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264 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY perceptibles cannot be objects of knowledge, so that if science is possible, there must exist in addition some unchanging, abstract items. Aristotle is correct in claiming that the arguments (if sound) only show that there are some things besides perceptible particulars and not that these are Platonic Forms, hut Plato's mistake is understandable in a pioneer who has not yet envisioned a variety of candidates for real abstract items. Frank himself hints at a reasonable way of understanding the deficiency of sensibles (to3), which has been suggested by Nehamas and Penner) namely that they are deficient as things with which to identify beauty, equality, etc. They cannot provide adequate answers to what beauty is, what equality is, etc. This view does not require particulars to be imperfect examples and Forms "paradigm examples," the "super subjects" of universal literal self-predications (41, 54)According to Frank, the "Aristotelian universals" that Aristotle claims are the true objects of science also "are 'out there' awaiting discovery" but they are "properties and only properties" which may or may not be instantiated by individuals (114-16 ). Whereas Platonic Forms were supposed to "enjoy a 'substantial, independent existence ' ," Aristotelian universals "enjoy a 'non-substantial, independent existence' " (xt5). What is the difference? "Substance" translates a technical Aristotelian term but Frank rejects well-known accounts of what substantiality consists in. He asserts that the dependence of Aristotelian universals on sensible particulars is epistemological, not ontological (116). They are not only "separate in reality" but also "separate in thought, i.e., separable by means of thought, i.e. reached by means of abstraction from ta kath' hekasta" (116). In contrast, Plato regards sense-perception as a "hindrance in the gaining or acquiring of knowledge." Frank's discussion of this confuses being a hindrance to knowledge with being an unacceptable candidate for an object of knowledge (99-loo). Given its importance for his understanding of Aristotle's epistemology , Frank would have been well-advised to offer a positive account of abstraction , since Mueller's work" has raised severe questions about the traditional account. JoAn KUNG Marquette University Gerard Verbeke. The Presence of Stoicism in Medieval Thought. Washington, D. C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1984 . Pp. 1o a. Cloth, $12.95. Paper, $6.95. This small volume contains four lectures delivered by Dr. Verbeke at the Catholic University of America. The introductory chapter describes the assimilation of Stoic ideas into patristic and medieval thought. The succeeding chapters take up basic Stoic themes and show to what extent they survived and were criticized and transformed in medieval philosophy. These themes are limited to physics and ethics. ' Alexander Nehamas, "Plato on the Imperfection of the Sensible World," AmericanPhilosophical Quarterly lo (1975): 1o5-17, and Terrence Penner, The Ascentfrom Nominalism: Some ExistenceArguments in Plato'sMiddle Dialogues(forthcoming). "Ian Mueller, "Aristotle on Geometrical Objects," Archiv fiir Geschichteder Philosophie 5a (197o): 156-71. BOOK REVIEWS 265 Chapter 2 is devoted to the challenge of Stoic materialism, chapter 3 to ethical subjects: law, virtue, conscience and synderesis, and chapter 4 to the problem of fatalism and freedom. The scope of the lectures did not permit a broader treatment of the influence of Stoicism in the areas of the theory of knowledge, hnguage and logic, and the evolutionary view of the universe. It is hoped that the author will treat of these important subjects on another occasion. Verbeke shows that as early as the second century A. D. Stoicism exercised an influence on Christian writers, both Greek and Latin. Unlike the penetration of Aristotelianism in the Christian West, Stoicism did not come by way of translations of the original Greek treatises, and there was no sudden and massive impact of the doctrine similar to that of Aristotelianism in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Information about Stoic philosophy was available almost from the beginning of the Christian era and it was introduced into medieval thought through many different channels. Among them were the church Fathers, like Tertullian, Lactantius, saint Ambrose and saint Augustine, and the Greek Fathers: Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Nemesius of Emesa. Stoic ideas also came to the Middle Ages by way of translations of Greek...

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