The Metaphysical Thought of Godfrey of Fontaines (review)

280 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY articles by Tullio Gregory (in Giornale critico dellafilosofia italiana between 1964 and 1967) the place of" figures such as Cudworth, Sennert, and van Goorle has been underestimated. A critical moment came when spatium and its vernacular equivalents replaced locus as the key term, but nothing is said of this. Above all, it marks the replacement of an Aristotelian term by a Platonic one, the significance of which cannot be minimized. Finally, it is a pity that Grant stops short of the crucial empirical work of the seventeenth century, which shattered the Aristotelian world view once and for all. Unless I am seriously mistaken, the major point to which the book is directed in an almost whiggish way is the moment at which Torricelli, Boyle, Pascal and a handful of others demonstrated in an unequivocal fashion the untenability of the horror vacui position. Yet the first two are not mentioned in the index, and nothing is made of these signal events. In the final analysis it must be emphasized how valuable and important Grant's book is. He has broadened and deepened the discussion in many ways, and has made it much easier for anyone to come to grips with problems of space and void before Newton. If there are omissions and shortcomings, we now have a better platform for further research. Moreover, he has raised many problems which should provoke a series of interesting answers. The volume is well produced, amply documented, and provided with valuable bibliography and index. CHARLES B. SCrIMITT The Warburg Institute John F. Wippel. The Metaphysical Thought of Godfrey of Fontaines. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University Press of America, 1981. Pp. xxxv + 413 . $27.95. The lack of a sound general study of Godfrey of Fontaines's metaphysical perspective needs be lamented no longer. The recovery of the texts of Godfrey's Quodlibetal Questions earlier in our century has now given way to the deeper recovery of that original metaphysical thinking which gave being to those very texts during the last quarter of the thirteenth century. This has been achieved with painstaking, careful analyses o| the many and varied questions resolved by Godfrey, mostly theological, befitting his position as Magister Regens in the Faculty of" Theology at the University of Paris, but also metaphysical, along with questions of natural philosophy and even ecclesiasticaljursidiction in relation to the Condemnation of 1277. After initial consideration is given to Godfrey's positions on the nature of metaphysics , the divisions and the analogy of being, along with the transcendental modes of being--unity, truth and goodness, the study is divided into three broad areas. The first is devoted to an extensive consideration of Godfrey's metaphysics of essence and existence. This is followed by an analysis of his metaphysics of substance and accident . The final section concerns the metaphysics of matter and form and Godfrey's significant assessment of the classical controversy dealing with the plurality versus the unicity of form as it has to do with angels, human souls and heavenly bodies. The problem of individuation in the case of material beings, the role of quantity therein, and individuation in the case of separated souls and angels are also treated in this BOOK REVIEWS 281 final section. In each of these major divisions, the distinctive perspective of Godfrey is analyzed and evaluated against the immediate background of the three general philosophical traditions abroad at this time, the radical Aristotelianisnl of Siger of Brabant and others in the Arts Faculty of the University of Paris, the distinctive perspective of Thomas Aquinas, and the Neo-Augustinian outlook represented by Henry of Ghent, James of Viterbo and others, While his doctrinal affinities with the teachings of Siger of Brabant and Aquinas are acknowledged, the final judgment is that Godfrey's perspective is irreducible to any of those three prevailing traditions. In the final analysis, his is a "purer form of Aristotelianism," surely no modest achievement in itself, but all the more striking fbr being carried off under the threatening presence of the Condemnation of 1277. Something of Godfrey's distinctive metaphysical perspective can be saw)red as his metaphysics of essence and existence is pitted against the positions...