrière. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1972. Pp. 204. $10.95.

Collected essays written at unrelated occasions are by their nature likely to be slightly disparate, occasionally repetitious, and generally sketchy in their argumentation. In view of those inherent defects one is all the more struck by the unifying power of Ladrière's collection. The author, professor in the philosophy of science at the University of Louvain, skillfully controls a number of fields and manages to create synthetic unity out of an impressive diversity of subjects. Specialist in formal logic and the philosophy of science, he handles philosophy of religion, ethical theory, structuralist theory with equal competence. One of the few important linguistic analysts outside the Anglo-American world Ladrière refuses to copulate analysis to the empiricist assumptions which it adopted from the cultural tradition of its country of origin. In fact, he constantly connects it with such leading trends in continental philosophy as hermeneutics and phenomenology, disciplines which the average analyst here has relegated to the antipodes. Thus Ladrière throws solid bridges between the formal

systems of the natural sciences, the hermeneutic methods of the human sciences and metaphysics the science of the totality of real as such. The first part of his essay on " Science, Philosophy and Faith " is a classic that deserves to be anthologized in every collection on the scope and method of philosophy. Yet, beyond this " novum organum " of human knowledge, Ladrière still feels the need for a further horizon which places the sciences themselves in a new perspective--the dimension of faith. His discussion of revelation, religious language and, especially, of the nature and function of myth reveals an intimate acquaintance with the problems of faith and its theological articulation.

Personally I feel some reservations about treating faith and revelation exclusively from a Christian and, indeed, Barthian perspective, without placing it in the totality of the religious experience as such. The scientia universalis becomes somewhat abruptly connected with a particular theological