Inspired Metaphysics? Gustav Siewerth’s Hermeneutic Reading of the Onto-Theological Tradition by Andrzej Wiercinski (review)

332 BOOK REVIEWS goodness at which it aims, in what sense is the foundation of morality anything but "arbitrary"? (Surely, even the pure formality of the Categorical Imperative must be seen as desirable in some sense in order to have any binding force.) Along the same lines, one can ask how what Veto refers to as the sui generis intelligibility of the will differs from irrationality. In short, there would be many grounds for raising concerns about the twofold dissociation that Veto takes at the outset to be an ideal, and his treatment provokes such questions without providing answers. Whether or not one is willing to accept this ideal, there is a great deal to be learned from Veto's book. Among other things, the notion of will that governs his analyses sets into relief an unusual constellation of figures in intellectual history, introduces surprising affinities, and shows the philosophical significance of figures normally left out of philosophical discussions. His suggestion, for example, that the structure of the mystical experience of John of the Cross anticipates in decisive ways Husserl's phenomenological reduction (91, 93, 103) is excellent, and the insights he draws from Puritan theology offer a newsolution to an old philosophical problem. Even a reader more inclined to espouse a classical understanding the will in relation to the intellect and natural desire will find the story stimulating and provocative, and certainly anyone interested in the history of ideas will find this an exceedingly rich and illuminating book. Villanova University Villanova, Pennsylvania D. C. SCHINDLER Inspired Metaphysics? Gustav Siewerth's Hermeneutic Reading of the Onto-Theological Tradition. By ANDRZEJ WIERCINSKI. Toronto: The Hermeneutic Press, 2003. Pp. 214. ISBN 0-9525333-3-2. Andrzej Wiercinski has written the first English monograph on Gustav Siewerth (1903-63), the twentieth-century German thinker whom Hans Urs von Balthasar regarded as the greatest philosopher of the contemporary age. In numerous major works, in which he negotiates a precarious synthesis of Hegel, Heidegger, and Aquinas, Siewerth constructs some of the most original speculative philosophy of the contemporary period. Yet notwithstanding a significant readership in Germany, Siewerth remains largely unknown in North America. Wiercinski's book, Inspired Metaphysics? Gustav Siewerth's Hermeneutic Readingofthe Onto-TheologicalTradition, represents the culmination of twenty years of work on Siewerth. Wiercinski presents Siewerth as an example of the BOOK REVIEWS 333 hermeneutic vitality of Thomism. Criticized for his speculative departures from the texts of Aquinas, Siewerth in his relationship to Aquinas has methodologically much in common with Bernard Lonergan, Max Miiller, Johann Baptist Lotz, and to a lesser extent, Joseph Man~chal and the young Karl Rahner. With these thinkers, Siewerth regards the dialogue with modernity as the essentialtask for Thomism. Yet Siewerth is critical of Thomist appropriations of Kant, as Wiercinski points out in his well-researched chapter "The Transcendental Turn in the Thomist Revival." Siewerth's emphasis on the irreducibility of being, the act of existence (esse) grasped by the intellect as a pure positivity, aligns him with Gilson and the existential Thomists and distances him from the "transcendental Thomists." Siewerth however does not engage in the close textual analysis characteristic of the Gilson school. He retains from his years studying under Martin Heidegger in the 1930sthe method of directly engagingthe matter ofthe text (die Sache), even if this requires rethinking it in new terms. While Wiercinski appears to distance himself from Siewerth (hence the question mark in the title), the central contribution of this volume is not Wiercinski's critique but his thorough exposition of Siewerth's ontology, accompanied by numerous translated quotations from Siewerth's works. After setting the stage by introducing the idea of "hermeneutic reading" ("the situation ofthe interpretation, ofthe appropriation ofthe past in understanding, is always the situation of the living present," Wiercinski writes, "the text has something to say to me, something which requires my attentive response"), Wiercinski deftly guides us through Siewerth's extremely difficult speculative ontology. He argues that Siewerth cannot be understood without a knowledge of the history of medieval philosophy, German idealism, and Heidegger, and carefully illustrates the significance ofeach ofthese. Particularly helpful is the examination of Siewerth's understanding of the relationship of Scotus's metaphysics to...