Dutch Cartesianism and the Birth of Philosophy of Science by Andrea Strazzoni (review)

Abstract

Thomas’s view that the commanded act is material “strongly suggests, counter to what Brock maintains, that the commanded act is not a human act in a secondary sense, but rather an essential part of the human act just as the form is” (132). Significantly, Löwe does not cite the article in which Brock shows that “use makes it possible for acts of powers besides the will also to be voluntary, moral human acts” (“What Is the Use of Usus in Aquinas’ Philosophy of Action?,” in Moral and Political Philosophies of the Middle Ages, ed. B. Carlos Bazán, Eduardo Andujár, and Léonard G. Sbrocchi [Ottawa: Legas, 1995], 2:661). In general, Löwe does not consider Brock’s explanation of how a complete human act consists of other acts, and the way in which parts of the act are formal or material. Löwe’s presentation could have benefited from engagement with more of the scholarship on the interior and exterior acts, and from a careful consideration of such central texts on the issue as the Prima Secundae, qq. 19–20, and the De Malo, q. 2, art. 2–4. Moreover, he mentions that choice is in some way virtually present in the act of command, but he does not address the plentiful scholarship and texts on the virtual ordering of human acts, which include acts that are themselves commanded by other acts, as when an act of charity commands almsgiving, or an act of adultery commands theft. In chapter 7, Löwe argues that use, since it is an immanent act that is complete in an instant, is not in time in the way that the commanded act is, but nevertheless can be in time per accidens. Here he seems to be applying to the problem of use and the commanded act Thomas’s well-known thesis that human thinking, willing, and sensing are in time per accidens. In chapter 8, Löwe gives a less controversial reading of the way that the will uses the intellect in mental acts. He considers memory but avoids the more difficult issues of whether and how intellectual acts such as command might also be subject to use, or how the will can use itself. Chapter 9 provides a brief sketch of how, if this interpretation of Thomas is correct, it might help to clarify issues addressed by philosophers such as Donald Davidson and Jennifer Hornsby. This book provides highly idiosyncratic and to this reviewer’s mind unconvincing readings of many of the relevant texts and scholarly works on Thomas’s account of human action. Moreover, it neglects some of the more significant primary texts and scholarly works. However, it provokes thought, and the account of mental acts such as memory furthers scholarly discussion. T h o m a s M . O s b o r n e J r . University of St. Thomas (Houston, TX)