BOOK REVIEWS 613 contrary to many modern exegetes. It seems quite correct to interpret Anselm's argument as showing, from the (real) possibility of god's existence, God's real existence (lO5). The possibility in question is not logical, linguistic, or mental, but fully objective and real. The author's own evaluation of Anselm's argument seems quite unconvincing, perhaps because of some basic defects in this work. First, it lacks a sound foundation in the history of medieval philosophy, and in the technical terminology of the period. Some of Brecher's few historical observations are excellent, as when he points out the generally "Platonic" metaphysics of degrees of being used by St. Anselm, and derived chiefly via Augustine (1 l). But he offers little insight into the epistemology and metaphysics of Anselm himself, which alone make it possible to understand the argument. 'Being' in Anselm always means being in the sense of essence; it was not until the late twelfth century that existence, as an act of being distinct from essence, first enters the Latin philosophic tradition. The very translation of est or essein Anselm as "existence" is thus an anachronism. Brecher's few comments on St. Thomas are wholly in error; Aquinas does not maintain that God "is not knowable at all" (55), and Thomas's notion that God is the very act of existing, ipsum esse, makes excellent sense, although of course it is not the only possible way of understanding the metaphysical difference between God and creatures. Nor does Thomas ascribe any real being whatever to nonexistent things (155, n. 55). Second, this modest work shows little interest in or understanding of Greek or Latin metaphysics. One is amazed to read that "what one's view is of the concept of existence matters not at all for an assessment of Anselm's argument" 04), when surely the whole validity of the argument turns on Anselm's view that being means essence, not a distinct act of existing. That essence which lacks no greatness cannot fail to be really. Brecher's well-presented work is, as the subtitle indicates, a contribution more to the logic than to the metaphysics of Anselm's disclosure of God. PAUL J. W. MILLER Williamstown, Massachusetts Gerhard Krieger, Der Begriff der praktischen Vernunfl nachJohannes Buridanus. Beitr~ge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelahers. Neue Folge, Band 28. Mfinster: Verlag Aschendorff MUnster, 1986. Pp. vi + 317 . DM 88. After Pierre Duhem's astonishing effort to predate the origins of the scientific revolution , fourteenth-century philosophy has been generally portrayed in a way typical of an apparently transitional stage in intellectual history. Because so much of fourteenthcentury philosophy belongs to the Aristotelian tradition, it invites comparison with Aristotelian philosophy; on the other hand, it is often seen as foreshadowing developments in modern philosophy. The field of ethics has not been immune to this general tendency. No intelligent and responsible study can ignore historical tradition altogether , hence Gerhard Krieger's work interprets Buridan's commentaries while confronting the past scholarship on Buridan's ethics. 614 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 27:4 OCTOBER 1989 Aside from the introduction, the study is divided into six chapters: the distinction between prudence and art (1); the distinction between prudence and science (2); the relations of prudence to the appetites or desires and to the moral virtues, especially the grounding of natural law through practical reason (3); the freedom of the will (4); the relation of prudence to the intellectual virtues, and the primacy of practical reason (5); and the relation of prudence to moral science (6). In his introductory first chapter and throughout the work, Krieger distances himself from inteUectualist interpretations of Buridan's ethics as well as from efforts to see Buridan's account of will as reconciling the views of John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham with those of Thomas Aquinas (e.g., 15a-53). Krieger sees Buridan as following Scotus's account of will, but the important contributions of this study are Krieger's arguments showing how Buridan made the Scotist concept of will, and especially of practical reason as a function of will, fruitful for practical philosophy. Seen from a...