Reasonable Faith by John Haldane (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 141 of serious theological objections from both ecumenical partners and Catholic theologians, and ready to explain the principles and perspectives that govern his own position, Matthew Levering reconstitutes a solid theological account of the hierarchical or ministerial priesthood in the Catholic Church. Levering’s theological colleagues owe him a profound debt of gratitude for providing such a masterful synthesis. SARA BUTLER University of St. Mary of the Lake Mundelein, Illinois Reasonable Faith. By JOHN HALDANE. London and New York: Routledge Press, 2010. Pp. 201. $39.99 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-415-43025-8. This collection of essays by John Haldane, Professor of Philosophy at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, is something of a companion piece to his earlier collection of essays, Faithful Reason (2004). While the earlier volume focuses on Catholic topics viewed through a philosophical lens, this current collection might be thought of as a series of essays on philosophical topics seen through a Catholic, and more specifically Thomist, lens. Even more specifically, Haldane approaches Thomas from a perspective that has been dubbed “analytical Thomism,” which, in its broadest sense, is characterized by its commitment both to the thought of Thomas Aquinas and to the insights of Anglo-American philosophy. Indeed, despite the suspicions of some Thomists that “analytic philosophy” is synonymous with “anti-metaphysical logic-chopping,” Haldane sees a profound sympathy between these two traditions, grounded in what he calls their shared “empiricalist” (as distinct from “empiricist”) approach, which holds that “all natural knowledge is acquired through experience (broadly conceived of) or formed by reflection upon it” (11). Thomas and Aristotle exemplify this empiricalist approach, but so too do Thomas Reid, C. S. Peirce, John Henry Newman, Ludwig Wittgenstein, G. E. M. Anscombe, Peter Geach, P. F. Strawson, Hillary Putnam, and Nicholas Rescher, to mention some of the figures who appear in Haldane’s essays. Ultimately the unity of this collection rests upon the way in which it displays, through its own philosophical performance, the mutual benefits gained by Thomism and analytic philosophy from their encounter with each other. For Haldane, the strength of the analytic tradition is in “the construction and dissection of arguments” (12). Anyone who has come away from an encounter with Heidegger or Derrida or Deleuze, dazzled by the verbal pyrotechnics but wondering whether any actual argument has been made or refuted, is likely to BOOK REVIEWS 142 find analytic clarity refreshing. Moreover, a Thomist will recognize in analytic philosophy the same love of precision and distinction, as well as attentiveness to language, that characterizes Thomas’s own writings. At the same time, Haldane states quite forthrightly the two chief deficiencies of analytic philosophy as this is usually practiced. First, analytic philosophers can be quite ahistorical in their approach, seeming to favor the crystalline world of logical analysis over the messiness of the history of philosophy. This weakness, I would note, is one that analytic philosophy shares with some forms of Thomism. Second, many analytic philosophers treat the construction and dissection of arguments as an end in itself, ignoring or actively eschewing any larger purpose to the philosophical project. This latter weakness seems to be of particular concern to Haldane, and it is here that he sees analytic philosophy as having the most to gain from an encounter with Thomas Aquinas, for whom the making of arguments and the drawing of distinctions is never an end but always a means of attaining an evergreater love of wisdom. Though Haldane says that he has sought “to weave the chapters into . . . a continuous narrative,” the book seems to hang together fairly loosely. The essays are grouped together in two parts. In good Thomist fashion, the prima pars, under the heading “Reason, Faith and God,” includes essays on God and metaphysics, while secundapars,under the heading “Reason, Faith and the Soul,” includes essays in the broad area of philosophical anthropology. Though most of the essays are interesting in their own way, they definitely retain the marks of their original contexts and show a certain diversity in both form and content. For example, chapter 2, “A Thomist Metaphysics,” was originally written as a contribution to a general work on metaphysics and, as is appropriate...