William A. Wallace

Buridan, Ockham, Aquinas: Science in the Middle Ages

r---rHE DEATH OF Ernest A. Moody in December of 1975 J_ _deprived the academic world of one of its foremost medievalists and intellectual historians, a person to be ranked surely with Pierre Duhem and Anneliese Maier for the many difficult texts he made available to scholars and for the novelty of the insights with which he continually stimulated them. Fortunate it was that just six months before his death the University of California Press saw fit to publish his collected papers, together with an autobiographical preface that explained his intellectual odyssey, why and when he wrote what he did from beginning to end, and how he finally evaluated the results of all his labors.1 This series

Six Studies of Causality on the Bicentenary of David Hume

The Cement of the Universe: A Study of Causation. By J. L. MACKIE. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1974. Pp. 335.

Galileo: For Copernicanism and for the Church by Annibale Fantoli (review)

17.00. Causality and Determinism. By GEORG HENRIK VON WRIGHT. New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1974. Pp. 164. Causing, Perceiving and Believing. An Examination of the Philosophy of C. J. Ducasse. By PETER H. HARE and EDWARD H. MADDEN. Philosophical Studies Series in Philosophy, No. 6. Dordrecht and Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1975. Pp. ~18. Causal Powers. A Theory of Natural Necessity. By R. HARRE and E. H. MADDEN. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1975. Pp. 198. £4.75. Philosophical Problems of Causation. Edited by ToM L. BEAUCHA1\1P. Dickenson Series in Philosophy, No. 5. Encino, California: Dickenson Publishing Co., Inc., 1974. Pp. ~56. Causation and Conditionals. Edited by ERNEST SosA. Oxford Readings in Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975. Pp. ~08.

Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science ed. by Herbert Feigl and Grover Maxwell, Philosophical Problems of Space and Time by Adolph Grünbaum (review)

This exhaustive treatment of Galileo and his relationship to the Church was first published in Italian by the Vatican Observatory in 1993 as Vol. 2 of its Studi Galileiani series, bearing the title Galileo: Per il Copemicanesimo e per la Chiesa. So excellent was the study that Father George Coyne, the director of the Vatican Observatory, took it on himself personally to translate the volume into English. Although not a member of the Galileo Commission set up by Pope John Paul II to review the Galileo case, as were Coyne and myself, Fantoli has admirably complemented the work of the Commission and his book surely belongs in the Studi Galileiani collection. A former Jesuit with degrees in mathematics and physics, Fantoli began the book more than twenty-five years ago when he was preparing a course on Galileo at Sophia University in Tokyo. His intention was to show that for Galileo it was never a question of choosing between Copernicanism and the Church, and that the saddest drama of his life was being faced with an injunction that forced him to be for the Church and against Copemicanism. The subtitle of his book proclaims Galileos true intentions, despite his failure to convince others that this was what his life was all about. A great strength of Fantolis treatment is its documentation, which abounds in excerpts from Galileos writings and his correspondence as found in the National Edition of his works and also in citations from new materials that have been uncovered by the Galileo Commission. Thanks to Coyne, all of these texts, many of which were hitherto available only in Latin or Italian, can now be easily accessed in English translation. Another strength of Fantolis work is that he has kept abreast of Galileo literature over the years and thus is able to offer scholarly critiques of authors whose works exhibit a bias against the Church. Especially welcome are his careful discussions of the positions of earlier writers such as Giorgio de Santillana, Ludovico Geymonat, and Stillman Drake, as well as those of more recent authors, Mario Biagioli, Maurice Finocchiaro, Pietro Redondi, William R. Shea, and Richard S. Westfall. The book is a tour de force and there is little to criticize in it. Unfortunately, however, a typesetting error at its very beginning might create

Nature as Animating: The Soul in the Human Sciences

These two titles are significant works in the philosophy of science that bring the reader abreast of recent developments in this rapidly expanding field. The first, Volume Three of the Minnesota Studies, differs from previous volumes in this series in that it is devoted less to the foundations of psychology and more to the philosophy of physics. The second is Volume One in a new series edited by Sidney Morgenbesser under the general title of Borzoi Books in the Philosophy of Science. Both volumes examine in considerable detail the recent literature on scientific explanation, on space, and on time. They are of particular interest to the Thomist for the differences of opinion they show to exist among contemporary empiricists, as well as for manifesting some basic divergences that still exist between empiricism and moderate realism.