Partecipazione e Causalità Secondo S. Tommaso D’Aquino by Cornelio Fabro, and: Participation et Causalité Selon S. Thomas D’Aquin by Cornelio Fabro, C. P. S. (review)

120 BOOK REVIEWS Partecipazione e Causalita Secondo S. Tommaso D'Aquino. Cornelio l!'abro. Torino: Societa Editrice Internazionale, 1960. Pp. 693. Lire ~500. Participation et Causalite Selon S. Thomas D'Aquin. Cornelio Fabro, C. P. S. Louvain et Paris: Publications Universitaires de Louvain; Editions Beatrice-Nauwelaerts, 1961. Pp. 650. 390 BF. In 1938 Fr. Fabro published his La Nozione Metafisica di Partecipazione (~nd edition, Turin, 1950); in the present study he continues his efforts to show that participation is in many ways the key to the doctrine of St. Thomas. As he puts it, having shown that participation is employed by Aquinas to describe the static order of the constitution of being, he wants now to show that participation is the key concept in the dynamic order, the production of being. Besides this connection with his earlier study, Fabro's essay is of interest because of a running dialogue with Heidegger who charges that the history of Western metaphysics is one which exhibits a forgetfulness of Being and a concentration on beings. Fabro accepts his critique as applicable to everyone but Aquinas and admits that the position of Parmenides must somehow be recaptured. Being is being, after all, and Fabro even speaks of " Thomistic Parmenideanism " (It., p. 637; Fr.; p. 618). The book is noteworthy as well because it joins a good many others which have stressed the originality of St. Thomas' concept of esse. Fabro's own views on this are presented in terms of a distinction he draws between esse in actu and esse ut actus. Relying heavily on St. Thomas' commentary on chapter five of the Divine Names of Pseudo-Dionysius where the relative value of esse and vivere are discussed, Fabro developes the notions of perfectio separata and of predication per essentiam to show why esse is more perfect than vivere and is consequently the divine name without equal. The danger here of course is that one will come to misconstrue the import of the lapidary phrase, vivere est esse viventibus. Fabro speaks of esse essentiae, by which he means form or essence, and sees that it is in potency to esse ut actus. Sometimes it is not clear whether it is vita or vivere which is in potency to esse. The latter choice would lead to nonsense : vivere is not in potency to esse precisely because vivere est esse viventibus. That vivere is not esse commune goes without saying, but for the living thing vivere denotes esse substantiale. Vivere is esse in the maximal sense for living things and to insist on the more common word esse there is essentialism, i.e. a predilection for the abstract and vague and common at all costs. It is not always clear that Fabro rejects this brand of "Thomistic Existentialism" (a phrase he would abhor); nevertheless, there are puissant passages where he criticizes those who would argue for some direct perception of esse or speak too vaguely of the relation between judgment and esse. One reads this study with growing awe at the erudition of Fr. Fabro, BOOK REVIEWS 121 and this reviewer, who has long been convinced of the eminence of Fabro in Thomistic circles, feels the present book to be one of the most important to appear in many a day. It must be said, nevertheless, that our author, in his desire to make St. Thomas. wholly unique, deals somewhat unfairly with other historical figures. Thus, while one cannot be too grateful for the emphasis put on the Neoplatonic sources of St. Thomas' thought, he may feel that there is something less than Thomistic in Fabro's handling o'f Aristotle. The suggestion is made that Aristotle was unaware of nonunivocal causes, that there is something defective in his claim that prime matter is ingenerable and that he teaches that the soul is the efficient cause of the living compound. Furthermore, Fabro contributes to the history of misunderstanding of Aristotle's statement in the Perihermeneia.s (16Ml-3) that "to be" alone does not signify that something is or is not. This is taken to mean that, for Aristotle, " being " alone means nothing, in contrast to the position of St. Thomas according to which it means...