Aesthetic Perception: A Thomistic Perspective by Kevin E. O’reilly (review)

332 BOOK REVIEWS have overcome. This is not the place to engage what is a great debate in the Church today but any variety of Thomist is likely to suspect that Franks goes too far when arguing that living the poverty of the Cross requires the gift of fear: "As we sense our lowliness and God's greatness, we also recognize the extent of our dependence. So the gift of fear shores us up for the arduous task of trusting God for all our needs.... The fear of the Lord is not only a stumbling block for modern thought; it also evokes a sense of our ontological poverty" (111). It goes too far, because Franks believes a sense of ontological poverty sits at the heart of natural law. Franks's position seems to collapse into the idea that our moral sensibility relies heavily on the gifts of the Holy Spirit and this does seem like a sin of presumption. One wonders whether Franks's-in my opinion-incautious formulations, running too closely together the natural law and the virtues of spiritual perfection, point to a troubling lust for perfection immanent to a de Lubacian outlook. Despite my wanting to see the argument of the book clarified and tightened, I enjoyed this book and found it genuinely thoughtful. Loyola University ofMaryland Baltimore, Maryland G. ]. MCALEER Aesthetic Perception: A Thomistic Perspective. By KEVIN E. O'REILLY. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007. Pp. 131. $55.00 (cloth). ISBN 978-1-84682027 -4. The study of Aquinas's aesthetics is inevitably hampered by the fact that he wrote no sustained discussion of the topic. He devoted neither a question nor a single article to the nature of beauty. This is not to suggest the topic is unworthy of scholarly attention. Though Aquinas did not pursue the topic directly, he did bequeath ample resources by which his students might do so themselves. As a number of recent studies have indicated, such an undertaking more than compensates for the labors required, leading to a deeper and broader appreciation of Aquinas's philosophical achievements. Not only do we stand to gain deeper insights into his understanding of beauty, we might also appraise this in relation to other aspects of his thought. The expectation that we might find an aesthetic theory in Aquinas is perhaps due to developments of post-Enlightenment thought. With the dissatisfaction of rationalism, an explicit consideration of beauty and our experience of it assumed much greater importance than it had before. After the publication of Kant's Critique ofJudgment the topic came to be highly appreciated, if not as the locus of metaphysical speculation, then as that which readily engages our speculative attention in our more common experiences. It is within this modern context that BOOK REVIEWS 333 the study of Aquinas's aesthetics acquires an added significance. It offers Thomists the possibility of introducing his thought to a wider audience which might not understand or appreciate his relevance, not only as a representative of the Middle Ages, but also as a thinker who affords us a thoroughgoing understanding of our own experience. Kevin O'Reilly's Aesthetic Perception: A Thomistic Perspective is a welcome addition to this topic, not only for its study of Aquinas's aesthetics but also as it leads us to appraise the importance of that aesthetics within a broader philosophical spectrum. O'Reilly provides a penetrating and expansive treatment of this field. Beyond his thoughtful review of the psychological and metaphysical moorings of Aquinas's aesthetics, he also considers its moral significance, which has received scant attention in other studies. Moreover, he proposes Aquinas's thought as a response to some more recent developments, thus encouraging Thomists to consider how the Angelic Doctor might be introduced into quarters where he might have been previously unknown. Though an insightful study, one of the disappointments of this volume is that it does not always pursue the implications of its findings, some of which are quite significant, to the degree they deserve. Another unfortunate aspect of the project is the degree to which the author allows his insightful analysis ofAquinas to be unduly indebted to debates among relatively recent Thomists. One of...