Tufayl's Own Social Aspirations. Burgel, In

Book Reviews impact on Ibn Tufayl's forerunners, especially The volume concludes with a rich Avicenna, whom Ibn Tufayl quotes expressly. bibliography composed by Conrad, and a Salim Kemal's 'Justifications of poetic "General Index". To the list of Russian validity' gives a very condensed summary of translations I would add: Ibn Tufejl', Povest' o his monograph The poetics ofAlfarabi and Khaje syne Jakzana, translation, introduction, Avicenna (Leiden, 1991). But I doubt whether and commentary by A V Sagadeev, Moscow, Ibn Tufayl's novel kind of thought experiment 1988, who mentions three reprints of the older can be grasped in terms of Avicenna's translation by I P Kuz'min, and also a second poetology. edition in 1700 of the English translation of The medieval Latin translators did not 1671. concern themselves with this text, but Moshe Narboni wrote a Hebrew commentary, which is Gotthard Strohmaier, discussed by Larry B Miller (pp. 229-37). This Corpus Medicorum Graecorum, contains allusions to persecutions and many Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der hardships endured by Narboni, who died in Wissenschaften 1362. He deemed the mystical conjunction with the upper world impossible in his generation, due to the lack of calm. Roger French and Andrew Cunningham, In his epilogue Conrad takes up the principal Before science: the invention ofthefriars' question: what was Ibn Tufayl's real aim? In natural philosophy, Aldershot, Scolar Press, our century two tendencies have emerged. 1996, pp. ix, 298, illus., £45.00 Leon Gauthier saw the harmony of philosophy (1-85928-287-3). and religion as Ibn Tufayl's main concern. This seems to be the theme especially of an In recent years the study of medieval texts appendix of the tale, where HIayy, having has been hugely influenced by borrowing from reached perfection, meets Absal, who comes literary studies a focus on the intended from a neighbouring island with an established readership and reception of the text through religion very similar to Islam. Hayy imparts his reading or hearing its contents. Before science wisdom to him, and they find that the beliefs demonstrates this influence in a striking way, of Absal's countrymen coincide basically with arguing that treatises on natural philosophy it, but that they lack an ascetic lifestyle and created by the Dominican and Franciscan friars adhere to a primitive understanding of of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were not scripture. H.ayy and Absal decide to convert early examples of "objective" scientific the inhabitants. The attempt fails and they both enquiry, as many later historians have believed, return to their lonely island. Gauthier's but were instead intimately bound up in these interpretation was challenged by George F orders' very different attempts to fight heresy. Hourani who saw in Hayy's biography only the French and Cunningham provide a close model of the philosophus autodidactus who reading of the major writers from each order reaches perfection without the assistance of a and their sources, and a meticulous discussion revealed religion. Conrad comes nearer to of the effects that such ideas might have when Gauthier but sees the attempt to reform the preached to the populations of the burgeoning religion of the islanders as reflecting Ibn medieval towns. The book first explores the Tufayl's own social aspirations. Burgel, in his Platonic and Aristotelian ideas that would later paper, gives more weight to the failure of their attract and be modified and used by Christian mission (p. 132) and I see in the ultimate writers. The metaphor of "Egyptian gold"- departure for Hayy's island an outright using pagan philosophy for the benefit of allegoric symbol for the "inner emigration" of Christianity-was controversial, and the fate of the enlightened intellectual in Almohad the mystical Gnostics and the rejection of society. Platonic, Arian discourse anticipate later

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Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.139, on 02 Oct 2021 at 01:03:19, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300063158 Book Reviews developments. A shaky discussion of the early Beauvais, Thomas of Cantimpre, Albertus middle ages leads rapidly to the Magnus, Robert Kilwardby and Thomas "revolutionary" twelfth century, the authors Aquinas. uncritically adopting this characterization on Dominican education rested on the limited secondary evidence. An examination of proposition that God and His creation are good the monastic houses and cathedral schools, and that a Christianized version of (mostly) along with major figures including John of Aristotelian teaching could be used to Salisbury, Peter Abelard and Bernard of demonstrate this. The Franciscan friars, Clairvaux, is however more effective, however, took a very different line. For them, conveying the sense of excitement that the meditation on nature was the first step on a twelfth-century theological debates path of practical and mystical contemplation, engendered. Pagan philosophy-"Egyptian leading, it was hoped, to ecstatic visions of gold" again- remained contentious, St God Himself. The source behind the Bernard being a vociferous opponent. contemplative theme of Franciscan writing was Translations were made of specific texts, not Aristotle but pseudo-Dionysius. Dionysius contradicting the simplistic "thirst for had stated that the point of contemplation was knowledge" as an explanation for the intensive to become deified. Importantly, Dionysius translation work in this period. A key theme at equated visible light with God's work in the this point was "nature". For the Greek material world-so when Franciscans studied philosophers, nature had nothing to do with the light, they studied God Himself. The study of gods, obviously a problem for Christian light to the Franciscans contributed to their thinkers like William of Conches and Hugh of contemplative, religious experience; thus St Victor, whose alternative views are interpretations of the work of authors such as explored. Newly-translated texts from the Robert Grosseteste on geometry and Roger Arabic, often linked with medical practice, Bacon on mathematics as the first signs of were a further stimulus: but whilst medical "objective", scientific enquiry in medieval men studied nature literally, philosophers Europe are mistaken. French and Cunningham reached for the Creator behind the creation. argue that the thirteenth-century friars were not The danger of heresy is illustrated by a pursuing the ancient study of optics in an discussion of how the Cathars-including imperfect way, but were in fact creating a medical doctors-used the texts in very natural philosophy for their own, specific different ways. Cathars held that all matter was purposes. evil, created by an evil God, provoking early Taken overall, Before science is a rather refutations from Alain of Lille and Alexander uneven book. The seams of co-authorship are Neckham. The Catholic message, however, had apparent in the elaborate linking between to be conveyed by more effective means than chapters and sections, particularly in the first textual disputation, and here Dominic and his half of the book. The need to bridge the gulf highly mobile Order of Preachers appear. A between antiquity and the twelfth century also chapter on surviving Cathar texts-including a results in a rather forced "early medieval" useful section on The two principles for chapter. That said, the authors have constructed beginners-highlights the need for Catholic a persuasive argument on the purpose and preachers to refute Cathar arguments through reading of the friars' natural science which learning: "this was not a peasants' heresy". A manages simultaneously to convey the essence programme of formal Dominican education, (and excitement) of the works to the non- with authors such as William of Auvergne specialist whilst providing sufficient detail and equipping Dominican preachers with precise supporting references for historians of science quotations and a firm philosophical foundation, and philosophy. The authors rightly insist that now sought to combat heresy. A valuable historians of science should consider summary follows of the work of Vincent of "individual and group motivation, emotion and

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Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.139, on 02 Oct 2021 at 01:03:19, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300063158 Book Reviews ambition", that is, the social context, when Understandably fed up with being regarded as reading and assessing medieval, "scientific" experts on the boring intermission between texts. This is a lesson which also might be Antiquity and the Renaissance, some earlier noted by their colleagues working on the medievalists made what now seem to be history of medicine. exaggerated claims alleging similarities between the role of experiment in the work of Patricia Skinner, University of Southampton (among others) Roger Bacon and Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). Deploying the level- headed scholarship familiar to readers of his David C Lindberg, Roger Bacon and the numerous earlier publications on medieval origins ofPerspectiva in the Middle Ages. A optics, Lindberg is polite but firm in dealing critical edition and English translation of with such claims; however, newcomers may Bacon's Perspectiva with introduction and not understand why some of this needs to be notes, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996, pp. cxi, said. Further, the account of later developments 411, £60.00 (0-19-823992-0). is too brief to be helpful. For instance, fifteenth-century authors listed as having read The bibliographic details will convince any Roger Bacon are provided only with dates of well-educated historian that this book should death, though for many, such as Lorenzo be available in all good libraries. So indeed it Ghiberti (1378-1455) and Leonardo da Vinci should. The advent of microfilm has helped the (1452-1519), dates of birth are also known; editor to make full use of many more and there is no explicit acknowledgement that manuscripts than his predecessors, with it is generally highly uncertain how any debt is consequent benefit to the authority of the to be apportioned between Roger Bacon resulting text. himself and his sources. For example, it has Roger Bacon's treatise, which David been proved conclusively that Lorenzo Lindberg, following a "guess" by Stewart Ghiberti made use of a thirteenth-century Easton, dates to about 1263 (p. xxiii), is a vernacular translation of Alhacen (see G foundation text for the science ofperspectiva Federici-Vescovini, 'I1 problema delle fonti as it was understood in the following three ottichi medievali del Commentario terzo' in centuries or so. The author explicitly identifies Lorenzo Ghiberti nel suo tempo, Florence, many of his sources, for instance Aristotle and 1980, pp. 347-87). The historical importance several commentators, Avicenna, Constantine of Roger Bacon's subject is beyond dispute, (that is Constantine the African, the translator but thefortuna of his text is not so well- of Hunayn's On the eye, whom Roger Bacon defined as is implied by the introduction in this mistakenly supposes to be its author), Euclid edition. Similar over-concision becomes even and Alhacen. (Lindberg makes a less helpful in the extension of the story to straightforward case for the spelling Alhacen: include the work of Johannes Kepler it is found in the majority of the manuscripts. (1571-1630). The form "Alhazen" marks the influence of the To summarize: do not let your students read spelling adopted in Friedrich Risner's edition only this book: it partly needs the rest of the of 1572.) Some mentions of "the physicians" good library in which it will be found. All the are explained in the notes same, for anyone frivolous or serious enough (pp. 341-92) as references to Galen, but as the to plunge straight into the main text, it is very index does not cover the notes the passages can good indeed, with scholarly notes providing be retrieved only through the Introduction. hand-holds and water wings. Since this book includes a translation, its users will very probably include newcomers to J V Field, Birkbeck College the subject. They would run into problems if they simply started with the Introduction.

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