Relations: Medieval Theories, 1250–1325 by Mark G. Henninger, S. J. (review)

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER and among the Italian, French, and English texts-but no phrase or phrases that clinch the argument. Despite my misgivings about the book's conclusions, I welcome the opportunity this book affords to sort through the linguistic evidence and to consider another source for Trozlus and Cnseyde. Hanly is a learned scholar whose archival research, unfortunately, could not sustain his conviction that Chaucer availed himself of the Roman de Troyle. I especially value his historical disquisitions and his attention to linguistic detail-his point-for-point, line-by-line comparisons bolstered always by a sense of nuance and larger context. JAMES M. DEAN University of Delaware MARK G. HENNINGER, S.J. Relations: Medieval Theories, 1250-1325. Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press, 1989. Pp. 198. $45.00. This book has great merit. Father Henninger knows his material very well and brings a good mind to bear on it. The result is a book that, unlike so many others on medieval philosophy, explicates its philosophical material rather than repeating itinparaphrase. Thisis acrucial task, for unless we do this we have not understood the material-we have merely become experts on it. Henninger does this very well, and Relations must therefore rank as one of the best treatments of medieval philosophy in recent decades. It will, unfortunately, have a smaller audience than ought to be able to benefit from it, for its terse and compact argumentation will make it heavy going for anyone who does not have a solid background in medieval philosophy.Thisis ashame, and I hope thatin hisfuture work Henningeris more expansive.Those who, though without training in medieval philoso­ phy, are undaunted should nonetheless explore this book, because Hen­ ninger brings the reader into the heart of medieval philosophical disputa­ tion in a way in which few other books do. (But at a minimum they should first prepare themselves by reading the appropriate chapters of Julius Weinberg's A Short Hzstory ofMedievalPhilosophy.) Scholastic treatments ofrelationshave aheritage that goes back to Plato, who asked how can it be that Socrates was taller than Simmias, is now shorter than Simmias, and yet has not changed? One answer is that to be taller than Simmias is to stand in a certain relation to Simmias-"being 150 REVIEWS taller than Simmias" expresses a relational property- and one can lose a relational property without changing if the other term of the relation (Simmias) has changed. But that does not end the discussion. One may suspect that Socrates has changed. Granted, the cause ofthe change was in Simmias; still, could it be that by placing Socrates in a new relation to Simmias, the change in Simmias did somehow change Socrates? (The cause of the apple's being sliced is the knife, yet the sliced apple has been changed.) Aristotle, as I read him, wants to say that Socrates has not undergone a change. Yet what has changed is not just Simmias. For, first, the change in Simmias could have taken place even if there were no Socrates. And, second, had Socrates grown by the same amount as Simmias, the change in Simmias could have taken place without a change in the relation. So the change in relation between Socrates and Simmias is not identical with the change in Simmias- in Aristotle's treatment the category ofrelation is not reducible to his other categories. Relation is a distinct category, different from, say, the categories ofquantity or quality, though parasitical offthem: because Simmias's height changes, a relation between him and Socrates changes, yet Simmias's quantitative change (his growth) is not the same thing as the change in the relation. An Aristotelian account, though treating relation as different from other categories ofaccident, still treats relation as a category ofaccident: relations are classified along the lines of characteristics or properties (as opposed to substances, the things that have characteristics orproperties). They exist by inhering in other subjects. Heat inheres in fire; the statue's shape and weight inhere in the bronze; the Cheshire cat's smile inheres in the feline. The heat, shape, weight, and smile are not free-floating entities; they can exist only as inhering in substances. Relations, not...