Essays on the Philosophy and Science of René Descartes (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 34 ~ bones in the case of humans. Kenny claims that while Aquinas mentions no proponent of the view he is attacking, it is "generally taken" that he has Avicenna in mind. But in fact, Avicenna is the source for Aquinas's own doctrine that undesignated matter is included in the definition along with form. It is Averroes who rejects this Avicennian doctrine, and by 138, Kenny does indeed begin to refer to the unnamed opponent as Averroes, apparently without noticing the shift he has made. It is clear, moreover, that Kenny believes the positions that Aquinas is citing in this article--which are rooted in rival interpretations of the text of Aristotle's Metaphysics Z--represent two differing positions on the soul-body relation itself. The result is that Averroes comes out looking like a dualist (although Aquinas repeatedly accuses him of reducing human nature to its animal component) and Avicenna like an opponent of dualism, which he most certainly was not. The problem, of course, is that Aquinas alone was applying the more general metaphysical controversy between his Arabic predecessors to a problem in the philosophy of mind to which they themselves, unbeknownst to Kenny, did not apply it. So here both the positions of Aquinas's sources, and Aquinas's own originality, are misrepresented. Overall, Kenny's book, if read cautiously, can provide a useful first introduction to Aquinas's philosophy of mind for readers who lack any medieval background and who are most comfortable with the familiar approach of contemporary analytic philosophy. The book is clearly written and very approachable, and it is both critical and fair towards Aquinas, if not towards other medieval philosophers. But the lack of a broader historical sense ultimately undermines Kenny's ability to offer analytically trained readers a full appreciation of the sorts of concerns and issues that Aquinas attempts to face in the ST and other writings. There is a real need for studies of Aquinas that combine historical sensitivity and a critical spirit with an awareness of contemporary philosophical issues and approaches. Aquinas was indeed one of the greatest philosophers of the medieval period, but he was certainly not the only one, nor the first, and his own strengths and weaknesses cannot be fully appreciated without a balanced sense of both his debt to other medieval thinkers and of his own originality. DEBORAH L. BLACK Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto Stephen Voss, editor. Essays on the Philosophy and Science of Ren~ Descartes. New York: Oxford University Press, x993. Pp. xvii + 342. Cloth, $49.95. Paper, $19.95. This collection of nineteen papers arose from a conference organized by Voss in 1988 in San Jose which was designed to present the variety of viewpoints and approaches present in current Cartesian scholarship. This collection reflects this variety. Along with covering a wide range of issues, it includes six papers by French commentators that have been translated into English. Only five of the papers have been published elsewhere in other versions: those by Henry, Marion, Doney, Hatfield, and Garber. Five papers are concerned with resolving apparent inconsistencies in the Cartesian texts: Michelle Beyssade, "The Cogito: Privileged Truth or Exemplary Truth?"; Willis 34~ JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:2 APRIL I995 Doney, "Did Caterus Misunderstand Descartes's Ontological Proof?."; Jean-Marie Beyssade, "On the Idea of God: Incomprehensibility or Incompatibilities?"; Alan Gabbey, "Descartes's Physics and Descartes's Mechanics: Chicken and Egg?"; and Margaret Wilson, "Descartes on the Perception of Primary Qualities." The latter two discuss important points related to Descartes's physics. Gabbey clarifies the relation between physics and mechanics by interpreting Descartes's claims in the light of the scholastic distinction between mechanics and physics. Wilson discusses the sense in which our perception of primary qualities are clear and distinct, and the role of the intellect in sensory perception. The first three papers clarify crucial arguments given in the Meditations. Further light is cast on the Meditations by Edwin Curley in "Certainty: Psychological, Moral, and Metaphysical." Curley defends his account of the relations between the different notions of certainty against objections raised by Peter Markie in his book Descartes'sGambit. The nature of the Cartesian method...