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BOOK REVIEWS 491 Les anges et la philosophie: Subjectivite et fonction cosmologique de substances separees ala fin du Xllle siecle. By TIZIANA SUAREZ-NANI. Paris: Vrin, 2002. Pp. 204. 24 €(paper). ISBN 2-7116-1514-6. Connaissance et langage des anges. By TIZIANASUAREZ-NANI. Paris: Vrin, 2002. Pp. 271. 30 €(paper). ISBN 2-7116-1572-3. Tiziana Suarez-Nani's two-volume "philosophical portrait of the angel" encompasses four themes. The subjectivity of the angel and the cosmological function of spiritual creatures are treated in the first book, and angelic knowledge and communication in the second. Suarez-Nani begins Les anges et la philosophie by observing that the notion that angel-like beings exist derives from a long tradition of conceiving the universe as ordered, where order is understood to consist in hierarchy and interconnection. She then introduces the principal figures in this tradition. Proclus and other neo-Platonists advocated the view that there should be an uninterrupted chain of intermediary beings between the first principle and the least ofthe beings derived from it. Pseudo-Dionysius, while rejecting many ofthe details ofProclus's system, retained the general notion that the universe requires a hierarchical structure, to which he added notions of his own. According to Suarez-Nani, the Book of Causes was even more influential than PseudoDionysius for the elaboration of philosophical views concerning angels in the thirteenth century (Les anges et la philosophie, 19). This work was successful in transmitting neo-Platonism to the thirteenth century because its re-elaboration of Proclus was close to the metaphysics of Pseudo-Dionysius-that is, it was monotheist and creationist, and devoid of demigods. Other influences on thirteenth-century angelology include Aristotle, Avicenna, and Augustine. The thinkers whose views Suarez-Nani intends to examines in depth are two students of St. Albert, Thomas Aquinas and Thierry of Freiberg. The first chapter of part 1 is entitled "The Angelic Subjectivity: Nature and Individuation of Angels." (I do not recall Aquinas speaking of "subjectivity"; it would have been useful to define this term.) By way of preface, Suarez-Nani speaks about the reason why Aquinas regards angels as needed for the order of the universe. The discussion here is one of the least satisfying parts of a book that insists upon the pertinence of philosophy to questions concerning angels. It would have been helpful if all of the philosophers who made a case for the existence of separated substances-or even just those whom Aquinas mentions in his opusculum on separated substances-had been surveyed, and then categorized. Suarez-Nani explains how Aquinas's position on the existence of angels derives from his position on the finality of creation. Aquinas holds that God creates because he desires to communicate his goodness, and in doing so to produce something like unto himself. Since no single creature comes in any way close to being an adequate likeness of God, God produces a diversity of beings. Suarez-Nani does not ask whether the notion that Godfreely creates in order to share his goodness with other beings, and thereby produce a reflection of his 492 BOOK REVIEWS own goodness, is philosophical or theological, and if philosophical, who first enunciated it. Once it is granted, it is not hard to see that the universe would be defective as a reflection of God if there were no beings that were like to God by having a purely intellectual nature (ibid., 30). Suarez-Nani next takes up the manner in which angels are individuals. She first explains Aquinas's teaching on matter as principle of individuation in material beings, and then gives a straightforward exposition of his teaching on the individuality of angels. I question though her assertion that "the [imperfect] condition of the human individual ... is ultimately due to a material substrate which imprisons [the individual]" (ibid., 45). That something is imperfect is not synonymous with its being defective. Human beings are less perfect than angels because of their body and their mode of cognition which is dependent upon sense knowledge obtained through the body. This does not conflict with the notion that the reason the human intellect is united to the body is for its perfection, something Suarez-Nani...

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