Interpretation A JOURNAL J_OF POLITICAL

Winter 1998 Volume 26 Number 2

149 Jules Gleicher Moses Politikos

183 Tucker Landy The Limitations of Political Philosophy: An Interpretation of Plato's Charmides

201 Jason A. Tipton Love of Gain, Philosophy and Tyranny: A Commentary on Plato's Hipparchus

217 Larry Peterman Changing Titles: Some Suggestions about the "Prince" Use of in Machiavelli and Others

239 Catherine H. Zuckert Leadership Natural and Conventional in Melville's "Benito Cereno"

257 Jon Fennell Harry Neumann and the Political Piety of Rorty's Postmodernism

Book Reviews

275 George Anastaplo 's "Physics": A Guided Study, by Joe Sachs

285 Michael P. Zuckert Shakespeare and the Good Life, by David Lowenthal

295 Joan Stambaugh : Between Good and Evil, by Rudiger Safranski

299 Patrick Coby Hypocrisy and Integrity: Machiavelli, Rousseau and the of Politics, by Ruth Grant

305 Susan Orr and the American Right, by Shadia Drury

309 Will Morrisey Public Morality and Liberal Society: Essays on Decency, Law, and Pornography, by Harry M. Clor Interpretation

Editor-in-Chief Hilail Gildin, Dept. of Philosophy, Queens College Executive Editor Leonard Grey General Editors Seth G. Benardete Charles E. Butterworth Hilail Gildin Robert Horwitz (d. 1987) Howard B. White (d. 1974) Consulting Editors Christopher Bruell Joseph Cropsey Ernest L. Fortin John Hallowell (d. 1992) Harry V. Jaffa David Lowenthal Muhsin Mahdi Harvey C. Mansfield Arnaldo Momigliano (d. 1987) Michael Oakeshott (d. 1990) Ellis Sandoz Leo Strauss (d. 1973) Kenneth W. Thompson International Editors Terence E. Marshall Heinrich Meier Editors Wayne Ambler Maurice Auerbach Fred Baumann Amy Bonnette Patrick Coby Elizabeth C de Baca Eastman Thomas S. Engeman Edward J. Erler Maureen Feder-Marcus Pamela K. Jensen Ken Masugi Will Morrisey Susan Orr Charles T. Rubin Leslie G. Rubin Susan Meld Shell Bradford P. Wilson Michael P. Zuckert Catherine H. Zuckert Manuscript Editor Lucia B. Prochnow

Subscriptions Subscription rates per volume (3 issues): individuals $29 libraries and all other institutions $48 students (four-year limit) $18 Single copies available.

Postage outside U.S.: Canada $4.50 extra; elsewhere $5.40 extra by surface mail (8 weeks or longer) or $1 1.00 by air. Payments: in U.S. dollars and payable by a financial institution located within the U.S.A. (or the U.S. Postal Service).

The Journal Welcomes Manuscripts in Political Philosophy as Well as Those in Theology, Literature, and Jurisprudence. contributors should follow The Manual of Style, 1 3th ed. or manuals based on it; double-space their manuscripts, including notes; place references in the text, in endnotes or follow current journal style in printing references. Words from languages not rooted in should be transliterated to English. To ensure impartial judgment of their manuscripts, contributors should omit mention of their other work; put, on the title page only, their name, any affiliation desired, address with postal/zip code in full, E-Mail and telephone. Please send four clear copies, which will not be returned.

Composition by Eastern Composition, Inc., Binghamton, N.Y. 13904 U.S.A.

Printed by The Sheridan Press, Hanover, PA 17331 U.S.A.

Inquiries: (Ms.) Joan Walsh, Assistant to the Editor interpretation, Queens College, Flushing, N.Y. 1 1 367- 1 597, U.S.A. (7 1 8)997-5542 Fax (7 1 8) 997-5565 E Mail: [email protected] Book Reviews

Joe Sachs, Aristotle's "Physics": A Guided Study (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rut gers Press, 1995), xi + 261 pp., $52.00 cloth, $18.00 paper.

George Anastaplo

Loyola University Chicago, School of Law

The finiteness of the world is a main point for the ancients and for the medievals.

The Aristotelian philosophy stands or falls with the finiteness of the world. For Aristotle there is nothing outside, not even nothing. Jacob Klein'

The importance of Aristotelian is sturdily argued by Joe Sachs in his Study.2 book, Aristotle's "Physics": A Guided A useful introduction to the study of texts such as this one is provided by Harvey Flaumenhaft, the Senior Editor of the series of books in which this valuable text is found (pp. vi-xi). This series is testimony to the St. John's College Program which Mr. Sachs has served well for more than two decades. St. John's is perhaps the only institution of higher learning in this country today where undergraduates can be routinely yet effectively introduced to reliable notions about the mathematics, the physical , and the philosophical thought of antiquity. The Program can develop an awareness in students of what the enduring questions are in these disciplines. All this testifies as well to the pioneering work of Jacob Klein, J. Winfree Smith, Curtis A. Wilson, Robert S. Bart, and their associates at St. John's College since the 1930s.

The merits of a proper translation of the Physics, as of other ancient Greek texts, are also argued by Mr. Sachs. The defects of earlier translations are no ticed in his challenging introduction. There have been published, in recent years, a number of reliable translations of Platonic and Aristotelian texts, as well as of texts by Xenophon and Aris tophanes, to say nothing about what has been done with authors such as Machi avelli. All this is partly due to the influence of Leo Strauss, who spent the last

interpretation, Winter 1999, Vol. 26, No. 2 276 Interpretation years of his life on the St. John's College campus in Annapolis, after a distin guished career at the . Mr. Sachs provides here a useful translation of the Physics for the serious student. His is probably the best translation of this text available in English, and as such it deserves the commendation provided on the cover of the book by Leon R. Kass, formerly a Tutor at St. John's College (and now at the University of Chicago):

Sachs's translation and commentary rescue Aristotle's text from the rigid, pedantic, and misleading versions that have until now obscured his thought. Thanks to Sachs's superb guidance, the Physics comes alive as a profound dialectical inquiry whose insights into the enduring questions about , cause, change, time, and "infinite" the are still pertinent today. Using such guided studies in a class has been exhilarating both for myself and for my students.

This assessment which may take for granted the recognition that those who have known the Greek language need not have had Aristotle's thought

"obscured" for them the Kass assessment is reinforced by a passage in a book review by Carl Page, currently a Tutor at St, John's College:

With respect to Aristotle's Greek, the [Sachs] translation is lean and idiomatically consistent. It also avoids much of the received technical vocabulary. Thus, e.g.,

"substance" "thinghood," "principle" ousia is not but arche is not but "original

being" source,' "matter" or "ruling what is usually translated as becomes "material," "accident" becomes "accidental attribute."1

Mr. Page continues:

Most striking amongst the departures from standard usage are the renderings of energeia, to ti en einai and entelecheia arguably the profoundest notions of Aristotle's whole philosophy. Inspired partly by Heidegger and partly by Joseph "being-at-work," Owens, Mr. Sachs translates the energeia of a thing as its its to ti

all," en einai as "what it keeps on being in order to be at and its entelecheia as its ' "being-at-work-staying-itself (which I think of as the "self-maintaining being at

work" of a thing). The fixity and lack of dynamism so commonly linked with the "essence" concept of and sheer existential presence that tends to usurp the meaning "actuality" of are thus nicely side-stepped in favor of the powerful, pulsing, actively organizing sense of form that is visible on the face of Aristotle's own neologisms.

III.

I hope it is not only my perhaps naive reservations about Martin Heidegger which prompt me to notice problems with an edition of the Physics said to have Heidegger."4 been "[i]nspired partly by Book Reviews 277

The Sachs translation is often awkward, more so than the introduction (by him) preceding the translation or the commentary (also by him) accompanying it. Mr. Sachs himself recognizes that some of the terms in his translation are infelicitous (pp. 8-9). Thinghood, for example, is not likely to catch on (many thoughtful scholars may still prefer entity). This kind of term fails the test endorsed by Mr. Sachs of "us[ing] the simplest possible language in a way that

them" keeps the focus off the words and on the things meant by (p. 7). In some instances it may be better simply to use the Greek terms (with an explanation reserved for this edition's eminently useful glossary). This could be done with, for example, arche, energeia, and ousia. On the other hand, if the anti-Latinate principle that Mr. Sachs insists upon is to be scrupulously followed, should arete (p. 354) continue to be translated as virtue and should phusis (pp. 31, 250) continue to be translated as nature1.

Some technical problems with the Sachs edition should also be noticed (and perhaps corrected in subsequent printings of so attractive a book): The running heads, lacking both book and chapter numbers, are distressingly inadequate. The mingling of text and commentary can be troublesome. The insertion of the standard page numbers within the text can be distracting. And there is a prob lem with the relegation to the back of the book of four chapters considered by the translator to be digressions. In short, any meddling with the integrity of the discouraged.5 text, as traditionally received, is to be But no matter how well a translation is done or presented, Aristotle's Physics is still likely to be of little use to most bright youngsters eager to find out what the world is like. It is difficult to do much with such texts as the Physics off (if not also on) the St. John's College campuses, and not only among undergradu-

IV.

A critical issue with respect to Mr. Sachs's approach is suggested by his frank rejection of the following argument made by Richard McKeon for "pre

tradition" serving a continuity of in translating Aristotle's texts into English (pp. 5-6; emphasis added):

The tendency recently in translations from Greek and Latin philosophers, has been to seek out Anglo-Saxon terms, and to avoid Latin derivatives. Words as clear and as definitely fixed in a long tradition of usage as privation, accident, and even substance, have been replaced by barbarous compound terms, which awaken no echo in the mind of one familiar with the tradition, and afford no entrance into the tradition to one unfamiliar with it. In the translations [accompanying this argument]

an attempt has been made to return to the terminology of the .. . English

philosophers of the seventeenth century. Most of the Latin derivatives which are

used have justification in the works of Hobbes, Kenelm Digby, Cudworth, 278 Interpretation

Culverwell, even Bacon, and scores of writers contemporary with them. [T]he mass of commentary on Aristotle will be rendered more difficult, if not impossible, of understanding if the terms of discussion are changed arbitrarily after two thousand years.7

One could, if interested in the tradition of commentary, use other (standard) translations or one could, even better, learn Greek and Latin. Still, does not a rich and potentially instructive tradition tend to be depreciated by Mr. Sachs's approach? But then, consider what Jacob Klein did by using excellence rather book." than virtue (for arete) in his invaluable Meno An even more critical issue here, of course, is the status of "a motionless

mover" first (pp. 28, 223-24). Much is made by Mr. Sachs of our inability to know that which is constantly changing. Certainly, changeableness can be said to be an attribute of all observable things, those things which occupy almost all the attention of the modem physicist. But is not the whole which we can ob

"forever" "it" serve itself in that will (so far as we now know) continue to exist "laws," in some form or other according to unchanging however much in flux its appearance may always be? I wonder, that is, whether eternal yet constantly changing material should be dismissed, as some would-be Platonists-Aristotelians may seem to do, as in

mover" comprehensible or unknowable. Is what is said by them about "the first (often translated by some of them as "the Prime Mover") truly more compre hensible, or enough so to engage modem curiosity? The first mover may be "forever" in the full sense, but It is not readily if at all observable, at least not in the somewhat reassuring way that many other things seem to be. That which we call matter does seem to be and to move pursuant to ascer tainable modes, now as well as long ago, here as well as far away. Underlying this set of inquiries may be questions about the meaning and the status of the Platonic doctrine of the Ideas. It is reassuring to have Mr. Sachs notice that "in the most important respects, the writings of Plato and Aristotle are more like

else."2)'' each other than either is like anything (p.

The status of modem science in Mr. Sachs's book seems to be deliberately lowered. Little more than a grudging respect is shown by him, or so it some times seems, for the accomplishments of modem science, accomplishments about which Mr. Sachs is personally better informed than most of us are ever likely to be. Jacob Klein, on the other hand, could speak of "mathematical it" physics, and all the auxiliary disciplines connected with as "one of the great

man" est achievements of (Strauss, Jewish Philosophy, p. 458). And one of Mr. Klein's colleagues in Annapolis, Eva Brann, could speak of "the reverence- producing splendor of modem science and modem mathematics."10 Although Book Reviews 279

Mr. Sachs can recognize that the "glory of the new physics is the power it gains

mathematics" from (p. 15), his general tone is likely to be perceived by most of his readers as dismissive.

There are, it has been noticed, serious problems with the philosophical foun dations of modem science. I do not know of any school that has done more to promote, particularly among its faculty, an informed inquiry into these matters than St. John's College, an inquiry nobly advanced by the superb work that Mr. Sachs has done in several fields. He himself has observed that no one has come close to digesting the implications of contemporary physics. One set of problems posed by modem science has to do with its considerable reliance upon mathematics, which can be both a blessing and a curse. So much is this so that it can sometimes seem that contemporary physics comes to view primarily as a branch of mathematics. One can be reminded of Francis Bacon's complaint that Aristotle had "corrupted natural philosophy [that is, physics] by his logic.""

Even so, it should also be remembered that Plato can still be regarded as one of the greatest of mathematicians. (The geometrical construction proposed at

Meno 87E continues to challenge commentators.) And, we are told, a grounding in mathematics was a prerequisite for anyone who wanted to study in Plato's Academy. This leaves open the question of where the emphasis was placed in the mathematics that Plato relied upon. I recently heard the questions put, at a University of Chicago physics collo fermion," quium on the "composite "Is it a mathematical construction? Or is it

real?" I am reminded as well of the following exchange at another Chicago physics colloquium: A physicist, after describing a decade-long inquiry into the properties of an exotic particle, observed, "We don't ask what this particle is.

trace." But we know it can leave a A colleague of his at once added, "If it is

charged." All this elicited from the ranks of these scientists the recollection of advice given by Niels Bohr: "One should not speak more clearly than one thinks." Such investigations become even more complicated, of course, when the divine and the beginnings of things are taken into account. That is, Being Nothingness.12 itself can seem mysterious. Perhaps the same should be said of

VI.

Among the problems with the epistemology of modem science is a reliance upon mysterious elements, hard if not impossible to grasp, which Albert Ein distance." stein himself tended to dismiss as requiring "spooky action at a We can even be told of effects that are evidently transmitted from one particle to light.13 another faster than the speed of Mr. Sachs should be of help here, however misleading in its emphasis his

sug- seeming depreciation of modem science may be. Eugene P. Wigner has 280 Interpretation gested, "The surprising discovery of Newton's is just this, the clear separation

other."14 of laws of nature on the one hand and initial conditions on the Is not Aristotle, with his examination of the four causes, particularly useful for clari

conditions" fying whatever "initial there may happen to be for the universe as we know it? Perhaps, that is, Aristotle is needed if modem physicists are to understand better than they do their foundations, limitations, and aspirations. To this end Mr. Sachs's work can be quite helpful. But perhaps this works in the other direction as well: ancient science can be illuminated, if not better understood, by a proper appreciation of modem science's spectacular accomplishments. Un derlying this investigation, whichever direction one moves, is the continuing inquiry as to the nature and status of nature. Nature has been vital to the tradi tion of philosophical pursuits in the West, something that can be highlighted when one notices the absence of the concept (but not of the workings) of nature Confucian." in such great ancient intellectual traditions as the Biblical and the

VII.

It is prudent for the scholar to keep in view the remarkable that has been made possible by modem science. Does not that technology testify to something reliable, if not also important, in the modem grasp of things? That technology has expanded, in turn, the reaches of the universe to a perhaps in comprehensible extent.

Aristotle and his contemporaries had a quite limited physical access to only a very small part of one galaxy, the one we happen to be in. We, on the other hand, are accustomed to hearing about the billions upon billions of galaxies all around us, galaxies which are moving away from us in all directions at great speeds.16 universe" What "the means in these circumstances can be daunting to

universe," consider. Indeed, one can adapt, to an effort to identify "the the questions I put, a couple of decades ago in the course of a University of Chi cago memoir about Leo Strauss and Enrico Fermi questions about something I called an ultron:

What seems to be missing in the current scientific enterprise is a systematic inquiry into its presuppositions and purposes. That is, the limits of modern science do not seem to be properly recognized. has been quoted as saying,

"Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little: it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover." But the significance of this observation is not generally appreciated as one learns upon to persuade trying competent physicists to join one in presenting a course devoted to a careful reading of Aristotle's Physics. Is there any reason to doubt that physicists will, if they continue as they have in breakthroughs" the Twentieth Century, achieve, again and again, "decisive in Book Reviews 28 1

dividing subatomic "particles"? But what future, or genuine understanding, is there in that? I believe it would be fruitful for physicists that is, for a few of the more imaginative among them to consider seriously the nature of what we can call the "ultron." What must this ultimate particle be like (if, indeed, it is a particle and not "ultron" an idea or a principle)? For is not an implied by the endeavors of our physicists, by their recourse to more and more ingenious (and expensive) equipment and experiments? Or are we to assume an infinite regress (sometimes called progress) and no standing place or starting point? Or, to put this questions still another way, what is it that permits the universe to be and to be (if it is) intelligible? To ask such questions is to raise fundamental questions about what Mr.

project." Strauss called "the modern

How would Aristotle have responded to all this? With wonder and with

many, more telling, questions of his own. A distinguished physicist recently told me that Enrico Fermi had once said to him, "You know why I am more imagination." successful than you young theoreticians? It's because I have no I am reminded here that Leo Strauss once identified himself as "absolutely and

always" hard-boiled" making "empirical, analyses of situations. I suspect that Aristotle could have described himself the same way as someone who was imagination.17 empirical, hard-boiled, and not misled by his (or anyone else's) This is something that Joe Sachs's scrupulous translation of and elegant com mentary on the Physics should help us grasp better than most of us might otherwise be likely to do at a time when it has become virtually impossible to imagine what could ever have been meant among thoughtful Aristotelians by

world." "the finiteness of the

NOTES

1. Jacob Klein, Lectures and Essays (Annapolis, MD: St. John's College Press, 1985), p. 114. "Science was originally pursued and regarded as a most important component of the perfection of life. The crisis of modern science consists, in [Edmund] Husserl's phrase, in 'the loss of its life.' meaning for .. . For the sake of a sound view of human life we seek what may still be valid in

nature." Animal," the Aristotelian understanding of Laurence Bems, "Rational Animal Political in Essays in Honor ofJacob Klein (Annapolis, MD: St. John's College Press, 1986), p. 30. See note 15 below. 2. All citations to page numbers in the text of my discussion will be to Mr. Sachs's edition of Aristotle's Physics. Another recent instructive introduction to the Physics from St. John's College

" is David Bolotin's An Approach to Aristotle's "Physics (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998). 3. Reporter, St. John's College, Winter 1996, p. 7. Mr. Sachs has useful things to say about " substance. See Aristotle's "Physics. pp. 7-8, 15.

' 4. See, on Martin Heidegger and Aristotle, Aristotle's "Physics, pp. 10, 29; Jacob Klein and Accounts," Leo Strauss, "A Giving of in Leo Strauss, Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Moder nity, ed. K. H. Green (Albany: State University of New York, 1997), pp. 457f. See, on the Jewish Judaism," Philosophy collection, George Anastaplo, "Leo Strauss and Great Ideas Today 1998 (1998): 457. See, for the reservations about Martin Heidegger referred to, George Anastaplo, The American Moralist: On Law, Ethics, and Government (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1992), pp. 282 Interpretation

Nazism," 144f.; Arnold I. Davidson, ed., "Symposium on Heidegger and 15 Critical Inquiry (1989): 407f. 5. "Some parts of Aristotle's text that are rather technical and unnecessary to a first study of the Appendix." ' Physics have been removed to the Aristotle's "Physics. p. 30. See also, p. 36. On the organization of the Physics, see pp. 28-29. Does not an editor's willingness to rearrange the parts of a text tend to ignore the care with which an author might have ordered those parts (if he intended "publication")? Fortunately for the reader who wants to get a sense of the arrangement of the

chapters" whole, the materials relegated by Mr. Sachs to an appendix as "digressive are taken in roughly equal measure from the first and second halves of the Physics. Unfortunately, the repeated interspersing of editorial commentaries, refreshing though they are, can be confusing. The presenta "motionless" tion by Aristotle of the things a very short presentation (in chapter 2 of book 5) can be said to be at the center of the entire Physics, at least as it has come down to us. That is, at the heart of Aristotle's presentation is this remarkably terse discussion of the motionless, which is

mover" returned to, toward the end of the Physics, when the "first is discussed. Compare Aristotle's " "Physics, pp. 1-2: "The writings of Aristotle that we possess as wholes are school texts that, with the possible exception of the Nicomachean Ethics, seem never to have been meant for publication.

listening.' The title that we have with the Physics describes it as a 'course of The likeliest conjec ture is that these works originated as oral discourses by Aristotle, written down by students, cor

arguments." rected by Aristotle, and eventually assembled into longer connected 6. Both the Nicomachean Ethics and the Politics of Aristotle seem more accessible to students, and that can encourage them to persevere. Other translations than Mr. Sachs's of the Physics do give students the impression that they are learning something, while the Sachs version (unless a skillful teacher is involved) is more likely to make all but the most gifted of students believe that they can understand little if any of what is being said by Aristotle. See Edward Halper, Book Review, 50 Review of (1997): 687. 7. All this is aside from the difficulties that Leo Strauss, among many others, had with Richard McKeon at the University of Chicago. See, on Mr. McKeon, Book Review, Review of Metaphysics

true" 32 (1979): 775. ("It is not should read "But is it not true.") See, for an appreciation of Mr. McKeon, by one of his former students, as a professor who (although now neglected) "was, for his breadth of mastery, clearness, penetration, and originality, a mind virtually on the level of Immanuel Kant," George Kimball Plochmann, Richard McKeon: A Study (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), p. 13. 8. See, for comments about the tradition, Anastaplo, Human Being and Citizen: Essays on Virtue, Freedom, and the Common Good (Chicago: Swallow Press, 1975), p. 52.

" See, on the use of excellence instead of virtue, ibid., pp. 84f. See also Aristotle's "Physics, p. 254. Did Mr. Klein, whatever he may have believed about the work of others, ever use such terms

"mush," gobbledygook,""gibberish" as "pretentious and in print in the way that Mr. Sachs does at pages 15, 22, and 29 of his text? 9. Perhaps Xenophon should be linked to Plato and Aristotle here. See, on the Ideas, Anastaplo, The Thinker as Artist: From Homer to Plato & Aristotle (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1997), pp. " 303f; Aristotle's "Physics, pp. 49, 57-58, 93. See, on what Socrates did know, Anastaplo, "Free Amendment," dom of Speech and the First Texas Tech Law Review, 21 (1990): 1941, 1945f. Mind" 10. See Robert L. Stone, ed., Essays on "The Closing of the American (Chicago: Chi cago Review Press, 1989), pp. 186, 280. See also John Paul II, Fides et Ratio, September 14, 1998,

admiration." p. 69: "the sciences, the extraordinary advances of which in recent times stir such 11. Bacon, Novum Organum, I, 63. Even so conservative a modern as Edmund Burke, Leo him' Strauss observed, "regards Aristotle's natural philosophy as 'unworthy of whereas [Burke]

rational.'" considers Epicurean physics to be 'the most approaching to Natural Right and (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), p. 31 1. (Epicurean physics made much of atoms and in spirit approach materialism, anticipating the of modern science.) Is there not something Baconian as well in the observation? following "[T]here may be a complete structural similarity between a scientific and a pure deductive system; a person opening the pages of a systematic treatise in the Physics' 'Mathematics and section of a bookshop will not be able to tell, from a glance at the

mathematics." sequence of formulae, whether the treatise is about physics or is about pure Richard Book Reviews 283

B. Braithwaite, Scientific Explanation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), pp. 350-51. Alexander Friedmann liked to joke that bad mathematicians become physicists and bad physicists become meteorologists. See Timothy Ferris, The Whole Shebang (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), p. 42. 12. See, on the University of Chicago weekly physics colloquium, Anastaplo, "Thursday After noons," in Kameshwar C. Wali, ed., S. Chandrasekhar: The Man Behind the Legend (London: Imperial College Press, 1997), p. 122. A University of Chicago Nobel Laureate in physics observed about a problem in particle physics that he was working on, "Aristotle can't solve this problem. it." You're going to have to measure University of Chicago Magazine, April 1993, p. 29. See, on what a vacuum is and is not taken to mean these days, Anastaplo, "The O. J. Simpson Revisited," Case Loyola University of Chicago Law Journal 28 (1997): 461, 467 n. 14. We can be "zero." reminded, by vacuum discussions, of how difficult if not impossible it can be to measure See, on Heidegger and being, Anastaplo, The American Moralist, pp. 157f. See also Anastaplo, "On Beginnings," The Great Ideas Today (1998): 138. distance," 13. See, on "spooky action at a Ferris, The Whole Shebang, pp. 277, 347 n. 44; Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen, "Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Complete?" Physical Reality Be Considered Physical Review 47 (1935): 777, 780. See also Aris "Physics,1' totle's pp. 11-12, 16, 46-48, 56-58, 70-72, 78-79, 93, 105, 144, 186, 227f. Other

stuff." eminent scientists can speak of "weird See, e.g., Chicago Tribune, December 22, 1997, sec. 1, p. 19. Aristotle, so far as I know, had no more than an inkling (if that) of the minute things, investigated by contemporary physicists, which have proved so interesting and evidently so impor tant. See note 16 below. See, on the speed of particle-effects transmissions, The Whole Shebang, pp. 276f.; Malcolm W. Teleported," Rowne, "Particle's Properties Are Reported New York Times, December 16, 1997, p. B

"Physics," 16. See also Aristotle's p. 12.

"Principia" 14. See Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Newton's for the Common Reader (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), p. 165. See also Anastaplo, Book Review, The Great Ideas Today 1997 (1997): 448f. Laws of nature is a modern term. "[T]he evolution of the universe is determined not

conditions." only by dynamics, but also by the initial Robert G. Sachs, The Physics of Time Rever sal (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), p. 276. See, on "the dynamics (i.e., the actual

systems," nature," dynamics" motion) of p. 3. The "laws of it would seem, purport to describe "the of systems (for example, how things move and what the effects are of those movements).

Thought," 15. See, e.g., Anastaplo, "An Introduction to Confucian The Great Ideas Today Bible," 1984:(1984): 124, 150f. Anastaplo, "Law & Literature and the Oklahoma City University Nature" Law Review vol. 23 (1998). Compare James Carey, "On the Discovery of (St. John's College Lecture, Santa Fe, New Mexico, August 22, 1997). Nature is not to be found either in the Hebrew Bible or in the New Testament Gospels. See, on the nature of nature, Klein, Lectures and Essays, pp. 219f. See, on Aristotle, pp. 171f.

16. See note 13 above. Strange things are also said about Black Holes. See, e.g., the discussion Beginnings," of Stephen Hawking's work in Anastaplo, "On p. 153. See also note 14 above. 17. See, e.g., Kurt Riezler, Physics and Reality: Lectures ofAristotle on Modern Physics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940); Jacob Klein, Greek Mathematical Thought and the Origins of Algebra (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1968); Anastaplo, The Thinker as Artist, pp. 306f., 314 (on Leo Strauss's question about the significance of Galileo and Newton for Plato and Aristotle). Among Aristotle's questions could be some taking account of the that much of what Aristotle noticed and relied upon is tacitly relied upon by us as well, but relied upon more or less haphazardly because it is not properly noticed by us. "imagination" My informant for the Fermi quotation was Robert G. Sachs of the University of Chicago Physics Department. Even so, the Fermi name can be linked with something that can be

rule." called a "golden See Sachs, The Physics of Time Reversal, pp. lOOf. See, on the need to hold Time," in check the imagination with respect to the "Arrow of pp. 30, 264f. See, on how apparently

examples" "contrived can have apparatus constructed to demonstrate the behavior described, p. 29 n.9 (noticing the work of Clyde A. Hutchinson, Jr.). Compare p. 190 n.2. An insistence upon the 284 Interpretation

information" "need [for] much more experimental can be the last word of a conscientious physicist. See p. 277.

"imagination" As to Mr. Fermi's remark: He had observed young physicists to be overly prone to invent new particles whenever they encountered problems, instead of thinking more about, and thereby using, what they already knew. See, on how a United States Supreme Court justice might ingenuity" use "imagination and in trying to defend the indefensible, Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186,

rabbits." 266, 286, 330f. (1962). Such an exercise can be properly disparaged as "chasing "ultron" See, for my speculations, Anastaplo, The Artist as Thinker: From Shakespeare to Joyce (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1983), pp. 252-53. See also Anastaplo, The Thinker as Artist, pp. Lectures," 306-7, 314; Ariastaplo, "Lessons for the Student of Law: The Oklahoma Oklahoma City "Samplings," University Law Review 20 (1995): 19, 157-58; Anastaplo, Political Science Reviewer 27 (1998): 345, 426 (www.cygneis.com/anastaplo).

"hard-boiled" See, for the Strauss remarks, Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity, p. 342. See also Kenneth L. Deutsch and John A. Murley, eds., Leo Strauss and the American Regime, forthcoming from Rowman & Littlefield. See, on resisting "the temptation to accept the imaginative

true" and alluring as (even as one remains open to apparent absurdities), p. 285. See for a reminder Not," of salutary restraints upon modem physicists, Hellmut Fritzsche, "On Things That Are in John A. Murley, Robert L. Stone, and William T. Braithwaite, eds., Law and Philosophy: The Practice of Theory (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1992), p. 3. Also salutary, of course, would be a proper appreciation among physicists today of the lessons that Joe Sachs could help them learn from Aristotle, and not only from the Physics.