Journal of the History of Philosophy

BOOK REVIEWS 131 references, both in footnotes and appendices, which should constitute an additional source of interest to historians of philosophy. Indeed, the books ends with a minihistory of logic from Aristode through G6del, with mention of major contributors in the ancient, medieval, and modern periods. This book is intended as a college text. I have serious reservations about this. The book's style is extremely dry and academic. I often wondered whether students would have any interest in the concepts defined and illustrated (I fincl little motivation to pique that interest), or with how much enthusiasm they would master the rules and definitions presented, sometimes with daunting multiplicity. It would be unfortunate if a student perceived a major component of his or her logic course as simply a body of rules and definitions to be memorized and then promptly forgotten. My impression is that for beginning logic students the text is written at too high a level, demanding a commitment to the subject and a level of sophistication and familiarity with the material--sometimes the meaning of technical terms seems presupposed--that they do not have. In addition, the chapter on terms presents a dogmatic realism with respect to universals and possible objects. Some instructors may find it objectionable that one philosophical position was simply assumed, put forward as the truth, without even mention of alternatives. Finally, instructors should want the texts they use to be models of correct standard prose. This book is strewn with typographical errors, resulting many times in misspelled words and ungrammatical constructions. These significant defects as a text, however, do not rule out that there is much worthwhile material here for those already interested in aspects of traditional logic. From my own perspective in informal logic, I find the authors' layout of the informal fallacies to be quite helpful in organizing how this body of material should be investigated . Those with relevant interests then may find Parry and Hacker's Aristotelian Logic a useful handbook, meriting a place on their reference shelves. JAMES B. FREEMAN Hunter College, CUNY E. P. Bos and P. A. Meijer, editors. On Proclus and His Influence in Medieval Philosophy. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 199~. Pp. xii + ~o6. Cloth, $57.~5. This excellent collection results from a a989 symposium honoring L. M. de Rijk. Professor de Rijk leads off by examining how the Neoplatonic conception of an absolutely first principle restores causal efficacy to metaphysical existence while avoiding the "problem of transcendence vs. immanence" which plagued Plato (1). In Proclus "causation and participation are no longer entirely exchangeable notions" (9); that the One causes Being, for example, does not entail that Being "participates in" the One. "Primordial and all subsequent causation or procession is really nothing more than the communication or transmission of Oneness by means of lots of 'unific power' " (lo). However, this power diminishes as it proceeds from the One. "The Proclean universe consists of six levels of existence below that of the One or Good. On every one of these domains the causative force of the One has decreased" (1u). Although "oneness is the 132 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 3~: i JANUARY 1994 on/y true constituent of an entity," every endty is tm//ke the One inasmuch as its very existence is a "diminution of the One" (15). De Rijk concludes that when a lower existent "participates in" a higher one, "what is participated" is not the higher existent as such but the degree of unific power "communicated... to the effect" (16). Next, H. D. Saffrey discusses the interplay of Orphic, Pythagorean, and Platonic themes in the Neoplatonic school at Athens; and Carlos Steel examines Proclus' understanding of Plato's Parmenides and Sophist. Of special note is Steel's contrast between how Plotinus and Proclus understand Plato's five "genera of Being": In Plotinus they conjoindy characterize how/nteU/g/b/e Being proceeds from the One; whereas Proclus maintains the primacy of Being and understands Plato's genera as properties of a metaphysical order deriving from Being as such, distinct even from Intellect (63). P. A. Meijer returns to Proclean participation and argues that Proclus sometimes doesdenote a higher existent as "what is...