La Pensée philosophique et théologique de Gersonide (review)

362 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY practice, and Aristotle's frequent appeal to semantical procedures in evaluating syllogistic forms (e.g., counterexamples and ecthesis) confirms this, if confirmation were needed. Several other imperfections weaken this work. Bosley sometimes deals rather oddly with the Greek text. For instance, he translates (apparently) ~.tvog ~Ttoq~ctvztxtg in De Int. 17a8 as "speech which is categorical" (p. 6), despite the definition of that phrase as "sentence to which belong truth and falsehood," i.e., "proposition," half a dozen lines earlier. Again in discussing the definition of ov~.o~,tot~tg he quotes the definition from Top. 100a25-27 (for some reason he never alludes to the virtually identical version in An. Pr.) and translates ~ ~vdtvx~g ou~l~Cvet as "results by force" (p. 46). Since this last rendering is of some importance for a thesis of his (of. p. 47), it is in need of justification. Another difficulty with the book is the author's style, which is at times extraordinarily opaque. Although I was unable to find any sentence that was in fact ambiguous or misconstructed, there are a good many sentences (and paragraphs) whose grammatical structure only emerges after a second, or third, reading . A similar lack of perspicuity surrounds Bosley's symbolic notation, which in my view does more to hinder than to help the exposition. Finally, some sort of index would be helpful. All in all, this is a work which miscarries through misapplication. Had Bosley applied his methods to the Topics, for instance, he might very well have illuminated what remains a dark corner of the history of logic. As it is, by attempting to force the syllogistic of the Prior Analytics into his dialectical mold, he has fundamentally misconstrued the nature of Aristotle's mature logic. ROBIN SMITH Kansas State University La pensde philosophique et thdolog[que de Gersonide. By Charles Touati. (Paris: Les Editions De Minuit, 1973) By the fourteenth century the assimilation of Aristotle's writings was completed and the critical response was beginning to be felt. In the medieval Jewish philosophical tradition one of the most important of these Aristotelian critics was the FrenchJewish philosopher, astronomer, mathematician and Biblical exegete, Levi ben Gerson, or Gersonides (1288-1344). Gersonides' philosophical contributions, unlike his astronomical , mathematical and logical writings, which were translated at least in part into Latin, have generally been closed books to the non-Hebrew reading world. Among the contemporary scholars who have been trying to open up these philosophical mines is Professor Charles Touati, who has already given us a partial translation of Gersonides 's major philosophical work, The Wars o/ the Lord, 1 and now has published a comprehensive treatment of his philosophical and theological ideas. In addition to a discussion of most of the major philosophical and theological topics considered by Gersonides, this book includes a detailed presentation of the facts concerning Gersonides 's life2 and literary contributions. Most of the philosophical exposition concentrates upon The Wars o! the Lord, but ample references are given to Gersonides's x Levi ben Gerson, Les guerres du seigneur, Livres III 6 IV, trans. Charles Touati (Paris, 1968). Touati hypothesizes that Gersonides was a physician. However, Josef Schatzmiller has recently shown that Gersonides made his living as a money-lender (seohis "Gersonides and the Jewish Community of Orange in his Day," Studies in the History of the Jewish People and the Land of Israel, [Haifa, 1972], II, 113-114). BOOK REVIEWS 363 commentaries on the Aristotelian corpus and to his commentaries on the Bible. The analysis of Gersonides's very difficult arguments and doctrines is detailed and illuminating . References to the relevant sources in the Greek, Arabic and Hebrew literatures are provided and comparisons with more modern philosophers, such as Leibniz and Kant are suggested. The exposition is clear and well-written. Touati's treatment is organized according to his own perception of the systematic unity of Gersonides's thought, and thus he does not follow the actual ordering of The Wars o/ the Lord, whose arrangement is not as systematic as one would like it to be. Since Gersonides's philosophical ideas are not well-known, I shall in this review focus upon some of...