Love of Self and Love of God in Thirteenth-Century Ethics by Thomas M. Osborne, Jr (review)

326 BOOK REVIEWS individuation" to accommodate the phenomenon of nutrition in living things. Such substances (which change their matter through nutrition, growth, and diminution, while maintaining their substantial identity) require "a special mode of substantial form, somewhat immaterial, and thus somewhat akin to the subsisting form which is the human soul" (233). Quoting Aquinas, he explains that such a form is "like an immaterial form" since it "does not determine for itself any designated matter, but at one moment is preserved in this, at another moment in that" (234). This makes one wonder whether today we would not have to say that the forms of all material substances must be "somewhat immaterial," given our present scientific understanding of the natural world in which all substances, living and non-living, constantly gain and lose matter (electrons) while maintaining their substantial identity. Father Dewan and the editors of the Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy series have performed a service to the philosophical community in bringing these essays together. The book's index of names and detailed index of topics allows the reader easily to find and track a given figure or theme through the various articles. Dewan has promised future collections of essays on the doctrine of being and natural theology (ix). These will be most welcome in providing ready access to the rich fruits of his continuing "apprenticeship with Thomas Aquinas" (xiii). Dominican School ofPhilosophy and Theology Berkeley, California MICHAEL]. DODDS, 0.P. Love of Self and Love of God fn Thirteenth-Century Ethics. By THOMAS M. OSBORNE, JR. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005. Pp. 336. $60.00 (cloth), $30.00 (paper). ISBN 0-268-03723-X (cloth), 0268 -03722-1 (paper). Thomas M. Osborne's study of the development of thirteenth-century ethics focuses on a thematic that has not received the attention it deserves: the relationship of love of self to love of God. While for modern ethical theories the relationship of self to God has often appeared as a conflict between egoism and altruism, the medieval treatment of human love as foundation to ethics reveals a much richer and more intricate and therefore more integrated treatment. As this textual study demonstrates, the dichotomy is not as obvious for medieval thinkers as it might be for moderns. Comprised of five chapters, this work begins with the Augustinian tradition's emphasis on loving God as the key to the happy life, a tradition presented as largely Neoplatonic and in contrast to the Aristotelian ethical project which is BOOK REVIEWS 327 centered on happiness. Chapter 2 follows the Scholastic development in the midthirteenth century prior to Aquinas. This chapter is especially helpful in the way it brings to the forefront the work of William of Auxerre, Philip the Chancellor, and Albert the Great, not simply as predecessors to Thomas Aquinas, but as thinkers who dealt with this question in important ways. Chapter 3 focuses on Aquinas and on his distinct manner of dealing with the question, informed by his Aristotelian perspective. Chapter 4 helps fill out the picture in the final quarter of the thirteenth century, with thinkers such as Siger of Brabant, Boethius of Dacia, and James of Viterbo. Here again, light is shed on aspects of the debate that have not often been studied in depth. Finally, the fifth chapter takes up the position of John Duns Scotus, showing how his treatment of this theme is both similar to and distinct from Aquinas and other earlier thinkers. The first chapter sets the trajectory for the entire work, with its emphasis on Augustine and the way in which later, thirteenth-century Christian thinkers would attempt to integrate the central Augustinian insights when they read Aristotle. Augustine's Platonism is the key for Osborne's study, both for his emphasis on love and for his focus on God as the summum bonum. The influence of the Augustinian tradition on the eleventh and twelfth centuries is presented, however, as if the medievals developed a largely Platonic ethic prior to the arrival of the Nicomachean Ethics. Platonic influences are clearly present in this early medieval period, but this chapter would have benefitted from a more developed...