Norman Kretzmann Research Articles

Eternity has no Duration

In 1981 Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann published a landmark article aimed at exploring the classical concept of divine eternity.1 Taking Boethius as the primary spokesman for the traditional view, they analyse God's eternity as timeless yet as possessing duration. More recently Brian Leftow has seconded Stump and Kretzmann's interpretation of the medieval position (with qualifications) and attempted to defend the notion of a durational eternity as a useful way of expressing the sort of life God leads.2 However, there are good reasons to reject the idea that divine timelessness should be thought of as having duration. The medievals probably did not accept it, as it contradicts a principle of classical metaphysics even more fundamental than the atemporality of the divine. In any case, it is not possible to express the notion of durational eternity in even a minimally coherent way, and the attempt to salvage the concept by appealing to the Thomistic doctrine of analogy is unsuccessful. The best analogy for God's eternity is still the one proposed by Augustine at the end of the fourth century. God lives in a timeless ‘present’, unextended like our temporal present, but immutable and encompassing all time.

The Logic of " Sit Verum " in Richard Brinkley and William of Ockham

The Logic of «SIT VERUM" in RICHARD BRINKLEY and WILLIAM OF OCKHAM Introduction In 1980, Gedeon Gal and Rega Wood first called scholars' attention to Richard Brinkley, the author of a Summa logicae written perhaps sometime between 1360 and 1373.1 Recently, Gordon A. Wilson and I published an edition of the final treatise from this Summa logicae, Brinkley's Obligationes (see n. 1). The present paper will explore one strand of this treatise, Brinkley's treatment of the 'Gedeon Gal and Rega Wood, "Richard Brinkley and His Summa Logicae," Franciscan Studies 40 (1980): 59-101. The date has been contested in Michael J. Fitzgerald, ed. & trans., Richard Brinkley's Theory of Sentential Reference: "De significato propositionis" from Part Vofhis Summa nova de lógica, Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, Bd. 18 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1987): 3-12; Fitzgerald suggests 1356-63. See the discussion in Paul Vincent Spade and Gordon A. Wilson, Richard Brinkley's Obligationes: A Late Fourteenth Century Treatise on the Logic of Disputation, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, neue Folge, Bd. 43 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1995): 1-2. (Cited hereafter as 'Brinkley,' with references to paragraph and line numbers.) Gal and Wood's paper includes five chapters from three different tracts of the Summa logicae; Fitzgerald's book is an edition and translation of part of Tract 5, De propositionibus in genere. In addition, in 19691 prepared a transcription of Tract 6, De insolubilibus, from a single anonymous copy found apart from the two manuscripts containing the whole of the Summa. See Paul Vincent Spade, "An Anonymous Fourteenth-Century Treatise on Insolubles: Text and Study" (M. S. L. diesis; Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1969). For a discussion of some of Brinkley's other writings, see Zenon Kaluza, "L'oeuvre théologique de Richard Brinkley," Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen-âge 56 (1989): 169-273. The present paper presupposes some knowledge of the obligationes-hterature. For background, see Eleonore Stump, "Obligations: From the Beginning to the Early Fourteenth Century," in Norman Kretzmann et al., eds., The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy (New York: Cambridge, 1982), Ch. 16A (315-34); Paul Vincent Spade, "Obligations: Developments in the Fourteenth Century," ibid., Ch. 16B (335-41); Paul Vincent Spade, "Three Theories of Obligationes: Burley, Kilvington and Swyneshed on Counterfactual Reasoning," History and Philosophy of Logic 3 (1982): 1-32; and Mikko Yrjönsuuri, Obligationes: 14th Century Logic of Disputational Duties, Acta Philosophica Fennica, vol. 55 (Helsinki: Societas Philosophica Fennica, 1994). 227 Franciscan Studies (54) 1994-1997 228PAUL VINCENT SPADE kind ofobligatio known as "sit verum" or "sit rei Veritas."2 For context and comparison, we shall look at Ockham's treatment of the same issue. Several earlier treatises on obligationes distinguish a relatively large number of kinds or "species." Thus, the Obligationes Parisienses, from no later than the mid-thirteenth century, distinguishes six: positio, depositio, dubitetur, institutio, rei Veritas, and petitio) Walter Burley's treatise from 1302 lists the same six species,4 as does William of Ockham's account in his Summa logicae.5 Later treatises, however, generally tend to reduce the number of species to three or even fewer.6 Brinkley's is one of them; he lists only impositio (=institutio), positio, and depositio.1 What has 2Like other authors, Brinkley treats the phrases 'sit rei Veritas' (='Let the truth of the matter be') and 'sit verum' (='Let it be true') as interchangeable. See, for example, Text [8] below. In addition, phrases such as 'rei Veritas' (='the truth of the matter') and 'sit . . . in rei veritate' (='Let it be as the truth of the matter') are often used as mere stylistic variations on this vocabulary. In this paper, I shall use the phrase 'sit verum' as a blanket expression for all these terminological variants. 3L. M. De Rijk, "Some Thirteenth Century Tracts on the Game of Obligation, II," Vtvarium 13 (1975): 22-54 at 27-28. De Rijk dates this work from the early thirteenth century, but a somewhat later date is also possible. See Paul Vincent Spade and Eleonore Stump, "Walter Burley and the Obligationes Attributed to William of Sherwood," History and Philosophy of...

Quodlibetal Questions by William of Ockham

BOOK REVIEWS 337 Quodlibetal Questions. By WILLIAM OF OcKHAM. Vol. 1 trans. Alfred J. Freddoso and Francis E. Kelley; vol. 2 trans. Alfred J. Freddoso ; pref. Norman Kretzmann. Vol. l of the Yale Library of Medieval Philosophy. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991. Pp. 391 and 305. $100.00 for both (cloth). In these handsome volumes, Professor Alfred J. Freddoso and the late Professor Frank E. Kelley have provided the scholarly community with an English translation of William of Ockham's Quodlibeta septem (hereafter QS). The volumes constitute the first volume in the new Yale Library of Medieval Philosophy, and both the new series and this first contribution within it will add generously to the growing num· her of medieval philosophical texts available in English. Using the critical edition of Ockham's Latin text established by the Rev. Joseph C. Wey (Opera theologica, vol. 9, Franciscan Institute: St. Bonaventure , NY, 1980) as the basis for their work, the translators offer to readers of English an accurate translation of one of Ockham's mature theological works, treating a wide variety of philosophical and theological topics. Indeed, thanks to their efforts, the broad range of Ockham's thought in natural and revealed theology, ontology, epistemology, and ethics becomes available in English for the first time. The purpose of the Yale series is to translate into English " complete works of philosophical and historical importance". In deciding which work of Ockham to translate for the series, the translators faced two potential hazards: the danger of translating one of Ockham's earlier works that might contain ideas which he subsequently reconsidered; and the danger of translating a work that focused upon a narrow range of topics, something which would give readers the false impression that Ockham's philosophy was concerned only with those topics. The translators have adroitly managed to avoid both of these potential hazards. The translators certainly steered clear of the first hazard by deciding to translate Ockham's QS. These quodlibetal questions are believed to represent the substance of disputations Ockham held at the Franciscan studium in London during the years 1322-1324, although the final written form of the work probably was not established until 1325 or shortly thereafter at Avignon. Hence the QS represent to a large extent Ockham's final word on the topics discussed, since in the period after 1325 up until the time of his death in 1347 Ockham was too heavily embroiled in ecclesiological and political controversies in Avignon and Munich to give much consideration to more speculative concerns. Yet the translators also avoided the second hazard by choos- 338 BOOK REVIEWS ing to translate the QS. True, the QS is akin to numerous other medieval quodlibetal questions in that it treats an array of questions; hut, in the case of Ockham's work, the range of topics is so broad and the issues broached therein so fundamental to his personal thought that one has, in effect, a compendium of Ockham's major philosophical and theological ideas. A brief glance at the table of questions indicates the breadth of the questions and their relevance to perennial philosophical discussions. In the area of philosophical theology, Ockham asks whether it can be proved by natural reason that there is only one God; whether it can be proved by natural reason that God's power is infinite; whether God could have made the world from eternity. In regard to ethical theory, Ockham asks whether the exterior act has its own proper moral goodness , and whether there can be a demonstrative science about morals. In fields of epistemology and the philosophy of mind, Ockham asks whether the human intellect knows its own acts intuitively in this life; whether it knows sensible things intuitively; and whether there can be an intuitive cognition of a non-existent object. Closer to the area of logic and semantics, Ockham raises several questions about the status of propositions and their components: whether a mental proposition is composed of things or concepts; whether mental names are divided into concrete and abstract names in the manner of spoken names; whether the object of a definition is an extra-mental reality or a concept . Finally, readers...

The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge by Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski

714 BOOK REVIEWS learning; the Jesuits lean to the voluntarist. Possessed of a unitary academic model, he is really arguing for Aristotle's analogy of attribution . Apparently, no one of his 200 plus Jesuit contacts told him that Nastri prefer St. Thomas and his analogy of proper proportionality. The historian Daniel Boorstin spent 25 yeari!l writing his trilogy on The Americans. What emerges from this analysis? Boorstin points out that Americans like ambiguity, that they function best amid flux; ambivalence becomes their proper medium. For this reason, I have accepted Nathaniel Hawthorne as our most central writer. He situates American questions within a landscape of chiaroscuro. The Jesuit experience in the United States belongs essentially to the same landscape. But today , as formerly, it remains a landscape of questions. McDonough, on the other hand, has too many certitudes, too many answers, too much high definition-what Henry Adams regards as "mere facts." Instead of illuminating the landscape from within, his study inevitably recedes into the larger ambiguity reserved for what Wallace Stevens has called, " Prologues to what is possible." Saint Paul University Ottawa, Ontario JOHN P. McINTYRE, S.J. The Dilemma of Freedom and Foreknowledge. By LINDA TRINKAUS ZAGZEBSKI. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. viii + 215 pp. $29.95. As a Christian and a philosopher, Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski wants to understand why it is reasonable to affirm that we remain free despite God's infallible knowledge of our future acts. Moreover, she is not content simply to demonstrate that this affirmation involves no logical con· tradiction, for "reasonable people expect more" (p. 33) than a merely negative result. Hence the author sets herself the more ambitious task of working toward a positive solution that would explain why the compatibility of divine foreknowledge and human freedom is plausible and not a bare logical possibility. The hook sorts out recent opinions on the subject and sketches an original position that she hopes will advance the discussion. Zagzehski begins by constructing the most formidable version of the dilemma. Assuming that God is infallible and essentially omniscient, that the past has a kind of necessity that the future lacks ("accidental necessity"), and that this necessity can he transferred (in some sense) from the antecedent to the consequent of a conditional proposition, the dilemma may he stated as follows: BOOK REVIEWS (1) Necessarily, God believes at time t 1 that I will do S at t 3 if and only if I do S at t 3. (2) It is accidentally necessary at t 2 that God believes at t 1 that I will do S at t 3. (3) If (1) and (2) are true, then it is accidentally necessary at t 2 that I do Sat t 3. (4) It follows that it is accidentally necessary at t 2 that I do S at t 3. (5) But if it is accidentally necessary at t 2 that I do S at t 3, I do not do S at t 3 freely. (6) Therefore, I do not do S at t 3 freely. 715 Much of the first chapter is devoted to establishing that this form of the dilemma is more resistant to solution than any other, especially the so-called problem of future truth. Zagzebski goes on to evaluate three broad approaches to solving the dilemma. In Chapter 2 she takes up the " timelessness " solution. Its proponents, among whom the author numbers Boethius, Thomas Aquinas, Eleonore Stump, and Norman Kretzmann, negate premise (2) of the foreknowledge dilemma by contending that God is not in time. Zagzebski considers this an acceptable negative solution to the dilemma and sees in it the potential to ground a more comprehensive, positive solution. Nonetheless, she refrains from subscribing wholeheartedly to the timelessness solution because it confronts one with a dilemma at least as perplexing as the one it solves. She puts the problem this way: like the past, eternity is fixed, for it is constituted by a state of affairs about which we cannot do anything; therefore my future acts are determined no less by God's timeless knowledge than by God's foreknowing them in a strictly temporal sense. In Chapter 3, Zagzebski considers...

The Concept of God.

Functionalism and theological language, William P. Alston Divine necessity, Robert Merrihew Adams Does traditional theism entail pantheism?, Robert Oakes God's body, William J. Wainwright Must God create the best?, Robert Merrihew Adams Duty and divine goodness, Thomas V. Morris The definition of omnipotence, Anthony Kenny Maximal power, Thomas P. Flint & Alfred J. Freddoso On Ockham's way out, Alvin Plantinga On the compossibility of the divine attributes, David Blumenfeld Eternity, Eleonore Stump & Norman Kretzmann Simplicity and immutability in God, William E. Mann.

The Sophismata of Richard Kilvington.

Journal Article Book Notes Get access The Sophismata of Richard Kilvington. Text Edition By Norman Kretzmann and Barbara Ensign Kretzmann. (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1990. Auctores Britannici Medii Aevi XII. Pp. xx + 156. Price £27.50.) S.L. R S.L. R Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 41, Issue 165, October 1991, Page 515, https://doi.org/10.2307/2220094 Published: 01 October 1991

Paraconsistent Logic: Essays on the Inconsistent.

Journal Article Book Notes Get access The Sophismata of Richard Kilvington. Text Edition By Norman Kretzmann and Barbara Ensign Kretzmann. (Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1990. Auctores Britannici Medii Aevi XII. Pp. xx + 156. Price £27.50.) S.L.R. S.L.R. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 41, Issue 165, October 1991, Pages 515–516, https://doi.org/10.2307/2220095 Published: 01 October 1991

Philosophy and Science in the Middle Ages.

Journal Article Book Notes Get access Philosophy and Science in the Middle Ages, ed. G. Fleistad (J.J.H.); The Sophismata of Richard Kilvington, ed. Norman Kretzmann and Barbara Ensign Kretzmann (S.L.R.); Paraconsistent Logic: Essays on the Inconsistent, ed. Graham Priest, Richard Sylvan and Jean Norman (S.L.R.); Peter Geach: Philosophical Encounters, ed. Harry A. Lewis (J.J.H.); Miscellaneous Writings, John Stuart Mill (J.M.S.); Freedom, Tim Gray (L.G.G.); Freedom, Rights and Pornography, Fred R. Berger (L.G.G.); The Philosophy of Horror or Paradoxes of the Heart, Noel Carroll (B.G.); Understanding War, W.B. Gallie (P.M.W.B.); The Problem of Evil, ed. Marilyn McCord Adams and Robert Merrihew Adams (P.M.W.B.) J. H J. H Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 41, Issue 165, October 1991, Pages 514–515, https://doi.org/10.2307/2220093 Published: 01 October 1991

The Philosophy in Christianity.

Foreword GODFREY VESEY Reason in mystery NORMAN KRETZMANN Logos and Trinity: patterns of Platonist influence on early Christianity JOHN DILLON The philosophy in Christianity: Arius and Athanasius MAURICE WILES Could God become Man? RICHARD SWINBURNE Augustine's philosophy of being CHRISTOPHER STEAD Predestination and freedom in Augustine's ethics GERALD O'DALY God as creator KEITH WARD Foreknowledge and the vulnerability of God I. R. LUCAS On not knowing too much about God A. H. ARMSTRONG Where two are to become one: mysticism and monism GRACE JANTZEN Faith and goodness ELEONORE STUMP Hope STEWART SUTHERLAND Christian averroism, fideism, and the two-fold truth STUART BROWN Does philosophy 'leave everything as it is'? Even theology RENFORD BAMBROUGH.

“As just as is a squyre”: The Politics of “Lewed Translacion” in Chaucer’s Summoner’s Tale

"As just as is a squyre": The Politics of "Lewed Translacion" in Chaucer's Summoner's Tale Fiona Somerset University of Western Ontario In solving the ptobl,m posed by ThomruSs vemaculat utterance, Th, Summoner's Tale makes use of information and techniques of argument drawn from what Middle English writers often call "clergie"; that is, the academic discourse employed chiefly by clerics with some university education. 1 That much has long been recognized: Pearcy's 1967 article on the tale explained quite thoroughly how calling the problem an "in­ possible" and submitting it to demonstrative proofusing natural science evokes the scholastic tradition of ingenious response to insolubilia-or what appear to be impossible or paradoxical statements-and especially the late-fourteenth-century fashion at Oxford, and at Merton in particu­ lar, for employing concepts from natural science in logical solutions.2 1 All quotations from Chaucer are taken from the paperback edition of Larry D. Ben­ son, gen. ed., The Riverside Chaucer, 3d ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988); subsequent quotations from The Summoner's Tale will be identified by line number only. The title quotation comes from line 2090.Since mosr ofthe contemporary clerical mate­ rial I will cite has never been published in any form or, if it has, is not widely available, I will give all quotations in the original Latin as well as in English. All translations are my own. For a more extended discussion of attitudes to 'clergie·, see my Clerical Discourse and Lay Audience in Late Medieval England (Cambridge U.P., 1998), especially the introduc­ tion, pp. 3-5, 10-16. I am grateful to Robert Hanning for his comments, and to Glend­ ing Olson for his continuing generous willingness to exchange writings and ideas on The Summoner's Tale. Thanks also to the Bodleian Library, to the library of Trinity College Dublin, and to the Durham University Library, for permission to quote from unpub­ lished manuscripts in their possession. 2 Roy J. Pearcy, "Chaucer's "An Inpossible" ("Summoner's Tale" III, 2231)," N&Q, n.s., 14 (1967): 322-25. On late-fourteenth-century argumentation, see further John E. Murdoch, "Subtilitates Anglicanae in Fourteenth-Century Paris: John of Mirecourt and Peter Ceffons," in Madeleine Pelner Cosman and Bruce Chandler, eds., Machaut's World: Science and Art in the Fourteenth Century, Annals of the New York Academy ofSciences, 187 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER But what nobody has yet explained is why and how it matters that in this tale the conventions of clerical argument are not just translated into English, but expertly deployed by lay persons rather than clerics-espe­ cially when that "translation" in status from clerical to lay appears in conjunction with the Friar's failure, and the Squire's contrasting success, at gaining lay patronage.' While the methods by which the problem is posed and solved are thoroughly clerical, they are transferred to a lay setting, to lay speakers, and to lay adjudication. What needs to be exam­ ined is how the kinds of vernacular translation the tale enacts-of learned Latin material to English, of clerical capabilities to the laity, of money and power formerly given to the clergy to the laity-reflect contemporary controversy over just these sorts of loss of clerical prerog­ ative. Why is it feared that translation from Latin to English might entail loss of clerical prerogative, and even of church revenues? Scholars inter­ ested in investigating late-medieval English attitudes toward trans­ lation have commonly consulted the early fifteenth century's sweeping attempt to prohibit translations of every kind through legislation, Arundel's Constitutions implemented in 1409.4 What sort of impact the Constitutions had upon vernacular translation and publication through the fifteenth century is very much open to debate. Regardless of their effects, however, one way to read the Constitutions is as a set of aspirations vol. 314 (New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1978), pp. 51-86; and Edith Dudley Sylla, "The Oxford Calrnlarors," in Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, and Jan Pinborg, eds., The Cambridge History ofLater Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge: Cam­ bridge University Press, 1982; rpt. 1988), pp. 540-63. 'Larry Scanlon has explained that the tale stages a conflict between clerical...

Meaning and Inference in Medieval Philosophy: Studies in Memory of Jan Pinborg. Edited by Norman Kretzmann

Meaning and Inference in Medieval Philosophy: Studies in Memory of Jan Pinborg. Edited by Norman Kretzmann

International Ockham Colloquium

INTERNATIONAL OCKHAM COLLOQUIUM William of Ockham, an English Franciscan and highly regarded philosopher, theologian and logician, was born around 1285, probably in the little hamlet (Oakham) of Ockham some 20 miles southwest of London. There were three international conventions which celebrated the sixth centenary of Ockham's birth. The first took place as a week-long conference at Queen's College in Oxford, April 15-19, 1985 under the auspices of the Ecclesiastical History Society and organized by professors Anne Hudson and Michael Wilks. Actually, this convention also commemorated John Wyclif who died on the last day of 1384. There were over ninety scholars in attendance from Austria, Canada, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. AU of the research team from the Franciscan Institute attended, namely Gedeon Gal, O.F.M., Girard Etzkorn, Francis Kelley, Rega Wood and Romuald Green, O.F.M. Kelley, Etzkorn and Wood gave papers at the conference, whose proceedings were published in the volume From Ockham to Wyclif1 On Saturday, April 20, 1985, many of the scholars journeyed to Ockham where in All Saints Church, probably the place of Ockham's baptism, a special commemorative celebration was held. On this occasion, Fr. Gedeon Gal, O.F.M., presented a set of the Ockham edition to AU Saints Church. The second international Ockham colloquium was held under the auspices of the Franciscan Institute at St. Bonaventure University, October 10-12, 1985, organized by Girard Etzkorn and Romuald Green under the direction of Fr. Conrad Harkins, O.F.M., director of the Franciscan Institute, and with the assistance of the 1 From Ockham to Wyclif, ed. A. Hudson and M. Wilks, Studies in Church History-Subsidia 5 (Oxford: BlackweU, 1987, xvi + 486 pp.); F. Kelley, "Ockham: Avignon, Before and After" 1-18; G. Etzkorn, "Codex Merton 284: Evidence of Ockham's Early Influence in Oxford 31-42; R. Wood, "Intuitive Cognition and Divine Omnipotence: Ockham in Fourteenth-Century Perspective" 51-61. 144GIRARD J. ETZKORN Franciscan Institute and Friedsam Library personnel and the University's staff and public relations office. This event, in scope and magnitude, was probably the largest ever to have been hosted by St. Bonaventure University. There were over 100 scholars in attendance from Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States. Principal speakers at plenary sessions were Umberto Eco, professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna, who spoke on "Signification and Denotation from Boethius to Ockham"; Norman Kretzmann, Sage Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University, who spoke on "Ockham and the Creation of the Beginningless World"; Marilyn McCord Adams, Professor of PhUosophy at UCLA, who spoke on "Ockham's Moral Theory" and Jaroslav Pelikan, Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, who spoke "On Locating Ockham within the Orthodox Dogmatic Tradition." Because of Ockham's reputation as a logician, a goodly number of papers were read at the 'satellite' sessions regarding his contributions to logic, but there were also a considerable number of papers dedicated to his theory of knowledge, his views regarding natural philosophy, ethics, plus a goodly number of talks concerning the political and ecclesiological views of the Venerable Inceptor. Still other papers dealt with comparisons of Ockham's views with his contemporaries or near-contemporaries. There were also papers dealing with historical criticism evaluative of the life and writings of Ockham. A symposium was held on the topics of critical editing and translating. The participants of the symposium were: Gedeon Gal, O.F.M., Francis Kelley, Jacqueline Hamesse, Sandra Edwards and Alfred Freddoso. The Colloquium was also a celebration of the completion of the critical edition of Ockham's Philosophical and Theological works. At the time of the Colloquium, all but the final volume containing treatises dubiously or spuriously attributed to Ockham were virtually completed. Thus, the research and publication of the 17volume edition was completed during the period from 1963, when Fr. Gedeon Gal first came to the Franciscan Institute, and 1988 when the final volume appeared. INTERNATIONAL OCKHAM COLLOQUIUM145 Congratulatory messages were received from Pope John Paul II, from Pio Laghi the U.S. papal nuncio, from John Vaughn, minister general of...

The Roots of Eternity

The claim that God is eternal is a standard feature of late–classical and mediaeval philosophical theology. It is prominent in discussions of the relation of God's foreknowledge to human freedom, and its consequences pervade traditional accounts of other kinds of divine knowledge, of God's will, and of God's relation to the world. So an examination of the concept of eternity promises to repay our efforts with a better understanding of the history of philosophical theology and with insight into the concept of God. Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann's ‘Eternity’ is a forceful, sophisticated presentation and defence of the notion of eternity. Our treatment of eternity will focus on two of Stump and Kretzmann's claims. First, Stump and Kretzmann contend that eternity isa kind of ‘atemporal duration’. We will see that while this is true, it is only part of the story. Second, Stump and Kretzmann claim to provide a viable account of how the existence of an eternal being can be simultaneous with some temporal event. We will see that and why they have not done so.

Locke's Theory of Language and Johnson's Dictionary

IN AN ESSAY ON JOHN LOCKE in the 1967 Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Norman Kretzmann writes that no work had a greater influence over the development of semantics during the Enlightenment than did Book III of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding-Of Words.' As Kretzmann points out, and as other students of Locke have recognized, Locke's principal innovation in the field of linguistic theory lay in the fact that he expressly connected his thoughts on language with a theory of knowledge, and his emphasis on the mind as crucial to the process of signification had a critical influence on several generations of linguistic theoreticians in both England and France.2 By the time Samuel Johnson began work on his Dictionary in 1746, Locke's ideas on language and the mind had become commonplaces. Johnson himself-in the Ramblers, in Boswell's Life, in the Preface to the Dictionary, and elsewhere-not infrequently echoes both Lockean sentiments and Lockean phraseology, sometimes with a parenthetical off-handedness that reveals more effectively than direct quotation ever could, the extent to which Locke's notions had

Averroes' Middle Commentaries on Aristotle's Categories and De Interpretaione (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 1 17 Charles E. Butterworth, translator. Averroes' Middle Commentaries on Aristotle's Categories and De Interpretaione. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983. Pp. xx + 193. $~.5 o. The volume is the first in a projected series of translations from the Arabic of Averroes's so-called "middle commentaries" on Aristotle's logical works, and on the Rhetoric and the Poetics. Averroes (1126-1198 ) wrote three different kinds of commentaries on Aristotle: short "epitomes," exhaustive "long" commentaries, and--as here--intermediate or "middle" commentaries. The purpose of these last appears to have been to explain the text of Aristotle clearly and concisely, with a minimum of digression. (Nevertheless, as Butterworth points out, the Middle Commentary on the De Interpretatione strays rather far from Aristotle's own work.) These new translations of the middle commentaries are based on the most recent critical editions now being published by the American Research Center in Cairo. The Middle Commentary on the De lnterpretatione has never before been translated into any language exce.pt Latin and Hebrew. But a previous English translation of the Middle Commentary on the Categories appeared as recently as 1969.' In his Preface, Butterworth explains why a new translation is appropriate. The previous translation was based on the Bouyges edition of the Arabic text, published in 193a. Since that time, several other manuscripts of the Arabic text have been located. Moreover, the Leiden manuscript on which Bouyges mainly based his edition appears to reflect an earlier and less polished redaction of the text. The Florence manuscript on which the most recent critical edition (and Butterworth's translation) is based seems to present Averroes's own revised and improved version of the text, done some six months after the version that stands behind the Leiden manuscript. Butterworth's Preface also briefly retells the still fascinating story of the preservation and transmission of Aristotle's works, of how they were translated first into Syriac, then frmn Syriac into Arabic, and finally from Arabic into Hebrew and Latin. But it would be a mistake to think (and here Butterworth's remarks might leave the reader with the wrong impression) that the Latin West obtained the texts of Aristotle only or even primarily via this circuitous route through the Arabic. On the contrary, as B. G. Dod observes, "There is a tenacious legend that the West learnt its Aristotle via translations from the Arabic, but the fact is that the West turned to Arabic-Latin translations only in default of the more intelligible Greek-Latin ones. The only translations from the Arabic to achieve wide circulation were the De caelo, Meteorologica IIII , De animalibus and Metaphysics, and all of these except the De animalibus were quickly displaced by William of Moerbreke's versions."' ' Herbert A. Davidson, translator, Averroes"Middle Commentaryon Porphyry'sIsagoge, Translatedfrom the Hebrew and Latin Versions, and on Aristi~tle'sCategoriae,Translatedfrom the Original Arabic and Latin Versions, "Corpus Commentariorum Averrois in Aristotelem," vol. I, a, x-z (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1969). z Bernard G. Dod, "Aristoteleslatinus," in Norman Kretzmann, et at., The CambridgeHistoryof Later Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), Ch. ~, 45-79, at 52. Moerbeke's translations were directly from Greek. 1 I8 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY ~4: ~ JANUARY 198( To possess and read the texts of Aristotle, however, is not automatically to under stand them. Here Latin translations of the Arabic commentators, and particularly o Averroes, were of decisive importance. So true is this that,just as the Latin West calico Aristotle "the Philosopher," so too Averroes was called simply "the Commentator" everyone knew who was meant. Nevertheless, in the case of the Categoriesand DeInterpre tatione, Averroes's importance in this regard was minimal. For not only had the Latin possessed these Aristotelian works ever since Boethius's translations in the sixth century They also had Boethius's own commentaries on them, commentaries far more elaborat~ and detailed than Averroes's concise presentations in his Middle Commentaries. In addition to the Preface, the present volume contains a separate Introduction tc each of the two works translated here, separate outlines or tables of contents for eac] of the translations, the translations themselves, and an...

BOOK REVIEWS

Book Reviewed in this article: Israel's Prophetic Tradition: Essays in honour of Peter R. Ackroyd. Edited by Richard Coggins, Anthony Phillips and Michael Knibb, Pp.xxi, 272. Cambridge University Press, 1982, £21.00 (paperback, 1984, £9.95). Essays on John. By C.K. Barrett. Pp.viii, 167, London, SPCK, 1982, £10.50. The Letter to the Colossians. By Eduard Schweizer, translated by Andrew Chester. Pp.319, London, SPCK, 1982, £12.50. Foundational Theology: Jesus and the Church. By Francis Schüssler Fiorenza. Pp.xix, 326, New York Crossroad, 1984, $22.50. The Darkness of God: Theology after Hiroshima. By Jim Garrison. Pp.x, 238, London, SCM Press, 1982, £5.95. Discerning the Mystery, An Essay on the Nature of neology. By Andrew Louth. Pp.xiv, 150, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1983, £12.50. The Tao and the Daimon: Segments of a Religious Inquiry. By Robert C. Neville. Pp.xv, 281, Albany, New York, State University of New York Press, 1982, $34.50 (hardback)), $11.95 (paperback). Person and Myth: Maurice Leenhardt in the Melanesian World. By James Clifford. Pp.xi, 270, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1982, £21.50. Transcendence and the Sacred. Edited by A.M. Olson and L.S. Rouner. Pp.xv, 230 (Boston University Studies in Philosophy and Religion 2), University of Notre Dame Press, 1981, £10.75. A History of Religious Ideas. Vol. 2: From Gautama Buddha to the Triumph of Christianity. By Mircea Eliade. Translated by William R. Trask. Pp.xi, 565, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1982, £17.50. Ordeal by Labyrinth: Conversations with Claude‐Henri Racquet. By Mircea Eliade. Translated by Derek Coltman. Pp.ix, 225, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1982, £12.55. Religious Philosophy of Prince‐Bishop Njegosh of Montenegro. By Zika Rad. Prvulovich. Pp.xviii, 273, Birmingham, The Author (26 Wheeler's Lane, King's Heath, B13 OSA), 1984, £12.50 (hardback), £10.50 (paperback). The Home of Meaning: The Hermeneutics of the Subject of Paul Ricoeur. By John W. Van Dengel. Pp.xxi, 333, Washington, D.C., University Press of America, 1982, $24.50 (hardback), $13.25 (paperback). Life Forms and Meaning Stucture. By Alfred Schutz, translated, introduced and annotated by Helmut Wagner. Pp.vi, 217 (The International Library of Phenomenology and Moral Sciences), London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982, £11.95. The Shaping of Man: Philosophical Aspects of Sociobiology. By Roger Trigg. Pp.xx, 186. Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1982, £12.50 (hardback), £5.95 (paperback). Marx and Marxisms: Royal Institute of Philosophy Lecture Series, 14. Edited by G.H.R. Parkinson. Pp.vi, 268, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £9.95. Marx and Justice: The Radical Critique of Liberalism. By Allen E. Buchanan. Pp.xiv, 206, London, Methuen, 1982, £12.95. Israel Satanter: Text, Structure, Idea. By Hillel Goldberg. Pp.xvii, 358, New York, Ktav, 1981, $17.50. Freud on Femininity and Faith. By Judith Van Herik. Pp.xiii, 216, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1982, £17.50. Women, Reason and Nature. By Carol McMillan. Pp.x, 165, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1982, £12.50. Supererogation: Its Status in Ethical Theory. By David Heyd. Pp.vii, 191, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £14.00. The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy. Edited by Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny and Jan Finborg. Pp.xi, 1035, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £40.00. St Thomas Aquinas. By Ralph McInerny. Pp.197, Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 1982, £4.50. Yves de Vallone: The Making of an Esprit‐Fort. By James O'Higgins, S.J. Pp.viii, 248, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1982, $35.00. Religion and National Identity. Edited by Stuart Mews. Pp.xvi, 618 (Studies in Church History 18), Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1982, £19.50. Mortmain Legislation and the English Church, 1279–1500. By Sandra Raban. Pp.xii, 215, (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought. Third series 17), Cambridge University Press, 1982, £25.00. John XXIII, Pope of the Council. By Peter Hebblethwaite. Pp.viii, 550, London, Geoffrey Chapman, 1984, £14.95.iCompiled by J.F. Púglisi and S.J. Voicu. Pp.260, Rome, Centro Pro Unione, 1984, $20.00. Ireland: A Bibliography of Material held at St Deiniol's Library. Compiled by Helen C. Price. Pp.iv, 136, Hawarden, St Deiniol's, 1984, £2.50. The Later Poems, 1972–1982. By R.S. Thomas. Pp.224, London, Macmillan, 1984, £4.95.

The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy: From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism 1100-1600 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 233 Norman Kretzmann, Anthony J. D. Kenny, Jan Pinborg, eds., and E. Stump assoc. ed. The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy: From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism 11oo-16oo. Cambridge, London, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Pp XIV + 1o35. $74.5 o. In a recent review of A. J. Ayer's Philosophy in the Twentieth Century, published in the New York Times Review of Books (Nov. 28, 1982 ), Alasdair MacIntyre points out that Ayer's book has been written from a philosophical standpoint within a tradition largely divorced from the study of the history of philosophy, and that there is great merit in this enterprise, since "it... not only tells us a great deal about a period in the history of philosophy .... but also makes clearer precisely what his standpoint involves" (BR 3)- If MacIntyre is correct, The Cambridge History should also prove to be a valuable work; for its most striking feature, in contrast to the standard historical treatments of the period, is that it is written from the perspective of the same analytic tradition to which MacIntyre refers. The work also reveals the philosophical standpoint of the editors who planned it and in some cases of the authors who contributed to it. The editors make no secret of their approach: "our editorial strategy has led to a concentration on those parts of later medieval philosophy that are most readily recognisable as philosophical to a student of twentieth-century philosophy" (3). The treatments of various problems throughout the volume by various authors generally echo this editorial policy. There is no question that this approach has yielded some significant results. Its most striking consequence is not that it reveals the philosophical preferences of the editors and authors, but rather that it treats medieval authors as living figures who present philosophical alternatives to be taken seriously by contemporary philosophers . It must be granted that, although not successful in every instance, this volume contributes substantially to the promotion of philosophical dialogue with the work of medieval authors. This is certainly the book's most important contribution and one for which the editors and contributors should be congratulated without reservation. On the other hand, the approach followed by the editors has some inherent disadvantages which the editors have not been able to avoid. The emphasis on certain themes, issues, and views which the editors consider important from their particular twentieth-century perspective has led to the neglect of others which, although historically important, they consider either philosophically naive or of little value. This is very much in evidence in at least three areas. First, disproportionate space has been given to the logic and logicians of the period. Of 842 pages of text, half have been dedicated to logic and closely related topics. The main editor, who like the other editors of the volume except for one, is primarily known for his work on logic, is well aware of this imbalance (4). But he argues that the imbalance is imbedded in the very nature of medieval scholasticism. However, any cursory look at the university curriculum in the Middle Ages and at the writings of the period will show that logic was considered primarily a propaedeutic discipline and that there were scores of important thinkers who paid little attention to it. The mention of Bonaventure, Duns Scotus, and Suarez should suffice to make the point clear. The real reason logic is 234 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 22:9 APR i984 given such a disproportionate attention in this book is not the nature of medieval scholasticism, but the philosophical predilection of the editors, who think that "the achievements of medieval logicians are historically more distinctive and philosophically more valuable than anything else in medieval thought with the possibleexception [my emphasis] of rational theology" (4). The second area in which the philosophical predilections of the editors are evident involves, in the words of the Introduction, the "relatively little attention [devoted ] to theological issues" (3). Indeed, the attention devoted to theological issues in the volume is not proportionate to the importance they had during the period. After reading this volume one would he led to think that philosophy...

The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy by Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, and Jan Pinborg

The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy by Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, and Jan Pinborg

Infinity and Continuity in Ancient and Medieval Thought. Norman Kretzmann

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsInfinity and Continuity in Ancient and Medieval Thought. Norman Kretzmann Ron B. ThomsonRon B. Thomson Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Isis Volume 74, Number 1Mar., 1983 Publication of the History of Science Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/353219 Views: 2Total views on this site Copyright 1983 History of Science Society, Inc.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy. Edited by Norman Kretzmann Anthony Kenny, and Jan Pinborg

<i>The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy</i>. Edited by Norman Kretzmann Anthony Kenny, and Jan Pinborg