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Interpretation: a Journal of Political Philosophy Interpretation A JOURNAL J_OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 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 Aristotle's "Physics": A Guided Study, by Joe Sachs 285 Michael P. Zuckert Shakespeare and the Good Life, by David Lowenthal 295 Joan Stambaugh Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil, by Rudiger Safranski 299 Patrick Coby Hypocrisy and Integrity: Machiavelli, Rousseau and the Ethics of Politics, by Ruth Grant 305 Susan Orr Leo Strauss 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 Chicago 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 Latin 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 University 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 science 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 sciences, 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 University of Chicago. 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 nature, 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.
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