Journal of the History of Philosophy

6~6 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 27:4 OCTOBER ~989 Wolter,5 or a text of Scotus's on free will edited by Charles Bali6.6 There is no index and the bibliography is very selective. Likewise, Krieger's account of Ockham is rather sketchy, ignoring references to Ockham's account of natural law in the Dialogus de potestate papae et imperatoris, especially in a correction (unavailable to Wilhelm K61mei on whom Krieger relies) made by H. S. Offler as early as ~977,7 and ignoring a collection of pertinent essays by William Courtenay. s Correction of these oversights may not alter the results of Krieger's study, but his neglect of Ockham's political writings in favor of secondary accounts makes one suspicious about whether Krieger has come to grips with Ockham's most mature reflections on practical philosophy and practical reason and whether Krieger has properly understood the import of"Ockhams Weg zur Sozialphilosophie.''9 Nevertheless, Krieger has constructed an intelligent, challenging, and hypothetically plausible interpretation of Buridan's account of practical reason and practical philosophy. Krieger has succeeded in placing former interpretations of Buridan's philosophy as a conservative effort of reconciliation between earlier accounts on the defensive, even though Krieger must address the historical deficiencies in his textual analysis. The text, a revised version of Krieger's dissertation under Prof. Wolfgang Kluxen of the University of Bonn, has been published with relatively few typographical errors, none of which should seriously mislead the reader. Krieger has advanced the discussion of the meaning of practical reason in the fourteenth century in a way that all historians of late medieval and modern "practical" philosophy must consider seriously. ANDRt GODDU University of Notre Dame Marcel Conche. Montaigne et la philosophie. Villers-sur-mer: Editions de M6gare, 1987. Pp. 146. Paper, FF 12o. L'auteur, amateur de Montaigne en philosophe attentif, compl&e ici son livre de 1964 (Montaigne ou la conscience heureuse [Paris: Seghers]) par la r66dition d'articles parus notamment dans le Bulletin de la Soci~t~ des Amis de Montaigne qui, regroup6s avec naturel (ainsi que le requiert le sujet) "paraissent repr6senter Montaigne assez bien, avec sa diversit6 et ses contrastes, sa complexit6, ses apparentes contradictions" (Avertissement, non pagin6). s Allan Wolter, "Native Freedom of the Will as a Key to the Ethics of Scotus," Studia Scholustico-Scotistica5 0972): 359-7 TM 6 Charles Bali,, "Une question in6dite de J. Duns Scot sur la volont6," Recherchesde th~ologie ancienneet m(dikvale3 (1930: 191-2o8. 7 H. S. Offler, "The Three Modes of Natural Law in Ockham: A Revision of the Text," FranciscanStudies 37 (1977): 2o8-18. 8 William Courtenay, Covenant and Causality in Medieval Thought (London: Variorum Reprints , 1981). 9 See Jfirgen Miethke, Ockhams Weg zur Sozialphilosophie(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1969). BOOK REVIEWS 6~7 Le chapitre premier ("L'homme sans d6finition") nous montre comment il n'est pas possible de suivre la tradition philosophique, en tentant de d6terminer ce qu'est l'homme en son essence pr6cise, "en droit," c'est-h-dire de "d6terminer sa juste place dans le r6el" (5): les points de comparaison, les 6tres-de-r6f6rence manquent, que ce soit Dieu, impensable, au-delh du discours et de la raison, ou le monde, que n'est pas un cosmos hi6rarchis6 selon la tradition aristot61ico-thomiste, mais plus pr6s de la richesse infinitiste d'Epicure et des atomistes, expression d'un "nivellement ontologique " (8), ou l'~tme humaine, fiction incertaine, distincte du moi en devenir et inconnaissable h soi, de destin6e insondable h la raison, ou les autres cr6atures, certes diff6rentes, mais non pas n6cessairement inf6rieures dans une 6chelle anthropomorphique et finaliste de la nature pleine de fatuit6 et de pr6somption. Le Christ ne peut non plus fournir un terme de comparaison, trop lointain et trop inaccessible en sa perfection absolue. Les 6tres ne sont pas classables, iis sont diff6rents, marqu6s d'alt6rit6: il n'y a de r6el que des individus, des singularit6s (nominalisme). Ces singularit6s sont de plus changeantes, en devenir perp6tuel, tout comme notre jugement leur propos, opinion indissociable de nos passions, subjective et arbitrairement s61ective . D'oO la tol6rance, le respect d'autrui et la pr6occupation fondamentale d' "exprimer ce...