Brief Notices

BRIEF NOTICES Exposition of the Posterior Analytics of Aristotle. By ST. THoMAs AQUINAS. Translated by Pierre Conway, 0. P., revised by William H. Kane, 0. P. Quebec: Librairie Philosophique M. Doyon, 1956. Pp. 465. $6.00. This competent and complete translation from the Latin of Aquinas' commentary on the Posterior Analytics is done in mimeograph form, and comprises, in order, a historical note, a translator's note, table of contents and outline, the prologue and exposition or commentary proper-forty-four lectures on Book I and twenty lectures on Book II, and an index of terms. The translation is based on the Leonine text of St. Thomas. Though the Leonine also gives the text of Aristotle, divided into sections appearing at the head of the corresponding lectures of Aquinas, this practice has not been followed by Father Conway. No doubt practical considerations necessitated its omission. But if, in the spirit of the close translation of the commentary, a similar rendering of the Latin of Aristotle on which St. Thomas was directly working could be provided, perhaps in a future printed edition, the general utility of the volume would be greatly enhanced, as in the Yale translation of the text and commentary on the De Anima. But in lieu of this, numerical references to the text of Aristotle are given thJ:oughout, and St. Thomas' brief lead-in quotations from Aristotle are given in the Oxford version. The format and job of typing are good and clear, except that the hyphen at the margin, to show that a word has been divided, is sometimes invisible. It is a pity that such a·generally competent translation of a work so important should not have the benefit of a regular printing. The historical note serves to bring out that importance. St. Thomas wrote his commentary on the Posterior Analytics around Hl69, when he was about forty-four, at the height of his matured faculties as theologian and philosopher, and during the most critical intellectual struggle of his career, his contest with latin Averroism. During these central years at Paris he was, as theologian, writing his chief Summa, facing the dark problem of evil in Job, and the mysterious light of the Word Incarnate in John; simultaneously, as philosopher, he was composing his greatest commentaries on the Stagyrite, on the De Anima, the Metaphysics, etc., including this one on the Posterior Analytics. In less philosophical times and places than Paris in the mid-thirteenth century and against adversaries less keenly trained than the Averroists, the inferior and more popular modes of communication, dialectic, rhetoric, poetic (discussed by St. Thomas in the prologue to this work, as well as in his prologue to the commentary on 896 BRIEF NOTICES 397 the Peri Hermeneias) might avail and might attract more study and commentary. But, for those who know or who wish to know, the Posterior Analytics is the central work on scientific knowledge and demonstrative communication. Today, though philosophy be popularly the work of dialecticians, rhetoricians, misplaced poets, not to mention power-conscious sophists, there is also a gradual resurgence of competent, non-Christian, scientific philosophy of Greek inspiration, more diffuse, but in quality such as was concentrated at Paris in mid-thirteenth century. One might call it a neo-Averroism, and its main task is to "rescue" Plato and especially Aristotle from their Christian, Augustinian or Thomistic interpretations, first of all in practical areas such as the question of natural right, but eventually in theory itself. Thus not only among Thomists proper, but for all Aristotelians of whatever stamp, the present appearance in English of this commentary on the theory of science and demonstration is of timely. significance for genuinely philosophical comm~cation. Father Conway's historical note confines itself to locating St. Thomas' commentary in the context of his life. Since this Exposition by St. Thomas is, after all, a commentary on another .great work, something could have been said about the latter. The translator here, as in several other respects, seems to take the view that he is addressing only the initiate. A little more effort to contact those who are " without the law " might be in order. It is a well-known...