Aristotle's Posterior Analytics Research Articles

Avicenna's Theory of Science: Logic, Metaphysics, Epistemology by Riccardo Strobino

Reviewed by: Avicenna's Theory of Science: Logic, Metaphysics, Epistemology by Riccardo Strobino Thérèse-Anne Druart Riccardo Strobino. Avicenna's Theory of Science: Logic, Metaphysics, Epistemology. Oakland: University of California Press, 2021. Pp. xvi + 428. Hardback, $95.00. Strobino's remarkable book does not simply present Avicenna's theory of science; it also highlights the importance of demonstration not only for logic but also for metaphysics and epistemology. Hence, Strobino's work is essential to appreciate and better understand Avicenna's philosophy as a whole. Strobino grounds his research on Avicenna's theory of science in his Book of Demonstration in the Shifā', which focuses on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. Taking into account the lack of any translation into English or any other main modern language as well as the lack of a full medieval Latin translation (only chapter 7 of book 3 exists in a medieval Latin version) of Avicenna's text, Strobino kindly provides in appendix C (357–71) a detailed "map" of this text, useful not only to readers who cannot handle Arabic but even to those who can, as the [End Page 326] text is so rich and complex. A simple but careful look at this map confirms what Strobino makes clear and insists upon: Avicenna greatly develops, enriches, completes, and even outgrows some of Aristotle's views. The Book of Demonstration is far more than a commentary on the Posterior Analytics; it is a complete reworking of it. Strobino shows that Avicenna grounds his theory of demonstration and science on two basic notions—conception (tasawwur) and assertion (tasdīq, which some other scholars translate as "assent")—and so gives a unified approach to his theory. Scientific conceptions require better understanding of definition and description. Avicenna builds definitions and descriptions on essentialism and, therefore, grounds them in metaphysics. As for scientific assertions, in contradistinction to nonscientific ones, they must be necessary and give the cause. Therefore, Avicenna places great importance on modality and develops modal syllogisms, whereas Aristotle focused on categorical syllogisms and neglected hypothetical and disjunctive syllogisms. Avicenna also elaborates a sophisticated account of modality and its metaphysical implications. Furthermore, he broadens and enriches the appreciation of causality and explanation. These developments, according to Strobino, lead Avicenna to set forth an intricate division and hierarchy of the sciences under metaphysics, which provides their ultimate principles and allows for a unified understanding of the sciences while respecting their particularities. According to Strobino, Avicenna is keen to develop a theory of science that gives a good account of science as it is practiced. Strobino carefully shows how Avicenna's theory better reflects this practice than does Aristotle's. Strobino does not simply highlight how much Avicenna distances himself from Aristotle and goes far beyond what the Posterior Analytics yields, but also shows how much Avicenna relies on points adumbrated by his predecessor al-Fārābī in his own Book of Demonstration. The way Strobino through his analysis of demonstration links Avicenna's understanding of logic, epistemology, and metaphysics underscores the coherence and unity of Avicenna's philosophy. Scholars were aware of the importance of demonstration for Avicenna in various philosophical fields, but until the release of this book, they seemed not to have fully grasped the centrality and essential role played by the Avicennian understanding and focus on demonstration. Of course, Strobino does not limit himself to an analysis of passages in the Book of Demonstration. He has an encompassing knowledge of Avicenna's texts and uses them well to flesh out and enrich what remains terse in the Book of Demonstration. He even takes into account the way one of his successors, al-Tūsī, reads him. He also shows an extensive and wide-ranging knowledge of Aristotle's texts and of Aristotelian scholarship, as well as an interest in the Greek commentators and Galen and their relevance for interpreting Avicenna. Avicenna's Theory of Science is not an easy book to read, as it is often very technical, particularly when dealing with purely logical points or issues, but reading it is rewarding if one does so slowly and meditatively. The author, in fact, illuminates difficult matters but does not waste words. From...

CORRECTING PTOLEMY AND ARISTOTLE: IBN AL-ṢALĀḤ ON MISTAKES IN THE ALMAGEST, ON THE HEAVENS, AND POSTERIOR ANALYTICS

AbstractThe polymath Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ (d. 1154 CE) is known for a number of comparatively small treatises on specific aspects of ancient Greek mathematical and philosophical works. He devotes many of his works to greater or smaller errors that he found in the works by Euclid, Ptolemy, and Aristotle. The aim of the present paper, which focuses on three treatises on Ptolemy and Aristotle, is to describe Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ’s method and aim in these works. I argue that his treatises on the Almagest, On the Heavens, and Posterior Analytics follow a similar structure and that there is much value for modern research resulting from the bibliographical details provided by Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ. To give but just one example, Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ attests to the existence of a so far unknown Arabic translation of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. In this way, this paper is the first to establish Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ’s research profile: his works tell us which sources were available to scholars active in Baghdad and Damascus in the 12th century CE and how he tried to resolve contradictions from the different versions of authoritative texts. Thus, this paper enhances our knowledge of the Graeco-Arabic transmission of scientific and philosophical texts.

Avicenna on Knowledge (ʿILM), Certainty (Yaqīn), Cause (ʿILLA/SABAB) and the Relative (MUḌĀF)

In his Kitāb al-Burhān (Book of Demonstration), Avicenna discusses a theoretical framework broadly inspired by Aristotle's Posterior Analytics which brings together logic, epistemology and metaphysics. One of the central questions explored in the book is the problem of the relation between knowledge, certainty and causal explanation. Burhān 1.8, in particular, is devoted to the analysis of how certainty comes about in causal as opposed to non-causal contexts. The distinction is understood in Avicenna's system as one between cases in which the conclusion of an argument is warranted only in virtue of an appropriate middle term, and cases in which there is no such intermediary because the predicative link between subject and predicate of the conclusion is immediate. In this context, Avicenna makes use of the case of relative terms (muḍāfāt) to clarify certain crucial aspects of his theory. The paper explores this discussion and shows how Avicenna's account of the relatively marginal role of relatives in the context of demonstration depends on insights that are central to his metaphysics and epistemology.

Avicenna's Use of the Arabic Translations of the Posterior Analytics and the Ancient Commentary Tradition

In this paper I shall discuss the relationship between the two known Arabic translations of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics and Avicenna's Kitāb al-Burhān. I shall argue that Avicenna relies on both (1) Abū Bishr Mattā's translation and (2) the anonymous translation used by Averroes in the Long Commentary as well as in the Middle Commentary (and also indirectly preserved by Gerard of Cremona's Latin translation of Aristotle's work). Although, generally speaking, the problem is relevant to the history of the transmission of the Posterior Analytics from Greek through Syriac into Arabic, I do not intend to give a systematic presentation of the historical setting in which Aristotle's work became readily available to the Arabo-Islamic culture. My aim here is rather to isolate and discuss some pieces of evidence concerning the texts that seem to have been available to Avicenna.In addition to that, I shall also provide evidence concerning the relationship with the Greek commentary tradition (in particular Philoponus and Themistius) that is likely to have influenced Avicenna in his discussion of Aristotle's theory of demonstration and scientific knowledge.

Robert Grosseteste's Conclusiones and the Commentary on the Posterior Analytics

AbstractThis article examines the nature of Robert Grosseteste's commentary on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics with particular reference to his “conclusions” (conclusiones). It is argued (using book 1, chapter 2, of the commentary as a case study) that the simple demonstrative appearance of the commentary, which is very much the result of the 64 conclusions, is in part an illusion. Thus, the exposition in the commentary is not simply based on the strict principles of the Posterior Analytics and on the proof-procedures of Euclidean geometry; rather the commentary is a complicated mixture of different elements of twelfth-century texts and the scholarship of Grosseteste's day.

A Trial of GalileosGalileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism. Mario BiagioliNovelties in the Heavens: Rhetoric and Science in the Copernican Controversy. Jean Dietz MossGalileo, Human Knowledge, and the Book of Nature: Method Replaces Metaphysics. Joseph C. PittGalileo's Logic of Discovery and Proof: The Background, Content, and Use of His Appropriated Treatises on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics.

A Trial of Galileos<i>Galileo, Courtier: The Practice of Science in the Culture of Absolutism</i>. Mario Biagioli<i>Novelties in the Heavens: Rhetoric and Science in the Copernican Controversy</i>. Jean Dietz Moss<i>Galileo, Human Knowledge, and the Book of Nature: Method Replaces Metaphysics</i>. Joseph C. Pitt<i>Galileo's Logic of Discovery and Proof: The Background, Content, and Use of His Appropriated Treatises on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics</i>.

The Inference That Makes Science by Ernan McMullin

BOOK REVIEWS The Inference That Makes Science. By ERNAN McMULLIN. The Aquinas Lecture, 1992. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1992. Pp. iv +112. In this ambitious lecture Father Ernan McMullin recapitulates and refines a thesis that has guided his thought for the past forty years. In essence the thesis is this: precisely how science is made has eluded the best minds for centuries, and only in the work of Charles Sanders Peirce, suitably emended by McMullin, has the puzzle finally been solved. " Retroduction " is the inference that makes science. Once this is understood, errors on what constitutes scientific method-those of Aristotle, Aquinas, Galileo, Newton, Bacon, Hume, et al.-can be rectified and one can see science for what it truly is: a complex process of theory appraisal that yields, not definitive truth, but well-established results to which assent can be given with at best "practical certainty," whatever that might be (pp. 91-96). Why McMullin should have chosen such a theme for an Aquinas Lecture is a question that defies reasonable answer. Surely one does not have to he so negative about the thought of Aristotle, Aquinas, and Galileo to advance one's ideas about science in the present day. What McMullin could easily have done, and he hints at this in the last two paragraphs of his lecture (pp. 97-98), is show how retroduction is itself simply a relaxed version of the demonstrative regress, the method actually endorsed by Aristotle, Aquinas, and Galileo. Such a retroductive version, fair enough, yields knowledge of a probable cause, the type of knowledge most typical of modern science. McMullin did not have to embark on the dangerous course of trying to prove that proof and certainty are forever beyond the grasp of science, or that never in the history of science has anyone established a definitive truth. That, in effect, is what McMullin has tried to do, and in the attempt to make the point he fumbles at almost every juncture throughout a very long lecture. To set the record straight more than a review is being re--·quested; perhaps a book, and even that might not suffice for those whose minds are made up. To understand the import of the lecture one must appreciate that it is hut a brief episode in a debate over demonstration in science that has been going on since McMullin first came to the University of Notre Dame in 1954. I myself have published many hooks and articles that engage the very point of his lecture and provide the contra evidence to 131 132 BOOK REVIEWS show elements of continuity in scientific method from Aristotle to the present. My last two volumes, in press at the same time as McMullin's Aquinas Lecture, answer in detail the aporiai he there raises.1 I need 1 Galileo's Logic of Discovery and Proof. The Backgrnund, Content, and Use of His Appropriated Treatises on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 137. Dordrecht-Boston-London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992, xxiii + 323 pp.; Galileo's Logical Treatises. A Translation, with Notes and Commentary, of His Appropriated Questions on Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science 138. DordrechtBoston -London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992, xix + 239 pp. only refer the interested reader to them for an extended and documented reply to his arguments. Some idea of the flavor of our debate, however, can be gained from the following. To support his thesis, McMullin has to maintain that Aristotle's proof that the moon is a sphere (from its having phases) and that Galileo's proofs that there are mountains on the moon, that Jupiter has satellites, and that Venus circles the sun (all based on telescopic observations) are not strictly demonstrative, that is, they do not yield true and certain conclusions. He declines to answer a query I have often tendered whether he personally is certain on the basis of pre-spacecraft evidence that the moon is a sphere, that there are mountains on it, that Jupiter has satellites, and so on. Instead he offers the categorical response "that planetary science is not an apodictic science , indeed that no natural science is...

Thomistic Papers IV ed. by Leonard A. Kennedy

BOOK REVIEWS 371 his contemporaries one can find implicare or implicatio used to mean contradiction without a complementary " contradictionem " or " contradictionis ." For example, cf. Suarez: Disputationes metaphysicae, disp. 30, sect. 17, nn. 12, 14, 17 (?), 19, and 20 (ed. Vives: Vol. 26, pp. 209-213); in the last of these places Suarez even uses the expression : "implicatio in adjecto." For the same usage, cf. G. Reeb, SJ., Thesaurus philosophorum seu distinctiones et axiomata philosophica, Brixinae, 1871 (original edition at Ingolstadt in 1629), pp. 306-307; "... implicare idem est, quod involvere et importare contradictionem; adeoque idem simul esse et non esse, esse tale et non esse tale: et sic dicimus, id quod implicat, nee divina virtute fieri posse." But once again, my demurral is very mild. Freddoso is much more familiar with Molina's style than I am, and his interpolation may well be on target. Summing up, I think Professor Freddoso's accurate and readable volume, which is completed by a moderately good bibliography, an index of names, and a subject index, is a fine addition to an ever growing body of medieval texts in translation. I would like to see it read in numerous graduate courses, as well as in upper-division undergraduate courses, populated by students eager to know something of the exquisitely deep and subtle thoughts of later Catholic scholastics such as Luis de Molina. JOHN P. DOYLE St. Louis University St. Louis, Missouri Thomistic Papers IV. Ed. by LEONARD A. KENNEDY. Houston: Center for Thomistic Studies, 1988. Pp. 207. Polemic against a polemic: that is the way Henry Veatch, in the opening essay, characterizes Thomistic Papers IV. And too often the volume has precisely that unwelcome flavor. However, tone aside, the seven contributors to the volume have two converging agendas. One is to show that Alvin Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstor:ff, in their Faith and Rationality (Notre Dame, 1983), have badly misunderstood and misinterpreted Thomas Aquinas. The other is to show that these authors' project of Reformed epistemology is either inadequate or mistaken. The first theme recurs frequently in the volume. Several of the authors (Veatch, Henri DuLac, Thomas Russman) contend that Plantinga and Wolterstorff have misinterpreted Thomas's view of the relation of faith and reason, and that this has led to their (mistaken) charge that 37~ BOOK REVIEWS Thomas is an evidentialist (though to my knowledge Plantinga never claims and Wolterstorff expressly denies that Thomas is an evidentialist ) or a narrow foundationalist [one who holds that" all (non-foundational ) knowledge must be derivable from ... foundational knowledge by strictly logical operations" (189) ]. For Thomas, since faith is a way of knowing, it is rational to believe things on faith, and even though external evidence is relevant to showing that the sources of faith-knowledge (revelation) are reliable, the evidence is not used demonstratively. A second contention is that, though Thomas, like Plantinga and Wolterstorff, admits that there are self-evident truths, his concept of per se nota truths is much broader than mere analyticity (Veatch, Joseph Boyle). Per se nota truths are informative about the world and hence can provide a richer base for evidencing other truths. A third contention is that the Thomistic relation between basic beliefs and derived beliefs is not narrowly or strictly deductive, but inductive and often probabilistic (Veatch, Russman), often accompanied by a logically irreducible component (what Russman calls insight). Plantinga has (wrongly) taken Aristotle's Posterior Analytics as the sole model of scientia. The upshot of all this is that Plantinga might have better followed Wolterstorff's lead and left Thomas out of the foundationalist discussion , concentrating instead on Locke and the Enlightenment view of reason. This would not have altered Plantinga's thesis but might have given Thomists less occasion to take such a defensive posture. The second theme-that Plantinga and Wolterstorff's own project of Reformed epistemology is either inadequate or mistaken-is broached in several ways. Veatch and Boyle contend that both of Plantinga's two arguments against classical foundationalism founder. Plantinga's first argument-that foundationalism cannot account for much of what we hold it is reasonable to helieve-is unsuccessful for several reasons. For one thing, it fails to recognize that many per...

Essence, Existence, and Nominal Definition in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics II 8-10

Our aim in this paper is to clarify the various things Aristotle says about nominal definitions in Book II of the Posterior Analytics. In the early chapters of Book II Aristotle develops a series of puzzles concerning the nature of definition and its relationship to scientific demonstration. In chapters 8-10 answers to the puzzles are given in the course of a positive account of the different types of definitions and how they are related to Aristotle's theory of the syllogism and scientific demonstration. At the beginning of the constructive discussion in chapter 8, Aristotle implies that some of the views expressed in the earlier chapters were not well said, but he does not indicate which specific views need to be rejected or modified. An adequate account of the discussion of definition in Book II would need to show how the constructive chapters are related to the earlier aporetic chapters, and also how this overall discussion fits into Aristotle's general theory of scientific knowledge and scientific investigation. Our task, as we see it, is an important preliminary to this larger project. We will concentrate on chapters 8-10, and specifically on what is said about the different kinds of definition. Questions about Aristotle's theory of science and scientific investigation will come up along the way, but they will be discussed only insofar as they are related to the different kinds of definition. We will also make a few suggestions about specific modifications and corrections introduced in chapters 8-10, but we will not attempt a general account of the relationship between these chapters and the earlier aporetic discussion. Our discussion will contain three main parts. We will first try to determine which passages in chapters 8-10 provide information about nominal definition, and then give a preliminary characterization of this kind of definition. In the next stage we will focus on questions concerning the relationship between nominal definitions and the existence of the things defined. Finally, we will examine the relationship between nominal and

Scientific Explanation: Three Basic Conceptions

When one takes a long look at the concept (or concepts) of scientific explanation, it is possible and plausible to distinguish three fundamental philosophical views. These might be called the epistemic, modal, and ontic. They can be discerned in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics and they are conspicuous in the twentieth-century literature. In its classic form—the inferential version—the epistemic conception takes scientific explanations to be arguments. During the period of almost four decades since the publication of the landmark Hempel-Oppenheim article, “Studies in the Logic of Explanation” (1948), the chairman of this symposium (Carl G. Hempel) has done more than anyone else to articulate, elaborate, and defend this basic conception and the familiar models that give it substance (Hempel 1965), though it has, of course, had many other champions as well. According to the modal conception, scientific explanations do their jobs by showing that what did happen had to happen.

BOOK REVIEWS

BOOK REVIEWS Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. Translated with notes by JONATHAN BARNES. Oxford: Clarendon Aristotle Series, 1975. Pp. xix+277. £7.00 (P.B. £3.00). A. R. LACEY A. R. LACEY BEDFORD COLLEGELONDON Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Mind, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 1, 1978, Pages 128–129, https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/LXXXVII.1.128 Published: 01 January 1978

Science Is Philosophy by Charles Hollencamp

824 BOOK REVIEWS sometimes in fact those more fit do not survive. Saying this implies that he has some objective standard or design in mind. It is, in effect, saying: " Look, those creatures are the fitter and should be surviving but they're not. Too bad! " How can the biologist appeal to designs which supposedly do not exist? Ruse seems to forget that, according to his own view, evolution means never having to say you are sorry. On pages 151 to 158 an interesting logical issue is raised: can biologists violate the rule that each genus must have at least two species and get away with it? This seems to happen when evolutionist taxonomists classify the aardvark. Ruse's solution is to switch from "extensional" to "intensional " definitions. Instead of listing individuals (Joe, John, Mary), list their characteristics (two-legged, big brained, etc.). Thus, to be in a broader class (e. g., primate) would require certain traits (e. g., twolegged ) while belonging to a narrower class (e. g., man) would require added traits (e. g., big brained). Although he does not quite make it, Ruse seems to think it is very modern to return to Aristotelian logic. Over-all, the work leaves two general impressions. One is that it is a parochial operation. Ruse gives numerous objections and answers but they are almost all from the same closed circle of neo-Positivistic thought, i. e., there is no attempt to go out to other traditions for new insights and points of view. Most of his time is spent acting as a mediator among conflicting scientific views rather than handling philosophically such views from all sides. This is in keeping with the tradition wherein one does not presume to have factual knowledge over and above that possessed by scientists. The first leads to the second. Ruse leaves you with the feeling that the only real task left to biology is to make itself obsolete thus doing away with the philosophy of biology altogether. The book itself is well-made and can be acquired in either hardback or paperback. University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario Canada F. F. CENTORE Science Is Philosophy. By CHARLES HoLLENC:AMP. Carthagena, Ohio: The Messenger Press, 1978. Pp. IIS. $8.00. The aim of this book, as the author himself puts it, is to introduce the philosophy of nature as physical science and physical science as the philosophy of nature. To do this Charles Hollencamp give us first a synthetic historical survey of the philosophy of nature from the early Greek thinkers to the various systems of contemporary philosophical thought. BOOK REVIEWS 8~5 This is the best part of the book and a necessary introduction to the problem of philosophy of nature in its relation to modem science, for science and philosophy had been considered to be the same discipline until the sixteenth century. Scientists were philosophers of nature, and philosophers of nature considered themselves scientists. Now, however, the majority of scientists and philosophers believe that science and philosophy are essentially two independent disciplines. This is paradoxical because even now it is difficult to perceive concrete scientific problems which are not, at the same time, problems of philosophy. True, the methodology of science is different from the methodology of philosophy, but both science and philosophy study the same subject matter, namely, the cosmos, man, and God. Hence the artificial dichotomy which started chiefly with Descartes and which has harmed philosophy as well as science. More than ever the insight of philosophy is necessary for the better understanding of science, and equally the data of contemporary science should be taken into consideration by philosophy if philosophy is to be worthy of its name. All the great scientists have been outstanding philosophers of nature. This book helps us to understand this historical conclusion. We must bear in mind that strictly speaking, the problem of science and philosophy is not a problem between scientists and philosophers but of philosophy and science as such. Hense it is crucial for the sake of clarity to set up the philosophical principles of the division and specification of the sciences as they are found in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. In this sense the book...

The Christian Faith In The Doctrinal Documents Of The Catholic Faith ed. by J. Neuner, S. J., J. Dupuis, S. J.

BOOK REVIEWS 8~5 This is the best part of the book and a necessary introduction to the problem of philosophy of nature in its relation to modem science, for science and philosophy had been considered to be the same discipline until the sixteenth century. Scientists were philosophers of nature, and philosophers of nature considered themselves scientists. Now, however, the majority of scientists and philosophers believe that science and philosophy are essentially two independent disciplines. This is paradoxical because even now it is difficult to perceive concrete scientific problems which are not, at the same time, problems of philosophy. True, the methodology of science is different from the methodology of philosophy, but both science and philosophy study the same subject matter, namely, the cosmos, man, and God. Hence the artificial dichotomy which started chiefly with Descartes and which has harmed philosophy as well as science. More than ever the insight of philosophy is necessary for the better understanding of science, and equally the data of contemporary science should be taken into consideration by philosophy if philosophy is to be worthy of its name. All the great scientists have been outstanding philosophers of nature. This book helps us to understand this historical conclusion. We must bear in mind that strictly speaking, the problem of science and philosophy is not a problem between scientists and philosophers but of philosophy and science as such. Hense it is crucial for the sake of clarity to set up the philosophical principles of the division and specification of the sciences as they are found in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. In this sense the book is somewhat incomplete. The author shows too much dependence on Vincent Smith and Charles De Koninck. Perhaps more explanation based on original sources would have improved the understanding of the philosophical principles involved in this thorny problem. The volume is recommended to all those who are seeking a brief historical and philosophical introduction to the philosophy of nature. Graduate Theological UniO'T& Berkeley, California ANTONIO MORENO, 0. P. The Christian Faith In The Doctrinal Dow,ments Of The Catholic Faith. Edited by J. NEUNER, S. J. and J. DUPuis, S. J. BANGALORE: Theological Publications in India, 1973. Pp. 710. This new collection of the Church's doctrinal documents is the fruit of the collaborated effort of the professors of the two theological faculties of Vidyajyoti, Institute of Religious Studies, Delhi, and of Juana-Deepa, 826 BOOK REVIEWS Institute of Philosophy and Religion, Pune, under the able editorship of the Jesuit professors Joseph Neuner and James Dupuis. Stemming from the 1938 publication by J. Neuner and H. Roos of Der Glaube der Kirche in den Urkunden der Lehrverkundigung and down through the 1967 and 1969 English The Teaching of the Catholic Church, deriving in a measure from other collections, especially Denziger-Schonmetzer , the present book provides a number of more relevant and recent documents. A long introduction on the value, limitations, and use of such a collection of doctrinal texts is a sound contribution and caution, and a valuable guideline for the reader. Chapters have been rearranged and new ones inserted. The prefaces to the chapters and the evaluations of the individual documents or offerings have been in great part presented to reflect later scholarship and the viewpoint of Vatican II. A concordance with other familiar collections follows the usual indexes. This new collection may be used with profit by those who are interested in an authoritative guidance provided by doctrinal documents which serve as witness of the Faith. Dominican House of Studit!8 W1Uhington, D. C. NICHOLAS HALLIGAN, 0. P. A Reply to Vernon J. Bourke's final judgment-" an example of how not to interpret a philosophical classic "-on: Aquinas On Metaphysics. A historicodoctrinal study of the Commentary on the Metaphysics. By JAMES C. Dow. When I first read Prof. Bourke's review of my historical study of Aquinas's Commentary on the Metaphysics, I became concerned. I am still concerned, and not because of the statement I have chosen as a title, nor for these other words either: " This is a grandiose project: it would take a marvelous mind and very mature scholarship. . • " etc.1 I, no more than anyone else...

The Unique Character and the Foundation of Josef Defever's Real Proof for God

THE UNIQUE CHARACTER AND THE FOUNDATION OF JOSEF DEFEVER'S REAL PROOF FOR GOD* Joseph Defever, S.J., was a professor in the faculty of philosophy at the Jesuit College of Louvain up to the time of his death, November 25, 1964. He was imbued with Joseph Maréchal's thought on the dynamism of the human spirit and the epistemological and metaphysical implications of Maréchal's teaching. La Preuve réelle de Dieu is Defever's rethinking of Maréchal'sbasic doctrine, but presentedsomewhat differently from Maréchal's presentation in order to take into account some of Maréchal's critics and more recent philosophical positions. Defever's real proof for the existence of God is proposed by him as a reflexive critical justification and vindication of the traditional proof as presented in the Five Ways of Saint Thomas. Defever's proof is not a substitution or a repetition; it is an invitation to explore the depths and foundation and interior forces which sustain the logical structure of the Five Ways. In Defever's real proof the epistemological and metaphysical presuppositions which are at work in the argumentation of the Five Ways are brought forth for critical reflection and validation. He intends to show that the proof for God is rooted in real experience and clings to our experience of the real and points to a God who is really there, really here, and not merely to some inefficacious concept of God. The setting for Defever's metaphysical journey to the affirmation of the creative presence of God is the concrete human act of knowing the existence of the sensible object. Throughout the entire way of the proof as explicated by Defever the focus is on the interior aspect of the total reality given in the act of knowing, that is, on the knower's reflexive awareness of himself in the actual exercise of himself being-knowing (or, knowing being). I. THE UNIQUE CHARACTER OF THE PROOF FOR GOD Before we discuss Defever's contribution to the contemporary rethinking of the proof for the existence of God it will be helpful to present * This article, based on a doctoral dissertation, Realis Probatio Existentiae Dei Ab Joseph Defever, Methode Transcendentali Explicata is published as a partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from Pontificium Athenaeum Antonianum, Rome, Italy. ??6HUGH ELLER, O. F. M. a review of certain ideas related to such a proof. This will enable us more clearly to see the peculiar problem of a proof for God and better to understand the value of Defever's approach to this problem. i. The Question of Terminology The "problem of God", says Pierre Fontan, is the most human of problems and the one which is least natural to our knowledge and our activity.1 Most writers on the subject, despite their diversity of opinion about particulars, agree that a proof for God's existence has a distinct charasteristic that sets it apart from every other type of proof.2 The very word "proof" in this context is ambiguous. "The word 'proof comes close to the equivocal in this case ; for it is a matter of affirming that God exists on the basis of signs and clues which are not God, and the first level of our knowledge of these does not comprise the conscious affirmation of the Infinite."3 The term "demonstration" has often been applied to the argumentation for the existence of God, but this, too, is not without its ambiguity. D. Dubarle suggests that St. Thomas used the term "via" in place of "demonstratio" to avoid the danger that the mind'sway to the affirmation of God's existence would be confused with a demonstration in geometry or with scientific demonstration as set forth in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics* Some writers would stress the unique character of the proof for God by calling it a "monstration" instead of a demonstration; but this term etymologically signifies to point out something, or to make something be seen, and A. Dondeyne reminds us that it is no less free of ambiguity when used for the proof 1 Cf. P. Fontan, Adhésion et D...