Abstract

The third volume of The History of European Philosophy in the Fifteenth Century deals with the question of "being." In the closing paragraph, Stefan Swiezawski remarks: "Studies on the transformation and distortion of St. Thomas's doctrine on being, especially in regard to its existential element, are fundamentally important for understanding the factual historical development of Thomism as well as for understanding modern Christian thought. They are also of utmost importance for understanding the mainspring and resultant trends which have shaped the direction of philosophical reflection in Europe during the last several centuries". The fourth volume of his opus magnum under review here, touches upon the problematics of God. It is this volume which serves as the best example of all those deviations and distortions which come from a mistreatment of the philosophy of being. Moreover, fifteenth century philosophy, in the disguise of metaphysics, can be seen as "a century of theology which in a more differentiated form and restless way" professed and used "pluralism of the conception of theology as a science".