Historians of both science and philosophy have often discussed the relation between matter and form in the early modern period. The intricacies of this issue are caused by the various meanings associated with each of these terms, and the emphasis placed by different historical actors on either of the two. Despite becoming a classic theme in the literature, the problems of how matter and form relate to each other and how their meanings change in the early modern period still requires careful analysis. This is why the present volume makes a valuable contribution to an ongoing debate.

In his foreword to the volume, Mordechai Feingold acknowledges that Matter and Form in Early Modern Science and Philosophy puts together nine papers that were presented at a conference at the California Institute of Technology in 2010. Gideon Manning opens the volume with a study of the term ‘hylomorphism’. After tracing its origins to the final decades of the nineteenth century, Manning turns to three historical cases: Aristotle himself, Scipion Dupleix (a late Scholastic) and Jacques Rohault (a Cartesian). The main aim of this chapter is to argue against the view that a commonly shared doctrine of hylomorphism endured in the early modern period. Thus his chapter makes a nice introduction to the volume, as the other contributions document a rich variety of early modern views about matter and form. In the second chapter, Michael Edwards explores a body of scholastic texts on the scientia de anima and compares them with the ‘science of human nature’ (p. 52) that one can find in their contemporary Protestant authors. He argues convincingly that anatomy and its newly associated imagery played an important role in reshaping the terms of the debate, revealing among other things ‘semi-permeable’ disciplinary boundaries that raised the problem of authority (p. 44). Hiro Hirai is the author of the third chapter, in which he provides a careful analysis of Daniel Sennert's theory of seeds. Based on his prior work on the concept of ‘seed’ in the Renaissance and the early modern period, Hirai gives a convincing account, concluding that in Sennert's view the seeds are similar to substantial forms. The next chapter is again focused on Sennert, but this time it deals to a larger extent with his chymical views. William Newman compares Sennert with Etienne-François Geoffroy, who almost a century later advanced his famous theory of affinities. Newman gives textual support for the claim that a pre-theory of affinities can already be found in Sennert, reacting in this way to some of the current scholarship on the French chemist. The volume continues with Tad Schmaltz's comparison of Suárez and Descartes on substantial forms. He accomplishes this by cross-referencing the problem of the matter–form relation with that of causation. While it is a matter of debate how to read Descartes (as noted by Schmaltz too), his analysis adds more material to the discussion about the role of scholasticism in Descartes, which is a very important part of Cartesian scholarship.

Gary Hatfield has contributed the sixth chapter of the volume, which is also about Descartes. Hatfield gives a very convincing reconstruction of the new ‘machine psychology’ promoted by the Frenchman (p. 186). He argues that facing the problem of life in the context of a strict mechanical explanation, Descartes was forced to confront the Scholastics with another metaphysics. Further difficulties with Descartes's philosophy are highlighted in the next chapter, where Roger Ariew discusses some of the seventeenth-century reactions to Cartesian views about matter. Ariew argues that Descartes's choice to avoid the scholastic forms made his contemporaries believe that he was a supporter of atomism. However, in order to avoid atomism, Descartes advanced a corpuscular view that was raising other problems. Among these, Ariew focuses on the Eucharist and individuation. The final two chapters are devoted to Leibniz. Justin Smith examines the process of nutrition as a privileged example of a metaphysics of corporeal substance. His discussion of the material condition of a machine morphs into an analysis of final causes and the changing status of substance. Smith concludes by acknowledging the difficulty posed by the lack of a definitive view expressed by Leibniz. The final chapter of the volume is by Daniel Garber. He too provides a discussion of Leibniz, but of the views about hylomorphism that the philosopher put forward in the 1670s. By analysing Leibniz's views in a limited time frame, Garber is able to reconstruct a two-sided argument of the German thinker: on the one hand, the so-called argument from unity, which requires that a body should be real, and on the other hand, an argument from matter and form seen as principles, which allows for a dynamic view.

This is no more than a quick enumeration of nine high-quality scholarly essays on various views about matter and form in early modern thought. To be sure, given the diversity of views expressed by early modern thinkers, many other studies can and should follow to fill in all the gaps in the existing scholarship. However, the volume does an admirable job of mapping some of these approaches.

The only complaint that I have with this volume is that it would have benefited from more careful copy-editing before publication. The punctuation errors that stud the volume (especially in its first half) are no match for the good scholarship that one can find in the text. Nevertheless, I would highly recommend this volume to anyone interested in the multifaceted problems raised by the early modern (re-)evaluations of the traditional concepts of matter and form.