The Reality of the Mind. Augustine's Philosophical Arguments for the Human Soul as a Spiritual Substance (review)

i48 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 27: I JANUARY 1989 metaphysics). Klosko rightly observes that institutions in the Laws are based on real life, indeed, he probably exaggerates the differences between Athens and Magnesia, e.g., in the power of Assembly and Council. In a state without extreme poverty or wealth, without famine or surplus, much of the routine business would not exist, nor did the Athenian Assembly institute legislation. Plato's account of the Council is certainly brief, but the ship analogy (758A) implies fundamental steering powers. The book is well produced and easy to read. The suggestions for further reading (245-48) are hardly inspired. CATHERINE OSBORNE New Hall, Cambridge Ludger H61scher. The Reality of the Mind. Augustine's Philosophical Arguments for the Human Soul as a Spiritual Substance. Studies in Phenomenological and Classical Realism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986. Pp. vii + 34 i. $51 .oo. Saint Augustine's arguments for the substantiality of the soul are not usually included among the more durable works in the history of philosophy. Thus, we are surprised by a book that promises "to show man's soul to be essentially distinct from, yet united to, his body by philosophically arguing in various ways, taken from Augustine, for its incorporeal and spiritual substantiality" (7). A presentation of Augustine's remarks on these matters would interest Augustine specialists. A demonstration of the substantiality of the soul would interest everyone else. However, this book attempts both simultaneously and, in consequence, is both confused and confusing. For those interested in Augustine's position (rather than the hybrid Augustine cum H61scher) it is possible to cull a comprehensive account by paying careful attention to pronouns. The Augustine scholarship, when it can be sorted out, is in fact impeccable. H61scher is obviously familiar with Augustine's vast writing on this and related subjects . (There is, however, little understanding of relevant contemporary work in science and philosophy, both of which are nonetheless dismissed out of hand. Oddly, Frederick Copleston's venerable History ofPhilosophyis cited as the source of a quotation from Anaximenes.) Scholarship aside, the key to this book is found at the opening of chapter a, where HOlscher considers what he calls "materialistic views of man." Some writers deny the separate, substantial reality of the soul. H61scher asks, with Augustine, why such materialistic views abound. It is because "all these views suppose the cause and principle of things to be corporeal" and thus we try to "measure and to account for incorporeal and spiritual realities with the help of corporeal images." Augustine writes that we think of things in material terms out of habit. H61scher tells us that man has "thrown himself into the sensible, corporeal world" and so can only think in terms of material images, having lost the "dwelling within onself." Augustine's remarks are understandable; he himself frequently uses material examples , such as the homo interior passages, in his explanations of the soul. But how can anyone writing in the twentieth century claim that people in Augustine's time were immersed in materialism? And H61scher does think this, for he claims that "most BOOK REVIEWS ~49 'modern' anthropologies can be traced back to ancient ideas, often being nothing but more refined 'scientific' versions of traditional views" (12). Philosophers today recognize that one who argues for the existence of a mind or soul--substantial or otherwise---must also confront a host of attendant concepts as well, such things as the will, volitions, ideas--what Augustine would characterize as inner phenomena. H61scher ignores this requirement: "the question of what the soul is shall be approached by analyzing what is given in inner experience" (ao). An excellent approach if there is a soul. But this reader needs to be convinced that there is a soul. If the convincing is done with help from St. Augustine, all the better, but some reason for believing in souls and inner experience must be given. H61scher writes as though he were unaware of the problems attendant upon mind-talk----even when he encounters one. He notes that "consciouness... must, on the one hand, be seen as something distinct from the person.., but on the other hand.., identical with the...