Journal of the History of Philosophy

596 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 25:4 OCT 1987 own thesis is that Aquinas's work is fundamentally theological. In his carefully nuanced paper, "Quidditative Knowledge of God according to Thomas Aquinas" (a7399 ), John F. Wippel underscores how in the early works Thomas presents successive negations about God as increasing our knowledge of him in such fashion that we can attain a proper knowledge of him and yet not know his quiddity. He then shows how in the later works Thomas maintains a positive knowledge of God, though not a comprehensive and defining knowledge representing him in his very nature. This positive knowledge is achieved through intelligible species of pure perfections like wisdom and good as they are found in creatures. Vernon Bourke, in a highly informative essay, "The Background of Aquinas' Synderesis Principle" (345-6o), brings out the role of the negative imperatives or commands in Thomas's concept of synderesis and the impact on him of his readings of the Psalms as well as of certain passages in Isaiah. Bourke painstakingly shows how for Aquinas the human being comes to know first practical principles, how practical knowledge (for example, ethics ) and prudence differ, and how synderesis is important for both. One contribution demands special note, namely, Norman Wells's "Francisco Araujo, OP, on the Eternal Truths" (4o1-17). Wells provides us here with another fine contribution to our knowledge of the scholastic background to early modern philosophy and to Descartes in particular. It is a fitting conclusion to a valuable book whose high qualtiy is appropriate to the fine scholar and person it is meant to honor. EDWARD P. MAHONEY Duke University Michael J. B. Allen. The Platonism of Marsilio Ficino. A Study of His "Phaedrus" Commentary , Its Sources and Genesis. UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984. Pp. xv + 284. $30.00. Like many of Plato's dialogues, the Phaedrus has generated a number of diverse and often conflicting interpretations over the centuries. One of its earliest exegetes, Plotinus , saw it as an inspired vision of the eternal truths and rigid hierarchies of Neoplatonic cosmology, while one of its most recent interpreters, Jacques Derrida, sees it as an expression of the ambiguities and contradictions of grammatology. A key moment in this long and intellectually rich tradition occurred in 1484 when the Florentine Neoplatonist Marsilio Ficino published his Latin translation of Plato's Opera omnia, which made the complete text of the Phaedrus widely accessible to Western scholars for the first time (a partial translation had been done by Leonardo Bruni in 1424). Ficino also wrote a commentary on the Phaedrus, which was published in 1496 and which is now the subject of Michael Allen's authoritative study. Allen, who has already done an edition and translation of the relevant texts, under the title Marsilio Ficino and the Phaedran Charioteer (1981), as well as of Ficino's commentary on the Philebus 0975), is an erudite and sensitive guide to the complexities and subtleties of BOOK REVIEWS 597 thought of one of the most learned and influential, but also one of the most difficult and elusive, Renaissance philosophers. Ficino's commentary is not a unified work but rather an assemblage of somewhat disparate material written in two different stages: the first three chapters were probably done about 1466 to 1468, when he was working on his translation of the dialogue ; the rest (including eight chapters of commentary proper and 53 summae of varying length) was written around 1493. In the interim between these two periods, Ficino had intensively studied, translated and commented on many of the major works of ancient Neoplatonic philosophy, and this inevitably altered many aspects of his interpretation of the Phaedrus. Moreover, his eclectic and syncretistic cast of mind led him to take different positions in different contexts, so that Allen often has to struggle in order to explain his apparently (and sometimes genuinely) contradictory statements. The commentary is also incomplete and uneven in its treatment of the dialogue. Ficino concentrated on the middle section of the Phaedrus (243E-257 A) and in particular on the myth of the soul as a charioteer who makes...