Journal of the History of Philosophy

660 .JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 26:4 OCTOBER 1988 In his treatment of these often knotty questions I am not often in disagreement with him, but on Philo's doctrine of creation I take issue, not so much with his own interpretation, which is very sound, but with his criticism of David Winston (in Philo of Alexandria, 13-21), which also seems to me very sound. We are all agreed, I think (as against, say, Wolfson), that, despite Philo's language on occasion, he has no concept of a creatio ex nihilo. If he stoutly maintains that the world is created, that is to establish its absolute dependence on God, not its creation at any point in time. Certainly Philo makes confusing noises on occasion, but all he really wants to claim, I would suggest, is that the universe, both physical and intelligible (the kosmos no~tos), is dependent on God as its arch,, or first principle, and, in the case of the physical cosmos, that it is continually in a state of coming-to-be, and so agen~tos, as the Peripatetics would have it, and it is against that position that his polemic is directed. His discussion of Philo's anthropology is most useful (297-345 and 467-75), based on his study of Philo's use of Timaeus 61C-99D. Philo makes much of the concept of Man as the microcosm. I agree with him that Philo does not in fact introduce an idea of Man in the De Opificio Mundi, despite appearances. What God creates at Gen. 1:27 is not a paradigm of Man, but rather Man's nous, while in Gen. ~:7 he produces the whole man, soul and body. Philo very probably did accept the concept of an Idea of Man (as did Middle Platonists in general), but it seems better not to assume it here. Inevitably, in a work of such s~ze and scope, one finds details to criticize, but such quibbles would be out of place here. It gives me pleasure, however, in view of the general comprehensiveness of the work, to catch him in at least one omission--an interesting passage of the De Agricultura (3o-31) where Philo is making, I should say, a literary rather than a philosophical use of Tim. 36 C-D. What is of particular interest here, I think, is that Philo adapts the Platonic distinction between the Circle of the Same and the Circle of the Other within the soul to a distinction between nous and the irrational soul, divided into seven in the Stoic manner (the five senses, plus the organs of utterance and generation). He also changes the image from that of circles to that of a plant--two shoots from one root, one undivided, the other divided "six ways" (hexach~). The whole passage is a notable example of Philo's complex utilization of the Timaeus, and [ am surprised that Ru~ia ig~xores it. No such detail, however, should detract significantly from the enormous achievement which this book represents. It is admirably produced by Brill, at their usual hefty price. J. M. DILLON Trinity College, Dublin George F. Hourani. Reason and Tradition in Islamic Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. pp. xv + 282. $39.5 o. The present volume consists of sixteen articles written by the late Prof. George F. Hourani and published, except for the last article, in various learned journals and other collections of essays or dictionaries between ~96o and 1982. With one or two exceptions, their main theme is Islamic ethics during the classical period, a subject to BOOK REVIrWS 661 which Hourani has contributed more substantially than any other author in the last two decades. During the earliest period, it was theological ethics which preoccupied philosophers and theologians, who came under the influence of Stoic and Cynic thought, but as time wore on the impact of Aristotelian ethics began to be felt in theological and philosophical circles alike, and consequently a more systematic phase in the history of Islamic ethics began in the middle of the tenth century. Interest in theological ethics, however, proved to be more durable than purely philosophical ethics and may...