Edward Feser, Aristotle’s Revenge: The Metaphysical Foundations of Physical and Biological Science. Neukirchen-Seelscheid, Editiones Scholasticae, 2019, 15 × 21 cm, 515 p., ISBN 978-3-86838-200-6

At the outset of Aristotle’s Revenge, author Edward Feser informs the reader that his book is a “sequel” to his 2014 book Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction. Feser writes that Aristotle’s Revenge “builds on the main ideas and arguments developed and defended” in that work (p. 2). As such, Feser cautions us not to expect a full treatment of all of the core ideas which he uses during the course of Aristotle’s Revenge – a fuller treatment of “some background assumption[s]” is present in the book’s prequel (p. 2). Indeed, as with prequels and sequels of other sorts, Aristotle’s Revenge is best read once one is familiar with the work which is its prequel. Yet this ought not discourage one from reading this fine work. Anyone familiar with the basic Aristotelian metaphysical framework will have little to no trouble following Feser along his line of thought. Especially helpful in this respect is Chapter 1, which is in large part dedicated to a brief, and yet surprisingly thorough, articulation of said metaphysical framework. Feser’s book attempts to support the broad Aristotelian metaphysical structure and its interpretation of modern science as the interpretation, while at the same time defending that structure from the attacks of philosophical naturalists and attacking the metaphysical assumptions of said naturalists. It is a credit to Feser that he sees the inherent danger in such a project; throughout Aristotle’s Revenge he insists that he is not attacking modern science itself. Feser writes: “I am not pitting philosophy of nature against physics. I am pitting one philosophy of nature against another philosophy of nature.” (p. 305) Thus, another issue central to Aristotle’s Revenge is the correct and consistent interpretation of the findings of modern science. Ought one to interpret the findings of empirical science in a broadly Aristotelian fashion? Or ought one to interpret them in the tradition of philosophical naturalism? Feser argues for the former interpretation, and one of the strengths of Aristotle’s Revenge is that it makes the much stronger claim that this interpretation is in fact presupposed by modern science itself. Feser writes: “Aristotelian metaphysics is not only compatible with modern science, but is implicitly presupposed by modern science.” (p. 1) Of course, to those already immersed in the metaphysical system of Aristotle, the idea that modern science presupposes Aristotelian metaphysics is nothing new. A number of times Feser makes a point that most in the Aristotelian tradition would regard this as obvious: the categories of substance and accident, of form and matter, and of act and potency are so metaphysically fundamental that no empirical findings could ever overturn them, even in principle. What is new, to both the Aristotelian tradition and to those outside of that tradition, is that we now have gathered together a comprehensive, concise, and highly articulate book-length treatment of these philosophical claims. One of the highlights of Aristotle’s Revenge is the way in which Feser applies the Aristotelian metaphysical framework to interpretive problems of modern science. In defending the structural realist interpretation of the empirical findings of modern science (especially physics), Feser argues that “The kind of structural realism I am affirming is perhaps best understood as simply an application, to the interpretation of the mathematical models put forward by physics and other sciences, of general Aristotelian realism vis-à-vis universals, mathematical entities, and other abstractions.” (p. 170) By way of an example, Feser argues that an abstract concept such as triangularity does not exist in mind-independent reality like a Platonic universal. “Rather,” writes Feser, “it exists there only in individual triangles, and thus only together with particularizing features such …