De Analogia by Santiago Ramírez, O. P. (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 165 De Analogia. By SANTIAGO RAMiREZ, 0. P. Madrid: Instituto de Filosofia 'Luis Vives,' 1971. Editio praeparata a Victorino Rodriguez, 0. P. Being Tomus II of the Opera Omnia of Ramirez in four volumes. Pp. 1947, with indices. ~000 pesatas. (Paper) Father Santiago Ramirez, 0. P. (1891-1967), who in the Twenties published through several issues of La Ciencia Tomista a study entitled " De analogia secundum doctrinam aristotelico-thomisticam," the reading of which has been de rigueur for subsequent students of the subject, spent, as we now know, much of the remainder of a long lifetime in further reflection and writing on analogy in the hope of producing a massive and definitive work. These four volumes, which make up Tomus II of his Opera Omnia now in process of publication, contain the results of that lifelong effort. They are not, however, quite the work he hoped to write. Like the Summa Theologiae of his master, Ramirez's work on analogy remained incomplete at his death but, again as with the Summa, projected parts have been editorially completed by the substitution of earlier work of Ramirez. The editor, Father Victorino Rodriguez, 0. P., gives us in his introduction some idea as to how the work was conceived, planned, executed and prepared for the press, and we can see what the relation between the published version and the definitive plan is. A first part of the work, devoted to the theory of analogy, was to comprise three sections: the notion of analogy; the division of analogy; the properties of analogy. A second part was to comprise two sections, the first of which would examine the use of analogy in philosophy, and the second its use in theology. That was the plan. Father Ramirez did not complete the historical survey of the development of the concept of analogy meant for section one of Part One; he got as far as Plato. The projected treatment of the properties of analogy was not written, but the editor has found a treatment of this subject which dates apparently from the Twenties and has included it here. None of Part Two was written, but Rodriguez was fortunate in finding a lengthy treatise on the analogy of being which dates, he thinks, from 19~1-19~8, as well as lectures on the use of analogy in theology which were given in 1949. In this way, with the exception of the incomplete historical survey, the present work can be said to be the fulfillment of the plan Father Ramirez set himself and Father Rodriguez is to be commended for his devotion, patience, and excellent editorial work. Clearly it is impossible to review in any detail a work which spans some nineteen hundred pages of text. I take my cue in what follows from the editor's claim for what is particularly original in Ramirez' work. "Sed specialiter originalis est nova propriaque interpretatio divisionis authenticae thomisticae analogiae in analogiam attributionis intrinsecae et extrinsecae et in analogiam proportionalitatis propriae et metaphoricae, superando 166 BOOK REVIEWS limitationes et exaggerationes tam cardinalis Thomae de vio Caietani quam Francisci Suarez, et, plus quam limitationem, extenuationem verae analogiae Mcinerny diebus nostris." (p. ix) I need not say how heady it is to find one's name on a list such as that, though the conditions of entry inspire the thought of the man who was tarred and feathered: if it were not for the honor I would forego the celebration. Since my views on analogy, in a book the editor indicates Father Ramirez read (p. xv), amount to the claim that the doctrine of analogy is a logical one, I suspected that this low estimation of my contribution had something to do with that. And indeed, in the text of the work, we find Father Ramirez, after a careful examination of the claim that analogy is logical, rejecting it in favor of the view that analogy is as such metaphysical. One is accordingly not a little surprised to find the following rather solemn remark at the end of the editor's preface: " Quandam retractationem quam auctor me rogavit notandum in textu introductorio, forsitan edendo, malui hie animadvertere, et textum traditum intactum servare...