Heresy in the Later Middle Ages: The Relation of Heterodoxy to Dissent c. 1250-1450 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 205 author has shed some light upon the pIace of logic in the Thomistic system of knowledge . In the classification found in De Trinitate which classifies sciences both from the viewpoint of the end and of the degrees of abstraction, logic is defined in terms of art, or science, or both, not without ambiguity. But in the classification found in the Commentary on the Ethics which introduces us to a fourfold order or intelligibility , the natural one, the logical one, the moral one, the technical one, logic is conceived in a very modern perspective by being referred to an order "which reason constitutes (]acit) by its own activity of considering." Is this not an awareness of subjectivity as a principle of constitution with regard to the logical entities? I am less satisfied, at least for the expression, with the presentation of reasoning as revealing to us things which do not fall under senses. I think that this revelation is the result of the syllogism "formaliter ut sic" but from the use of the principle of causality in a metaphysical sense. Anyway, this book is truly a summa not for beginners but for all those who want to be acquainted with a certain type of classical logic which has been elaborated by a great mind which could fall but did not in the Platonism of his predecessors nor anticipate the Ockhamism of the fourteenth century. Trained at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, the author was well prepared for this work indispensable to any study of the history of logic or for getting a view on logic, truly deep and still relevant. By its tables, this book is an instrument easy to handle. We recommend warmly this study, not only to the scholastic thinkers but even to those who are more concerned with the technique of the symbols, unless they prefer to remain on the "naive level" of their skillful game, as Husserl warned them, a long time ago. E. W~qcs Claremont Graduate School Heresy in the Later Middle Ages: The Relation of Heterodoxy to Dissent c. 1250-1450. By Gordon Left. (Manchester, England: Manchester University Press; New York: Barnes & Noble, 1967. 2 Vols. Pp. x+ 800. $15) This book examines the emergence of heresy in the later Middle Ages from the major religious preoccupations of the period. The latter are grouped under three headings which form the main divisions of the book: Poverty and Prophecy, Union with God, and the True Church. These are preceded by a Prologue which outlines some of the conclusions Left has reached about the nature of later medieval heresy. The book doses with two brief appendices on the Beguines, Beghards, and the Brethren of the Free Spirit. There is an ample bibliography. The index is complete and on the whole accurate, although Amaury of B~ne appears on pp. 309-310, not 209-210. The footnotes stand up reasonably well under a random check, and there appears to be only one spelling inconsistency: Angelo of Clareno becomes Angelo of Clarena on pp. 168, 178 and 216. I mention these minor inaccuracies because I expect that this book will become a standard work on the subject and even one reprinting will make it possible for these to be corrected. The first part of the book, Poverty and Prophecy, deals with the disputes within the Franciscan order leading up to the heresy of the Fraticelli. The primary issue is that of the possession of property, and there is an excellent analysis of the distinction between use and possession from its origins through the later refinements by St. Bon- 206 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY aventure and William of Ockham. The treatment of Peter John Olivi is thorough and sympathetic. The apocalyptic prophesying of some of the participants in this drama is part of a general theme which I shall touch on below. The second part, Union with God, begins with a brief treatment of Eckhart's mysticism and a sketchy demonstration of what Left calls the "fideism and doubt" (p. 294) of Ockham and his followers, a result, he claims, of their doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God's potentia absoluta (pp. 300, 306-307). Ockham...