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Medieval Philosophy: An Historical and Philosophical

Introduction - By John Marenbon

Article  in  Philosophical Books · July 2008

DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0149.2008.467_2.x

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ways, and that no one thing could serve all these purposes. In the logical
works, ‘form’ (eidos) is Aristotle’s word for species. In his analysis of change,
‘form’ is used for whatever property a thing acquires when it changes. A
thing’s form is often said to be its essence (what it is), but it is also the final
cause of a thing (what it is for or what is good for it). Aristotle invokes form to
explain inherited characteristics: the father’s form is passed on in the semen
and explains the offspring’s tendency to resemble the father. Finally, Aristotle
identifies an animal’s soul with its form.
Bostock is right that it is hard to see how one thing could fulfil all these
functions. For example, if a form is to explain the resemblance between father
and child, it must be a form that is less universal than the species form (since
what needs explaining is not merely that the child, like the father, is human).
Moreover, it might seem, if a person’s soul is identified with his form, it must
be something particular to him, not a universal, like the species man. But it
is not obvious that Aristotle himself means to say that one and the same thing
fulfils all these functions. He does not always use his terms with the consistency
of a modern analytic philosopher. For instance, one need not suppose that the
form that is invoked to explain the resemblance of father to child is the
substantial form that Aristotle equates with essence. Admittedly, Aristotle is
committed to the view that one and the same thing (form) is both the essence
of a thing and its final cause. He thinks that (at least for natural things) a
correct account of what a thing is will be one and the same as an account of
what it is to be a good thing of that kind. But this is an interesting view that
deserves discussion. It cannot simply be dismissed with the observation that
“there need be nothing good about what a thing is” (p. 90).
In spite of this, there is much that is interesting and stimulating about this
collection. It should be valued by all those who work on Aristotle’s natural
philosophy.
  ,   

Medieval Philosophy: An Historical and Philosophical Introduction

By  
Routledge, 2007. xiv + 450 pp. £60.00 cloth £16.99 paper

One might be forgiven for thinking that the present volume is merely an
amalgam of Marenbon’s earlier books on medieval philosophy (Early Medieval
Philosophy (1983) and Later Medieval Philosophy (1986)) but in fact Medieval
Philosophy: An Historical and Philosophical Introduction is a completely new book
that incorporates much of the scholarship (and philosophical reflection) of the
last ten or twenty years. Whereas the earlier works focussed “exclusively on the
Latin tradition . . . This new book aims to introduce all four main traditions
[Greek Christian, Latin Christian, Arabic and Jewish] of medieval philosophy
. . .” (p. ix). This development is wholly to be welcomed. As its title suggests,
the book is intended to be introductory in nature although in its sophistication
and in its topical and thematic coverage it goes well beyond what your
average beginner in medieval philosophy could be expected to master.
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© 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

 The ‘Introduction’ contains an explanation of Marenbon’s particular
periodization which, I frankly confess, left me confused, although, in fact, his
treatment of what is normally considered medieval philosophy covers the
more or less generally accepted stretch of time. He writes: “the present book
breaks off at 1400, then, not because that date represents or is in near reach
of the end of a discrete period of medieval philosophy, but simply because
there is no more room. As an ending to a study, it is not ‘in some ways’, but
totally arbitrary” (p. 351). If Marenbon is making the point that the term
‘Middle Ages’ is neither perspicuous nor particularly useful who could disagree?
The use of this term needs to be discarded, animated as it was by a pejorative
attitude which regarded only the Greek/Hellenistic and the Modern Periods
as worthy of independent characterization, with the ‘Middle Ages’ being the
poor relation one cannot quite disown but whom one would rather not
present to one’s sophisticated friends.
In addition to the appropriate chronological treatment of authors and topics,
the book also contains some novel features in the form of ‘interludes’ and
‘studies’. The interludes contain parenthetical information on some topics
of general interest, for example, ‘Philosophy and a manuscript culture’
(Interlude i) or ‘Platonism and poetry’ (Interlude v) while the studies are a set
of very focussed and analytically exemplary, brief yet comprehensive treatments
of philosophical topics. These studies include, inter alia, the problem of prescience
in Boethius’s ‘Consolation’; Eternity and the Universe: Augustine, Boethius
and Philoponus; Anselm’s ‘ontological’ argument; Abelard on universals;
Abelard and early medieval ethics; Abelard and Gilbert on possibility; the five
ways; and Aquinas on eternity and prescience..
Too often, histories of philosophy contain too much history and not enough
philosophy. That cannot be said of this book. For example, Study I, ‘Aquinas
on eternity and prescience’, calls into question in an interesting and, it would
appear, a novel way the equivalence of Boethius’s and Aquinas’s treatment
of eternity as atemporality. The other studies are similarly stimulating and
would provide the harassed instructor with a useful resource to keep the more
intelligent students interested.
This book, then, is highly to be recommended yet it is not without its
idiosyncrasies. There is, for example, a somewhat elliptical compliment to a
Routledge Editor, thanking her but remarking that, without her interventions
“this book would certainly have been much better . . .” (p. x). This is much
like the apocryphal author who thanked his wife for her support without
which, he said, the book would have been finished in half the time! On
Scottus Eriugena, Marenbon remarks that Scottus meant Irishman and that
Eriugena “more pretentiously” (p. 73) the same thing. By the ninth century
the Scoti (the Irish) had been in Scotland for around 300 years and it would
not have been inappropriate to clarify that John the Scot was, in fact, born
in Ireland (Eriugena) and not Scotland—where’s the pretension in this? More
seriously, there are odd comments here and there that, while not out of place
as obiter dicta in a lecture, are distinctly odd in a volume of this character. For
instance, in commenting on Aquinas’s ethics, Marenbon remarks: “Aquinas
takes from Aristotle the principle (surely wrong!) that whatever people desire,
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© 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

they conceive as a good” (p. 244). Why is such a principle surely wrong? It is
not obviously so; indeed, it seems obviously right to many. Would it not have
been worthwhile to have taken a paragraph to explain why this principle
cannot be true rather than inserting this throwaway comment in parentheses?
The book is written in a very clear and accessible style while difficult
concepts are lucidly explained. Despite, or perhaps because of, its extensive
and intensive coverage, this book will provide the instructor of medieval
philosophy with an invaluable tool. The ‘Guide to Further Reading’ is really
helpful and the ‘Bibliography’ is exceptional in its breadth of coverage.
 ,   

Pierre Gassendi and the Birth of Early Modern Philosophy

By  
Cambridge University Press, 2007. x + 284 pp. £45.00

Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655) is a somewhat enigmatic figure in histories of

seventeenth-century philosophy. No one doubts his importance, or the prominent
role he played in the sceptical critique of scholastic Aristotelianism, the
defence of Galileo, the attack on occultism, the rediscovery and partial defence
of Epicurean Atomism, and the bitter and acrimonious polemics arising out
of his ‘Fifth Objections’ to Descartes’s Meditations. Through his own work and
through the writings of disciples such as François Bernier (1625–1688) and
Walter Charleton (1620–1707) he influenced much of the natural philosophy
of the second half of the seventeenth century. But if Gassendi’s importance is
universally acknowledged, his significance is much more problematic, not to
say, deeply controversial. Was he fundamentally a sceptic, albeit perhaps a
“mitigated sceptic”, confining human knowledge to the world of appearances,
and thus doubtful about all the great systems of Natural Philosophy? Or
was he one of the two great system-builders of the “Mechanical Philosophy”
of the seventeenth century, deserving a place alongside Descartes for his
restoration of Greek Atomism? Did his rehabilitation of Epicurus’s physics
(and even his ethics) place him among the notorious libertins érudits? Or was
he, as he always professed, a sincere son of the Church? Given these multiple
readings and perspectives, questions of consistency inevitably arise. Is Gassendi’s
early scepticism consistent with his articulation and defence of a body of
natural philosophy derived from Epicurean Atomism? And is the materialism
seemingly implicit in this natural philosophy consistent with belief in the
Christian God and an immaterial human soul? Was he, as has been alleged,
inconsistent or even at times insincere in his presentation of his views?
Antonia Lolordo’s new book seeks to answer these questions by means of
a thorough, detailed, and wide-ranging account of Gassendi’s natural philosophy,
setting it in its precise historical context and discussing its evolution from the
early Exercitationes (1624) through to the posthumously-published Syntagma
(1658), giving more weight—quite properly—to the latter. After early chapters
on Gassendi’s philosophical opponents and his views on sense perception and
human knowledge, there are discussions of Space and Time, the Atoms,
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© 2008 The Author. Journal compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

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