A Companion to Plato’s Republic by Nicholas P. White (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 887 The relations between Thomism and the natural sciences have hardly been happy since the sixteenth century. De Wulf was right to want a reconciliation -both for the sake of Thomism and for the sake of science. It is a pity that Sanguineti has not helped that reconciliation in this book. University of Dallas Irving, Texas MARK D. JORDAN A Companion to Plato's Republic. By NICHOLAS P. WHITE. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1979. Pp. ~83. $14.50 cloth, $11.50 paper. This is a purely philosophical companion to Plato's Republic. It consists of two main parts, an Introduction (including short essays on "Plato's Aims: the Problem of Duty and Interest,"" The Argument of the Republic ," " The Theory of Forms and the Form of the Good," " The Structure of the Ethical Theory of the Republic," " The Structure of Plato's Ethical Theory Contrasted to Certain Modern Theories," " A Brief Assessment of Plato's Ethical Theory") and a larger part containing brief summaries of the argument in each book, supplemented by notes of varying difficulty. White deals more with the ideas and arguments than with the dramatic and literary elements of the Republic. His discussion of these ideas and arguments takes place in the atmosphere of " establishment " Anglo-American academic philosophy. However, White marries quite successfully this contemporary perspective with a willingness to find in Plato and to explore seriously ideas which are not current in the present context (the only way surely we can derive any benefit from earlier philosophy). One such idea which White finds promising (and intends to explore elsewhere) is Plato's conception of the good as possessing a certain objectivity and not depending on the likes and dislikes of people. Another strength of this book is its attention to the structure of Plato's argument. This is exhibited in general in the Introduction and in detail in the Notes, but I think that students would find useful a synoptic table showing the whole and the parts together. White also pays some attention to the metaphysics behind Plato's ethical ideas and presents an interesting interpretation of the Form of the Good. (I believe, however, that there is a good deal more to the Form of the Good than White suggests.) In a second edition of this Companion, it might be desirable to develop the summaries and notes on a far more ambitious scale. As it stands, the student might not be able to find all that he needs. Detailed explanations (a la Richard Robinson) of the arguments in Book I, for example, would be most useful, since working through these exasperating arguments is a 338 BOOK REVIEWS necessary propaedeutic for what follows, and some help is needed for the student to accomplish this successfully. The expanded Companion might also touch more on matters of political philosophy and might note the polemic surrounding Popper's attack on the Republic. No Companion to the Republic, however rich in informative explanation and interpretation, can ever exhaust its great subject, and there is much need for a Companion which is as rich as possible. The Catholic University of America Washington, D.C. DOMINIC O'MEARA The Kaliim Cosmological Argument. By WILLIAM LANE CRAIG. New York: Harper & Row, 1979. Contemporary discussions of the cosmological argument generally follow the philosophical model provided by Aristotle and Aquinas, which first invokes an empirical fact about the world (contingent beings exist; there is something in motion) , seeks for a cause or explanation of that fact, notes that an infinite series of causal conditions ordered transitively cannot provide an adequate explanation of that fact, and concludes to the existence of a necessary being or first cause. William Craig helpfully reminds us that this constitutes only one general form the cosmological argument has taken, a form originated by the Arabic practitioners of falsafa. His interest lies in another form developed by practitioners of kaliim, a " whole movement within Arabic thought that might best be called Arabic scholasticism" (4). Craig summarizes the lcaliim cosmological argument, which contrary to the above is concerned with the temporal sequence of events, as follows: 1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause of its existence. 2. The universe began to...