In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:164 BOOK REVIEWS Thomas Buckingham and the Contingency of Futures-The Possibility of Human Freedom: A Study and Edition of Thomas Buckingham, De contingentia futurorum et arbitrii libertate. By BARTHOLOMEW R. DE LA TORRE, O.P. University of Notre Dame, The Medieval Institute Publications in Medieval Studies, Vol. XXV. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987. Pp. xii +394. In this volume, Fr. Batholomew de la Torre offers the (...) text and an extended study of Thomas Buckingham's De contingentia futurorum et arbitrii libertate, which is the first of six questions of this scholastic's Quaestiones theologicae, more properly entitled Ostensio meriti liberae actionis. The six questions are found in their entirety in two English manuscripts, namely Oxford New College 134 and Oxford Merton 143. The New CoUege (late fourteenth century) manuscript is earlier and superior to Merton (early fifteenth century), and accordingly the editor adopts it except in cases where the Merton reading makes better sense. The author, Thomas Buckingham, born in the early days of the fourteenth century, was an Oxford scholar at Merton, chancellor of Exeter, and died, very likely a victim of the Black Death, in 1348. The work edited here probably formed a part of Buckingham's exercise prescribed by University statute for those incepting as Masters of Theology. In the editor's view, this inception took place sometime between 1341 and 1346, when Thomas departed Oxford to take up duties at Exeter. There is some reason to believe that Buckingham may have been a student of Thomas Bradwardine (p. 7); irt is certain, however, that the present work "is a sustained attack on Bradwardine's notion that all future contingents come about by antecedent necessity relative to the first cause, God" (p. 103) • Bradwardine presented his view regarding how we must reconcile God's universal and immutable causality with human freedom in his magnum opus De causa Dei contra Pelagium. De la Torre describes Bradwardine's position this way: "For Bradwardine, God is the universal cause of all things, including future contingents. Future contingents are determined by divine antecedent necessity, for God's will concerning them is omnipotent and unimpedible. Such futures nevertheless remain contingent because only man as a secondary cause-and no other secondary cause-is responsible for his free choice. The theory that, once God has determined what a future shall be, He can still determine otherwise, is patently untenable BOOK REVIEWS 165 for Bradwardine because it predicates mutability of God and nullifies all inspired prophecy, including that of Christ" (p. 101). Bradwardine's exposition here outlined corresponds in its essentials with what Thomas Aquinas had taught in the previous century. The freedom or contingency in man's will act is to he understood in terms of its relationship to secondary or proximate causes. Unlike those events which are determined to come about by virtue of necessitating proximate causes, will acts in this respect remain totally undetermined. Along with this, says Aquinas, we must allow that God, because of His eternal knowledge, knows all futures-determined, as well as contingent -as present. His knowing future contingents, however, does not take away the condition of contingency, since the latter condition rests solely on their mode of occurrence as they relate to secondary or proximate causes. Thomas Buckingham finds this explanation inadequate. In order to safeguard future contingents or human freedom. Buckingham insists there must be a sense in which the ultimate cause, God, is casually contingent with respect to the human will act. Though his exposition is different in many details, Buckingham's fundamental direction is in accord with what certain predecessors, especially Scotus and Ockham, had argued regarding the problem of divine foreknowledge and future contingents. Indeed, in view of the way Buckingham cites Scotus, the editor considers it reasonable to suppose that he regarded himself a disciple of the Subtle Doctor (p. 132). There is at least one instance where Buckingham exhibits a markedly Scotistic and anti-Ockhamist analysis. This occurs in connection with the explanation as to how in one and the same instant, because of the different moments of natural priority and posteriority, the divine will can both will and not will the same thing. The... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ROBERT ORFORD'S ATTACK ON GILES OF ROME I N TWO PREVIOUS ARTICLES, I tried to demonstrate how Robert Orford drew upon the thought of Giles of Rome in order to formulate his own explanation of hylomorphism and the so-called real distinction between essence and existence.1 Orford, it will be remembered, was one of the earliest disciples of his colleague St. Thomas Aquinas, and-more important- is the first 'llhomist we (...) know of who turned to Giles in order to gain an understanding of these basic philosophic problems, and who wove Giles's ideas into his own elaboration of what he took to be St. Thomas's position regarding them. In view of this recognition of Giles as an appropriate guide to a Thomist grasp of these issues, it is surprising to find among Orford's works the Reprobationes dfotorUJn a fratre Egidio in primum Sententiarum.2 The Reprobationes is a strange document. In it, as I shall show later, Orford seeks every opportunity to find fault with Giles. Indeed, his criticisms, hardly ever of any substance, are at times so "picky" they cause the reader to wonder as to his real purpose in writing them down in the first place. In this article, I shall review the historical context of the Reprobationes and try to show what it was about Giles of Rome that so irritated the Dominican Orford. The early catalogues contain no more than two entries for 1 See F. Kelley, "The Egidean influence in Robert Orford's doctrine on Form", Thomist, 47, 1, January, 1983, pp. 77-99, and "Two early English Thomists: Thomas Sutton and Robert Orford vs. Henry of Ghent", Thomist, 45, 3, July, 1981, pp. 345-387. 2 This work is extant in one manuscript, viz. MS. Merton 276, fol. 20ra50ra. It has been edited by A. Vella: Robert d'Orford Reprobationes dictorum a fratre Egidio in primum Sententiarum, Paris, 1968. 70 ROBERT ORFORD'S ATTACK ON GILES OF ROME 71 Orford.3 However, from references he made in his extant writings, viz., Sciendum, Contra dicta Henrici and Reprobationes, we know the titles at least of some of his other writings. As one might have expected, Orford wrote commentaries on the books of the Sentences. In addition to the references to these commentaries he mentions also a De unitate formae, Super 2 de sommo et vigilia, Super 6 de M etaphysica and De generatione. We know of Orford's part in certain disputed questions and of his sermon in rn93. Finally, we have offered our reasons elsewhere for attributing to him the opuscule entitled De natura materiae et dimensionibus interminatis.4 From the mere fact that Orford saw the necessity of writing against Giles of Rome in defense of St. Thomas Aquinas, one might have thought that in Giles one had found an antagonist of the Angelic Doctor. For a long time Giles was taken to have been not an adversary but rather a stout defender of his teacher, St. Thomas.5 The picture of Giles of Rome as the loyal Thomist, the legend as it has more recently been labelled, derived in no small measure from the erroneous ascription to him of the work which is in fact Richard Knapwell's, viz. Correctivum corruptorii 'Quare '.6 Once this mistaken ascription had been corrected and further study was done, mainly by E. Hocedez, Giles no longer appeared as having been the staunch and loyal Thomist of the legend. On the contrary, Hocedez says of him: Gilles decidement n'est pas le thomiste, clans le sens profond du mot, qui s'est donne Thomas pour Maitre et guide de sa pensee: a For a full account of what the catalogues have under Orford's name, see A. Vella, "Robert of Orford and his place in the scholastic controversies at Oxford in the late xiiith century" (Oxford Univ. B.Litt. thesis 1946), MS. B.Litt., c. 30, vol. 1, Bodleian Library, pp. 12-27. 4 See F. Kelley," The Egidean influence", pp. 90-96. 5 See F. Lajard, "Gilles de Rome", Histoire litteraire de la France, 30 (1888), pp. 421-566. 6 "Nous croyons que ce qui a le plus contribue a faire... (shrink)

This book offers the first English translation of the Quodlibetal Questions of William of Ockham --reflections on a variety of topics in logic, ontology, natural philosophy, philosophical psychology, moral theory, and theology by one of the preeminent thinkers of the Middle Ages. It is based on the recent critical edition of Ockham's theological and philosophical works.

Philosophy in Africa has come a long way. From the 18th and 19th centuries when it was totally ignored or denied altogether, to when it was given a lower status by ethnophilosophers. Today we talk proudly of an African philosophy. What is often forgotten is its history and the players behind its historical moments. This paper tells the story of how racial ideology had defined the course of philosophy in Africa. We are particularly concerned with telling the story of Henry (...) Odera Oruka, and how he contributed to raising the status of philosophy in Africa. (shrink)

Towards the end of Plutarch's treatise de Pytkiae oraculis Theon quotes a short passage of verse but does not identify its author. The fragment is now customarily printed among the remains of Pindar's Parthenea, most recently by Snell.