Mostly Aristotle

Mostly Aristotle BOB SHARPLES Michael FredeÕs Introduction to Rationality in Greek Thought ,1 the proceedings, edited by himself and Gisela Striker, of a conference in Berlin in honour of GŸnther Patzig, is required reading for everyone with an interest in ancient philosophy. F. examines how the ancient Greek approach to reason di ffered from ours, and ends by showing that the major changes – the loss of the idea that reason has its own desires, and the treatment of reason as a faculty present at birth rather than as the result of a development during life – can be traced to Christian belief about the creation of the soul. The second of these themes is taken up by F. later in the volume with speci c reference to Aristotle, for whom, he argues, knowledge is based on experience only causally and not epistemically (172-3). Richard Sorabji closes the volume with a history of the dividing line between rational and irrational in antiquity, referring especially to animals. The individual contributions link to the central theme in many di fferent ways; without exception they take issues of fundamental importance and discuss them in a way that all future interpreters will need to take into account. Dorothea Frede relates Timaeus 37bc to the Philebus, as a key to understanding the theory of Forms and their complexity; David Furley interprets Aristotelian teleology in the context of the organisation of the cosmos; Jacques Brunschwig separates Aristotelian equity from universal law; and John Cooper argues for a correlation in Aristotle of the three goals of bene cial, kalon and pleasant respectively with boul¶sis, thumos and epithumia, so that thumos becomes central to ethical virtue, com- menting that Aristotle from his perspective perhaps took for granted an idea that seems strange to us (114). Cooper also shows – again with reference to the Philebus – how kalon functions in the Ethics as an aesthetic standard (105-9). Jonathan Barnes shows that Aristotelian syllogistic su ffers not from a failure to follow Plato in anticipating Frege, but from an inability to deal with multiple quanti cation and multi-placed verbs. Gisela Striker clari es the roles of perfec- tion and reduction in the Prior Analytics , and traces the signi cance for the history of logic of arguments about the latter in late antiquity. Malcolm Scho eld shows that Epicurean epilogismos is best understood as Òcomparative appraisalÓ and suggests that, in challenging Òreceived philosophical wisdom,Ó Epicurus may have been Òin his own fashion the Wittgenstein of ancient philosophyÓ (236). Julia 1 Michael Frede and Gisela Striker, eds., Rationality in Greek Thought . Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996. pp. x + 353. £40.00. ISBN 0-19-824044-9. ©Koninklijke Brill, Leiden, 1997 Phronesis XLII/2 BOOK NOTES 237 Annas asks why scepticism about moral values concerned the ancients more than it did Hume, and suggests that it depends whether one believes that moral beliefs follow motivations or the other way round (251-3); Geo ffrey Lloyd shows how unsuitable were GalenÕs attempts to adopt a mathematical model of demonstra- tion; and Mario Mignucci uses possible-world theory to arrive at a logical for- mulation of the theory of inde nite truth and falsity in AmmoniusÕ and BoethiusÕ answer to the Sea-Battle. Geoffrey LloydÕs Aristotelian Explorations 2 examine the relation between theory and actual practice in a range of AristotleÕs enquiries; the emphasis is on biology, but there are also studies of general scienti c method, of astronomy, of nature in the Politics and of metaphor in the Rhetoric. L. stresses the limited scope of AristotleÕs engagement with the details of the astronomy of his own day. Comparison with Chinese thought highlights the restrictive e ffects of the Greek concept of nature, both with regard to astronomical phenomena (164-5) and in the context of spontaneous animal generation (ch. 5). Such comparison is the central theme of another book by L., 3 which highlights the influence of debate on the Greek concern with demonstrative proof, and the central place of legal and judi- cial notions in Greek notions of cause and explanation. An important book both for comparative studies and for the understanding of ancient Greek science, with contributions especially on medicine, mathematics and astronomy. In a monograph on the Topics by Oliver Primavesi 4 discussion of dialectical reasoning and its function is followed by formalisation and classi cation of the topoi of book 2 and detailed commentary on each of them. There is one respect in which – if I have not misunderstood – P.Õs symbolism may not be su f ciently re ned. At 113b27 Aristotle considers the implications of contraries following (hepesthai, akolouthein ) one another; iff A ÒfollowsÓ B, then (either the contrary of A follows that of B or vice versa). P. includes this topos, and the following one on states and privations, under those whose schemas he formulates with ÒYÓ = huparkhein (107-8), and he asserts that hepesthai is the equivalent of huparkhein (225). However, ÒYÓ = huparkhein applies also to accidents (P. 93, 95), and an accident is what can also not belong (102b4 ff.) Yet it is hardly the case that, because sitting happens to belong to the musical, its contrary, standing, must apply to the non-musical (and cf. 113a33 ff., which P. formalises not with ÒYÓ but with Òendekhetai YÓ; 111). A distinction between hepesthai and the broadest sense of huparkhein seems to be needed. 2 G.E.R. Lloyd, Aristotelian Explorations . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. pp. ix + 242. £35/$49.95. ISBN 0-521-55422-5. 3 G.E.R. Lloyd, Adversaries and Authorities: Investigations into ancient Greek and Chinese Science . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. pp. xvii + 250. £40/$54.95 hb; £14.95/$19.95 pb. ISBN 0-521-55331-8 hb; 0-521-55695-3 pb. 4 Oliver Primavesi, Die Aristotelische Topik . Munich: C.H. Beck, 1996. pp. 293. DM 98. ISBN 3-406-40686-6..

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