Journal of the History of Philosophy

BOOK REVIEWS 111 place in Aristotle's mature logic, Evans has concentrated too heavily, I think, on the role of dialectic in examining the foundations of the sciences, neglecting the other two purposes Aristotle mentions for dialectic, namely, mental exercise and philosophical conversations (Top. 101a25-30). And he offers no explanations of the facts that dialectic is always conducted as a disputation and according to certain rules, that it relies on Topics for its arguments, and that it is made to revolve around the predicables. These facts must be accounted for before we can claim to have a thorough understanding of Aristotle's concept of dialectic. The book ends with a four-page bibliography, indices, and a short glossary. The glossary might have been omitted without in any way detracting from the book. The indices and bibliography are more than adequate, though there are some odd omissions; for example, in the bibliography, Evans cites various articles concerned with the practice of Aristotelian dialectic, but not the very important article by Walter de Pater published in the proceedings of the third Symposium Aristotelicum , 3 although Evans does know and cite De Pater's book on the same subject. ELEONORE STUMP Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State Universi~ Juan Luis Vives Against the Pseudodialecticians: A Humanist Attack on Medieval Logic. The texts, with translation, introduction, and notes by Rita Guerlac. Dordrecht-Boston-London: D. Reidel, 1979. Pp. xiv + 227. Gld. 70. Juan Luis Vives, In Pseudodialecticos. A Critical Edition. Introduction, translation, and commentary by Charles Fantazzi. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1979. Pp. viii + 105. Gld. 36. It has become clear through the research of recent years that there was a significant battle over the nature of logic during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The humanists of the fifteenth century--Lorenzo Valla and Rudolph Agricola especially--took it upon themselves to criticize late medieval terminist logic, which was still dominant in the university studies of their own day. The polemics continued into the next century with figures such as Erasmus, Thomas More, and Petrus Ramus writing aggressively against "scholastic" logic and its use in theology and philosophy . One of the key figures in all this and one who has not yet received his due is the Spaniard of Jewish descent, Juan Luis Vives (1493-1540), who spent most of his mature life in Bruges. During his later life he was openly critical of many intellectual tendencies of his time. The work in which he expressed most openly his hostility toward the scholastic logic he had learned as a student is In pseudodialecticos (1519). We now have two new English translations of the same work, both accompanied by the Latin text. Charles Fantazzi has prepared a critical edition based upon four earlier printings, added a rather brief introduction, some useful notes, and an English translation. Rita Guerlac has reprinted the text from Mayfins's eighteenth-century edition, has written a much more substiantial introduction, has given more exhaustive notes, and has added texts and translations of several other related works (excerpts from Vives's De causis corruptarum artium, Thomas More. and Gaspar Lax). Fantazzi has obviously paid more attention to establishing an accurate text (Guerlac gives only a few corrections to Mayfins's generally reliable one), and his is preferable, more because it is reset in type and is well punctuated than for any real superiority in a textual sense. I have found only half a dozen instances in which Fantazzi gives a better reading. In one case the text itself is probably to be emended as Guerlac suggests but Fantazzi fails to note (imbueris for imbuerit: G, 100; F, 93). Strangely enough, Guerlac does not seem to be aware of two of the four editions of "La fonction." 112 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY the work collated by Fantazzi, and her statement that the Mayas edition "accurately reproduces the first (Srlestat) edition" (p. xii) does not square with the variants listed by Fantazzi. On the other hand, Fantazzi's collation does little to improve the text and primarily shows the number of slips in the Srlestat edition. On the whole, both translations are accurate, though the precise meaning of some of the examples of medieval sophisms is extremely...