Karl Barth is said to have dismissed the possibility of bringing his thought into constructive dialogue with that of Rudolph Bultmann, declaring that exercise ‘an impossible conversation between a whale and an elephant’. The uninitiated might be forgiven for assuming that this colourful characterisation is no less applicable to the prospects for bringing the thought of Thomas Aquinas and Ludwig Wittgenstein into fruitful conversation. But this collection of insightful essays, assembled as a Festschrift for Victor Preller, proves otherwise. The ‘reformulations’ of the title is apt, for the essays here stake out interpretations which challenge standard readings of both Wittgenstein and Aquinas, as well as make a compelling case that each figure may be profitably read in the light of the other. Editors Jeffrey Stout and Robert MacSwain have gathered together a quite disparate group of contributors, but there is nevertheless a certain commonality of purpose throughout the volume, as virtually all the essays are concerned with elucidating the thought of these two thinkers as it applies to contemporary questions in theology, philosophy and ethics.

Those who are already familiar with the way interpretations of Aquinas and Wittgenstein have become increasingly intertwined during the latter part of the twentieth century will recognise three of the major contributors to that scholarship included here. Fergus Kerr (‘“Real Knowledge” or “Enlightened Ignorance”: Eric Mascall on the Apophatic Thomisms of Victor Preller and Victor White’) triangulates Preller's reading of Aquinas on the human capacity for real knowledge of God with the interpretations proposed by White and Mascall. David Burrell (‘Religious Life and Understanding: Grammar Exercised in Practice’) attempts to delineate Preller's legacy to students of philosophical theology, with particular attention to the importance of semantic sophistication in theological discourse. And Stanley Hauerwas (‘Connections Created and Contingent: Aquinas, Preller, Wittgenstein, and Hopkins’) reveals the extent to which his Gifford Lectures, With the Grain of the Universe, are indebted to Preller's revisionist reading of natural theology in relation to divine revelation.

But eight additional students of Preller's, both those who knew him in the classroom and some he influenced less directly, have also contributed valuable scholarly essays to this collection. Joseph Incandela (‘Similarities and Synergy: An Augustinian Reading of Aquinas and Wittgenstein’) highlights the many and marked differences between Aquinas and Wittgenstein, and then argues that an Augustinian reading allows one to find the linkage in their respective projects as ordered to spiritual inquiry. Bruce Marshall (‘In Search of an Analytic Aquinas: Grammar and the Trinity’) suggests that the tendency of many Thomists to neglect analytical philosophy appears misguided, for Aquinas himself makes use of some of the same analytical techniques, such as when he employs ‘semantic ascent’ in his explication of trinitarian theology. Eugene Rogers (‘The Eclipse of the Spirit in Thomas Aquinas’) considers the manner in which Aquinas and Wittgenstein shared a suspicion of mystical experience, and explores the relationship of this concern, to the former's doctrine of the Holy Spirit. John Bowlin (‘Nature's Grace: Aquinas and Wittgenstein on Natural Law and Moral Knowledge’) attempts to locate both thinkers in a continuous strand of the natural law tradition, where natural law is understood not as the ground for normative ethical guidelines but as an explanatory aid for proper reflection on human nature.

Scott Davis (‘Wittgenstein and the Recovery of Virtue’) argues that virtue-oriented ethical reflection, while it must acknowledge the socially conditioned aspects of conceptions like justice, need not construe such concepts as wholly subjective and thereby devolve into mere moral relativism. Douglas Langston (‘The Stoical Aquinas: Stoic Influences on Aquinas's Understanding of Charity’) traces Aquinas's dependence on the Stoic philosophical tradition, largely by way of Augustine, in his account of the virtues in general and charity in particular. M. Jamie Ferreira (‘Vision and Love: A Wittgensteinian Ethic in Culture and Value’) provides a careful examination of Wittgenstein's remarks regarding the human ethical condition, and argues that the eschewal of a normative ethical theory does not preclude his holding to a normative ethical stance concerned with moral self-transformation, as influenced by Kierkegaard. Jennifer Herdt (‘Justification's End: Aquinas and Wittgenstein on Creation and Wonder’) provides a critique of Hauerwas's appropriation of Wittgensteinian ethical motifs, and suggests that the distinct conceptions in Aquinas and Wittgenstein of how practical justification comes to an end are perhaps more compatible than is commonly supposed.

Three additional elements of the book deserve mention here. Jeffrey Stout has provided a fine introduction, attentive to the interconnections between the various essays, and to the relation of each to its author's wider work. The volume concludes with a personal tribute by Mark Larrimore (‘Memoir: Living in media res’), which memorialises Preller as a gifted teacher, thoughtful mentor and steadfast friend. And a particularly welcome inclusion is Preller's 1998 Mascall Lecture (‘Water into Wine’), which, although subsequently circulated among his disciples in samisdat style, has heretofore been largely unavailable in published form. His last formal commentary on Aquinas, this lecture provides a lively summary of many of the Prellerian themes that are further explored within the contributor essays. Thus even a reader not familiar with the same author's major work, Divine Science and the Science of God: A Reformulation of Thomas Aquinas, will easily discern the degree to which the essays in this volume are not only dedicated to, but also inspired by, Victor Preller.

While this collection of essays is certainly not tailored to beginners, intermediate and advanced students will find it a valuable resource for gaining greater insight into each of these profound and challenging thinkers. What is more, it effectively makes the case for why devotees of either Aquinas or Wittgenstein would be well served to broaden their study to include consideration of the other. Whales and elephants, it seems, may have interesting things to say to one another after all.