^[1] In this book the prominent philosopher John Haldane of University of St. Andrews has collected essays from more or less accessible sources. The essays explore themes from Haldane’s ‘Analytical Thomist’ point of view. This is understood as an alliance between on the one hand ‘ideas and styles of thought that derive from St Thomas Aquinas but which are not necessarily employed by him and which he might even have difficulty in comprehending’, and on the other hand the styles and methods of analytical philosophy, which ‘pursues answers to a range of questions by examination of intelligible structures, concepts or propositions.’ (xii) These two traditions are conceived as complementary in their diversity and related in their realist and argumentative orientations. At the same time, Haldane questions ‘the value of some late medieval and modern rationalist theology’, and regards ‘the existential and aesthetic orientations of Continental thinkers’ as ‘both a corrective to scientist strains in analytical philosophy and a recovery of aspects of older religious thought.’ (xi) What Aquinas is seen to provide are resources for ‘a clear description of the intelligible structure of reality and of the appropriate principles of action’ as well as to state the proper relationship between these phenomena (xiv).

^[2] The central idea in Haldane’s Analytical Thomism is that of nature or substantial form. He does not so much argue for this idea in the volume under review as presuppose its truth (extensive arguments are found elsewhere). The nature or substantial form of a thing is, though, that which makes a thing into what it is. Thus every thing or being is a particular thing or being, or a particular kind of thing or being. Human beings have the capacity to comprehend the natures of things, and ‘the actualization of this capacity is a mode of self-realization through the exercise of our higher powers.’ (275) Thus philosophy carries according to Haldane a promise of consolation and wisdom in life.

^[3] The most interesting and fruitful applications of the idea of substantial form are found in the essays on ethics, politics, philosophy of education, and aesthetics. These cover far more ground than can be adequately treated here. The book includes, for instance, useful historical surveys of medieval and Renaissance ethics and aesthetics. In ethics, Haldane makes a perceptive application of natural law theory to ethical pluralism, arguing that pluralism to some extent can be treated ‘as a desirable consequence of the fact that basic values, such as those of intellectual or physical activity, can be realized in different but equally good ways.’ (143) Thus in another essay Haldane argues that society will benefit from allowing a plurality of value educations and religious schools (given that certain democratic, educational, and social values are respected). It is also exciting to see Aquinas’ metaphysics, philosophical anthropology, and epistemology applied to philosophy of education. Likewise are Haldane’s analyses of aesthetics experiences in terms of both objective and subjective conditions of value rich. Gleaning from Aquinas Haldane develops a ‘metaphysics of embodied form’ (253).

^[4] This wide-ranging book provokes much thought. But it seems that it would have been better to have treated the issues systematically rather than just in the reprinted format. The reader now finds him/herself with no argument for the ‘central element’ of nature or substantial form, and thus can hardly interact with what is foundational. But if the appetite is wetted with the application of substantial form and an attempt is made by the reader to systematize the ethical, educational or aesthetical theories of Analytical Thomism, then the reader will not come much further than the frequent footnotes to works where Haldane has dealt more thoroughly with those issues. Thus it seems that the book would have been better adapted to its purpose of showing how the legacy of Aquinas can benefit modern thought, had the issues of the text been arranged according to a topical plan.

^[5] Haldane’s equivocation of the sociological and universal significations of the term ‘catholic’, together with defences of some of the ‘hopelessly extravagant’ (50) claims and practices of the Church of Rome is also strange. The infallibility of the pope and the assumption of Mary are defended in the weakest terms of coherence. But few, if any, philosophers would seem to think that these claims are contradictory. Rather it is the lack of positive historical support that is crucial. It remains to be established that there are compelling reasons to think that these doctrines are true. Analytical Thomism had also presented itself as more generically catholic without these claims.

^[6] As a whole this collection of essays shows the wide applicability of substance ontology and formal causation. There are other things, such as the evaluation of Alasdair MacIntyre’s historicist Thomism and Karol Wojtyla’s personalist Thomism, well worth pursuing in this volume.