Ward on Scholastic Metaphysics

In the Winter 2017 issue of Pro Ecclesia, Baylor University philosopher Thomas M. Ward kindly reviews my book Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction .  From the review:
This accessible, insightful, entertaining book introduces and defends Scholastic, mostly Thomistic, metaphysics in dialogue with important figures from contemporary analytic metaphysics… Feser is blessed with a clear and entertaining prose style, which makes it all the more enjoyable to engage his philosophical work.  I highly recommend this book…Feser does a good job at highlighting rival views on disputed points and maintaining a sense that scholastic philosophers despite their differences are allies against common foes…

Feser argues that scientism is self-refuting, because the scientistic claim… cannot itself be established on scientific grounds.  This alone is decisive against scientism, but Feser goes on to develop several additional lines of attack.  This section is quite good and very entertaining…
Feser’s discussion of causal powers is especially rich and deeply in dialogue with contemporary analytic philosophers…
This review just scratches the surface of Feser’s admirable introduction to scholastic metaphysics.  It is refreshing, even inspiring, to see great philosophical work which takes these old medieval thinkers seriously enough to consider whether they might have got a few things right.  After Feser’s book, you might be persuaded they got more than a few right!