In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

306 BOOK REVIEWS bit by bit they come to assemble a kind of picture which reflects something ofthe spiritual physiognomy of the period. In that respect, the diverse vignettes can be read as stories, each with a kind of integrity, contributing to a bigger picture which it is impossible to summarize in terms of one or a few univocal and essential features. There are times when the reader can have an experience a little analogous to Hume's looking into himself for himself and not finding himself: a variety of impressions that succeed each other with striking rapidity. Or is it that, unlike Hume who found no self, in these impressions we find too much of ourselves, nothing but ourselves? Here and there Dupre mentions that the whole period showed deficient attention to the other, but this is only mentioned, not philosophically developed. So many portraits, deftly, marvelously done, and yet this galley is not an aesthetic gallery in which all might be true, if only because no one makes any overriding truth claim. One is left unsatisfied with this surplus, even surfeit of different possibilities, when one comes to ask the question: What of truth in all of this? All these possibilities cannot be true, be they perfectly symptomatic of different possibilities pursued over an extended period of time. There is no Hegelian overview, for there is no principle of Geist to selforganize this gallery of pictures. Not that one would want such an overview. Dupre does not subscribe to the deconstructed totality of the postmoderns. But yet we ask for more. For this reader, in any case, there is not enough of this "more." One would not say that Dupre is himself overwhelmed by the wealth of the material, since he shows masterful erudition in bringing it all together, but there are times when he comes across as the medium of diverse communications but remains himself perhaps too reserved. Perhaps this is to ask too much from an otherwise excellent book. We have passed over complex terrain, and Dupre has mapped some of its most significant features in an admirable way; nevertheless, one wishes that where we now stand, where he stands, were thrown into bolder relief. Katholiek Universiteit Leuven Leuven, Belgium WILLIAM DESMOND By Knowledge and by Love: Charity and Knowledge in the Moral Theology ofSt. Thomas Aquinas. By MICHAELS. SHERWIN, 0.P. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005. Pp. xxiii + 270. $54.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-8128-1393-2. Michael Sherwin in this book offers an exqms1te example of fruitful historical scholarship in the context of speculative argument. At the beginning BOOK REVIEWS 307 of the book, he clearly lays out his criticism of Josef Fuchs and James Keenan, describing them as "theologians of moral motivation." This description highlights their position that motivation, or the will alone, is ultimately determinative for the moral life, as opposed to a view that integrates charity and knowledge, or the will and the intellect. Nonetheless, Sherwin avoids letting the structure and agenda of the book be determined by the specific disputation and instead carries out an historically and philosophically informed, theological exegesis of Aquinas's treatment of the intellect and will, of the virtues, of faith and of charity. The book collects a prodigious amount of scholarly consensus on Aquinas's understanding of the moral life and anthropology, especially in terms of the role of charity, organizing the material and making important clarifications and corrections. Ever since Immanuel Kant attempted to separate the theoretical intellect from the practical intellect, the complex interrelationship ofthe intellect and the will has remained dismantled for many conversations within theology and philosophy. Theoretical knowledge of the world, of human beings, and of God has been rendered fragile; support for the moral life has been sought in the will and its sphere of absolute freedom, a sphere seen to be a necessary condition for action in the world. Although the arena of transcendental freedom allegedly opened up what is most truly free in human beings, it remained separate from the human experience of categorical agency within the world. Theologians such as Karl Rahner saw in this transcendental human experience God's selfcommunication...

pdf

Share