Journal of the History of Philosophy

BOOK REVIEWS 429 tries to explain the hierarchy of formed materials of which an animal is composed; each material has its own eidos, its own powers, but the soul is not simply the compound of those eide and powers, since it is the eidos of the entity as a whole and of the powers of the whole and in that way is common to all parts of the body. Fotinis thinks that this account is problematic apparently because he believes that nothing that has an eidos can be a part of some larger whole that also has an eidos. That is not Aristotle's doctrine; Fotinis has acquired it elsewhere. One further point: Fotinis devotes many pages to the doctrine of perception, particularly to the theory of vision, in Alexander's De Anima, despite his omission of the pages dealing with hearing, smell, and taste. It would have been better to have all the evidence. In fact, it would have been more useful to have some comparison with Alexander's theories in other works, and the Mantissa. The translation is a valuable addition to the scholar's library, at a moderate cost. The commentary leaves something to be desired, but most readers will go on to work out their own accounts of the ways in which this important text relates to Aristotle's psychological and biological writings, or to the Stoics and middle Platonists, or to the development of Neoplatonism, or to the Islamic, Jewish, and Christian philosophies of the Middle Ages. 1 have recently used the volume as a text for a seminar in Aristotle and Aristotelianism, and students found the translation readable and precise enough to allow for philosophical discussion of the theories presented in the text. That in itself is enough to put us in debt to Dr. Fotinis. ANTHONY PREUS S.U.N.Y. at Binghamton. Fernand Van Steenberghen. Maitre Siger de Brabant. Philosophes m6di6vaux, no. 21. Louvain: Publications Universitaires, 1977. Pp. 442. Fernand Van Steenberghen. Thomas Aquinas and Radical Aristotelianism. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 198o. Pp. x + 114. Paper, $6.95. In his Maitre Siger de Brabant, Fernand Van Steenberghen offers a magisterial survey of the life, works, and thought of Siger of Brabant, one of the most fascinating figures of the medieval period. This is the third book the well-known Louvain scholar has written on Siger during his highly productive career. Siger is also a main focus in his comprehensive survey La philosophic au XIIF sibcle (1966) and in his two earlier works, which appeared in English, Aristotle in the West and The Philosophical Movement in the Thirteenth Century, both published in 1955 . In the first part of this new work (pp. 9-176), the author presents in detail Siger's life in the context of the University of Paris during the late thirteenth century. While there is considerable use of material found in his earlier works, some effort has been made to bring things up to date. 1 found no reference, however, to James Weisheipl's account of Thomas's return to Paris nor to his pertinent proposal about why Thomas wrote his commentaries on Aristotle. Van Steenberghen sees Siger setting forth a "heterodox" philosophy in hLs Quaes- 430 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY tiones in tertiura de anima, which are a reportatio (p. 192) dating from the first months of 1269-7o. Siger defends and sustains the unity of the intellect without reticence and with no allusion to the demands of the Christian faith; his attitude is "rationalist" (pp. 51-53, 56; see also p. 231, n. 4). Van Steenberghen also argues that it is "morally certain" that Siger is the object of Thomas's attack in the epilogue of the latter's De unitate intellectus. Those criticisms corroborate the "rationalist attitude" Siger's Quaestiones in tertium de anima betray (pp. 59-6t, 347)- After the Condemnation of 127o and Thomas's attack, Siger's attitude shifts, and he enters a state of intellectual crisis. But he still maintains "heretical theses" in the De intellectu, his reply to Thomas composed in 127o (p. 63). Although the unity of the intellect is presented as Aristotle 's doctrine in the De...