At the Center of the Human Drama: The Philosophical Anthropology of Karol Wojtyla/Pope John Paul II by Kenneth L. Schmitz (review)

142 BOOK REVIEWS vouchsafe a tradition's continuance and progress." In the light of the closing of the Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies, these words cannot be too carefully meditated. The heart of the Thomistic tradition is its paradigmatic openness to reality. When mere historical labors trump such openness, the result is speculative suicide. "The tradition" is first speculative and systematic, properly participated through philosophic habitus and eros; it is only secondarily and in auxiliary fashion an historical matter (being and truth are not only in the past!). What defines the tradition is its speculative content, which is its form and ratio. Where the speculative life is strong, the need for medieval historians of ideas will strongly persist. But where the speculative life is improperly subordinated to the historical habitus and weakened, no such need for medieval history will persist. Thomists who wish to philosophize in the present, in a living tradition, rather than conve11 the thought of St. Thomas into an object of intellectual forensic pathology, must bear this in mind. No higher praise can be spoken about Thomas Aquinas and His legacy than this, that it makes a good beginning. STEVEN A. LONG Christendom College Front Ro)'al, Virginia At the Center ofthe Human Drama: The Philosophical Anthropology of Karol Wojtyla/Pope John Paul II. By KENNETH L. SCHMITZ. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1993. Pp. x + 170. $24.95 (cloth); $11.95 (paper). Not long after Karol Wojtyla was elected pope, a wry remark began circulating back at the Catholic University of Lublin, in Poland, about a very difficult book he had written on moral phenomenology, entitled The Acting Person. He had written the original Polish work ten years ago with, it was said, full foreknowledge that he would one day be pope and that he would then require it as reading for priests in purgatory. Let's face it: Wojtyla's philosophical writing is difficult. Whatever the cause-his persistent eff011s to penetrate ever more deeply into the hea11 of an issue, the sustained depth and intricacy of his discussions, or a convoluted phenomenological style of writing influenced possibly by Scheler-it cannot, apparently, be blamed wholly on faulty translations. Even Wojtyla's best interpreters face a daunting challenge in trying to explain the often dense, enigmatic, seemingly imponderable passages of his philosophical writings. Kenneth Schmitz, professor of philosophy emeritus at Trinity College, University ofToronto, and professor of philosophy at the John Paul II Institute BOOK REVIEWS 143 for Studies on Marriage and Family in Washington, D.C., has provided an excellent, concise introduction to Wojtyla's philosophical anthropology. In less than 150 pages, he examines a broad spectrum of Wojtyla's writingsranging from his early dramas through his philosophical studies to his later theological works-and distills from them a reasonably coherent philosophical view. One thing that undoubtedly helps give this book a certain stylistic accessibility is the fact that it originally took the form of the 1991 McGivney Lectures at the John Paul II Institute in Washington. Yet neither the author's facility in explaining Wojtyla, nor the book's brevity, nor its deceptively nontechnical -sounding title, should mislead the reader. This is no bedtime read. It is a challenging primer in Wojtyla's philosophy, which, like Wojtyla's philosophy itself, rewards study but requires patience. One of the most technically useful features of the book, for the serious student , is an appendix contributed by John Grondelski on "Sources for the Study of Karol Wojtyla's Thought." This is subdivided into sections on (1) resource centers for the study of his pre-pontifical thought; (2) an extensive bibliography of his books and articles in several languages on the subjects of theology, philosophy, marriage and family; (3) a list of his statements in the commissions of the Second Vatican Council; (4) anthologies of his writings; and (5) helpful secondary literature. Most discussions of Wojtyla's philosophy note his primary interests in the areas of ethics and moral phenomenology. If they are discerning, they will also note that these interests are developed within the broad tradition of Christian personalism, and that they are informed by traditional commitments of metaphysical realism represented by...