Algra; Aristotle and the Aristotelian Tradition.pdf

Book Notes

Aristotle and the Aristotelian Tradition

KEIMPE ALGRA

This will be my last set of booknotes on ‘Aristotle’: I am handing over

this task to Ben Morison. Four of the books which I kept for this occa-

sion concern aspects of the Aristotelian tradition (ancient, medieval and

modern) rather than Aristotle himself, and I shall start with these. Robert

Todd’s annotated translation of Themistius’ commentary on, or rather

interpretative paraphrase of, Aristotle’s Physics IV, published in Richard

Sorabji’s series ‘The Ancient Commentators on Aristotle’, is dedicated to

the memory of Henry Blumenthal, to whose careful scholarship on the

Aristotelian commentators we owe so much. 1 T.’s translation appears to

be clear and reliable and his explanatory notes are brief (in accordance

with the general format of the series) but generally adequate. In his intro-

duction he characterizes Themistius’ paraphrases as targeted at readers

who wished to revisit Aristotelian treatises with which they were already

familiar, and as pitched at a level somewhere between strictly elementary

expositions on the one hand and more expansive commentaries of the kind

written by Alexander of Aphrodisias on the other. In a separate preface

Sorabji more or less qualiﬁes Blumenthal’s characterization of Themistius

as a (or in fact: the last) ‘Peripatetic commentator’, by noting that there

are some occasions where Themistius does side with contemporary

Neoplatonism, as in his commentary on the DA where he rejects Aris-

totle’s empiricist account of concept formation. True though this may

be, such occasions are few and far between. In general Themistius stays

pretty close to Aristotle, although he sometimes includes digressions offer-

ing material that does not correspond with anything in Aristotle’s text. In

the commentary on Physics IV we ﬁnd two examples of this procedure,

both directed against Galen’s attacks on Aristotle. One (149, 4-19) con-

1 Themistius On Aristotle’s Physics 4, translated by Robert B. Todd (series The

Ancient Commentators on Aristotle), Ithaca NY (Cornell University Press) 2003; x +

150 pp.; ISBN 0 8014 4103 X; $ 62.50.

Phronesis L/3

Also available online – www.brill.nl

BOOK NOTES

251

cerns the alleged circularity of Aristotle’s attempt to deﬁne time. The other

(114, 7-12) discusses a thought experiment adduced by Galen to prove the

existence of a self-subsistent three-dimensional space. Imagine a vessel

with its contents removed and no other body ﬂowing in. What are we to

suppose will be left between its extremities? According to Themistius,

Galen is begging the question by just assuming the existence of the void

space which he is supposed to prove. In his Corollary on Place (576, 12 ff.)

Philoponus will later claim that Galen is not assuming any such thing, but

that he is just exploring the consequences of the assumption that no other

body ﬂows in. Themistius himself, by the way, brings in his own presup-

positions: ‘eliminating the mutual replacement of bodies is no different

from completely eliminating body’. In other words, he claims that Galen’s

thought experiment ignores a fundamental principle of physics, viz. the

theory of antiperistasis. As Todd suggests in his notes ad loc., there is a

strong possibility that these anti-Galenic passages go back to Alexander

of Aphrodisias, who is known to have attacked Galen’s views on place

and time. So even here (pace Sorabji’s introduction, p. vii) ‘originality’

need not be the correct term. But of course in the history of ideas lack of

originality does not entail insigniﬁcance, and instead of desperately look-

ing for traces of originality we may simply value Themistius’ commen-

tary on the Physics for what it is: a clear and intelligent survey which

constituted an important link in the transmission of Aristotle’s ideas. It is

good to have this part of it available in translation.

As for the signiﬁcance of Themistius in general, his paraphrases enjoyed

great popularity among the Aristotelian commentators of late antiquity and,

in Latin translations, in the Aristotelian tradition in the later Middle Ages and

the early modern period. His commentary on the De Anima, for example,

played an important role in the late medieval debate on the immortality of

the individual intellect. In the 15th century Nicoletto Vernia’s Padovan lec-

tures on Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics made constant reference to Themistius,

and claimed that no one could be found who was more learned: ‘proinde ado-

rate verba Themistii’. I owe this reference to Edward Mahoney’s contribution

(‘Aristotle and Some Late Medieval and Renaissance Philosophers’) to the

volume The Impact of Aristotelianism on Modern Philosophy, edited by Ric-

cardo Pozzo. 2 The book presents the papers of a 1999 conference on the

Rezeptionsgeschichte of Aristotle’s conception of the intellectual virtues, but

only some of the articles actually address this theme. One of these is Stanley

2 R. Pozzo (ed.), The Impact of Aristotelianism on Modern Philosophy (Studies in

Philosophy and the History of Philosophy, vol. 39), Washington D.C. (The Catholic

University of America Press) 2003; xvi

336 pp.; ISBN 0 8132 1347 9; £50.50.

252

BOOK NOTES

Rosen’s ‘Phronesis or Ontology: Aristotle and Heidegger’, which focuses on

Heidegger’s 1924/5 Marburg lectures on Plato’s Sophistes and on how they

misinterpret or adapt (the difference is not always clear in Heidegger)

Aristotle’s conception of phronêsis by taking it as ‘der Ernst der bestimmten

Entscheidung’ and as the silent call of Gewissen (consciousness). Heidegger

shifts the focus of application of phronêsis from the practical to the ontolog-

ical level and by doing so rather blurs the Aristotelian distinction between

theory and practice, while actually ‘transforming both into poetry’ (thus

Rosen, on p. 258). And of course this ontology derives all signiﬁcance of

human life from its ﬁnitude, and the terror of its obliteration (Angst vom

Tode), to which man may respond by deciding to act ‘authentically’. It is here,

in fact, that phronêsis comes in – an odd appearance, if one takes into con-

sideration that Aristotle instead emphasizes the possibility of leading a supra-

human life and that for him eudaimônia rather than Angst is the central theme.

In fact the general incompatibility between the two theories makes one won-

der why Heidegger insisted on building on Aristotle in the ﬁrst place. And

what, in the end, is the net result? Rosen, for one, concludes that when com-

pared to Aristotle’s conception of phronêsis with its orientation towards

everyday life, ‘Heidegger’s existential ontology, however brilliant, and per-

haps because of its very brilliance, can bring nothing to human affairs but

blindness’ (p. 265). I am not quite sure I understand what this means, but I

have no doubt it is right. Hans-Georg Gadamer happens to have been among

those who attended Heidegger’s lectures on the Sophist, but, as Enrico Berti

shows in his essay ‘The Reception of Aristotle’s Intellectual Virtues in

Gadamer and the Hermeneutic Philosophy’, Gadamer’s Wahrheit und

Methode as well as his 1998 commentary on NE VI remained much more

faithful to Aristotle’s text and intentions, though Gadamer appears to have

over-emphasized the practical element in Aristotle’s ethics, while playing

down the role of theôria.

With Michael Davis’ ‘defense’ of Aristotle against Nietzsche on tragedy

(‘Tragedy in the Philosophic Age of the Greeks: Aristotle’s Reply to

Nietzsche’) we move away from the main topic. Nietzsche’s critique, as is

well known, centered on Aristotle’s rationalizing and cognitivist approach to

tragedy. The upshot of D.’s defense seems to be that the Poetics is not just

about poiêsis in the sense of ‘making poetry’, but also directly about human

behaviour (p. 216: ‘poiêsis understood as action’) a curious claim which to

my mind gets insufﬁcient support from the juxtaposition of Doric dran and

Attic prattein and poiein in Poet. 1048b1-2. D. concludes, if I understand him

correctly, that the Poetics, in so far as it is about action, shows us how the

action on stage (even when irrational) can ﬁgure as somehow exemplary, so

that in this respect ‘Nietzsche does seem to have erred in underestimating

Aristotle’s grasp of the intimacy of the relation between the rational and the

irrational’ (p. 226). I am not sure whether this interpretation succesfully res-

BOOK NOTES

253

cues Aristotle from Nietzsche’s critique; though it provides some room for the

irrational, it still appears to do this in some sort of moralizing context. But

perhaps I missed something, as in fact did the editor, who in his Introduction

(p. xiv) claims that D. ‘points out that Nietzsche is right [my italics] in min-

imizing Aristotle’s grasp of the intimacy of the relation between the rational

and the irrational’ – the exact opposite of what the above quotation seems to say.

I single out three further contributions all of them broadening their scope

beyond the issue of the intellectual virtues, but all of them well worth read-

ing. Mahoney’s article ‘Aristotle and Some Late Medieval and Renaissance

Philosophers’, already referred to above, offers a selective but informative

overview of the reception of Aristotle and his ancient commentators in

medieval and renaissance philosophy, of course without breaking much new

ground for those acquainted with the author’s own earlier work and with

Charles B. Schmitt’s classic study Aristotle in the Renaissance. Also the solid

contributions of Antonino Poppi (on ‘Zabarella or Aristotelianism as a

Rigorous Science’) and William A. Wallace (‘The Inﬂuence of Galileo’s

Logic and Its Use in His Science’) basically take up and summarize earlier

work by the same authors. They demonstrate a common ground between

Zabarella and Galileo in their use of the Aristotelian regressus i.e. the com-

bination of analysis (starting from the effects, ‘better known to us’, arriving

at a mere approximate or hypothetical discovery of principles and supplying

knowledge quia) and synthesis (moving from principles to the effects deriv-

ing from those principles, and supplying knowledge propter quid). Between

the two stages there is a reﬂective pause which should allow one to deter-

mine that the cause found is really the one that is true and necessarily bound

to the effect. This is what Zabarella calls a mentale ipsius causae examen. I

would maintain that in Aristotle’s own works this role is being played by

dialectical scrutiny. Zabarella rather seems to have thought of something like

mathematical analysis. Galileo, who remains committed to the overall frame-

work of the Aristotelian regressus, introduces a crucial innovation in linking

the examen of this intermediate stage to attestation by the senses and to exper-

iment (periculum). It is clear, however, that both Zabarella and Galileo

thought of the doctrine of the Posterior Analytics, on which the conception

of regressus was based, as offering essentially a methodus for scientiﬁc inves-

tigations (on which more below). 3

3 Other contributions: John P. Doyle, ‘Wrestling with a Wraith: André Semery, S. J.

(1630-1717) on Aristotle’s Goat-Stag and Knowing the Unknowable’; Christia Mercer,

‘Leibniz, Aristotle and Ethical Knowledge’; Richard L. Velkley, ‘Speech, Imagination,

Origins: Rousseau and the Political Animal’; Riccardo Pozzo, ‘Kant on the Five

Intellectual Virtues’; Alfredo Ferrarin, ‘Hegel’s Appropriation of the Aristotelian Intellect’;

Richard Cobb-Stevens, ‘The Presence of Aristotelian Nous in Husserl’s Philosophy’.

254

BOOK NOTES

A similar volume, which appeared a few years earlier, edited by Bob Sharples,

is Whose Aristotle? Whose Aristotelianism? 4 It features, among other contri-

butions, ﬁne essays by M. W. F. Stone on ‘The Debate on the Soul in the

Second Half of the Thirteenth Century’ (which in passing has valuable things

to say about the origin and limitations of the notion of ‘Aristotelianism’), by

Jonathan Barnes on ‘Locke and the Syllogism’, and by Enrico Berti on Brentano’s

inﬂuential interpretations of Aristotle’s metaphysics and theology (‘Brentano

and Aristotle’s Metaphysics’). Monique Dixsaut (‘Is There Such a Thing as

Nietzsche’s Aristotle?’) offers a clear and systematic survey of Nietszche’s

reaction(s) to Aristotle’s Poetics, including his views on katharsis, the role of

the chorus and the importance of dramatic performance, and his negative view

of Aristotelian ethics as the ethics of ‘Aristotle and everyone’. 5

My next book could in principle have been covered in the book notes on

Neoplatonism as well, but may be better at home here. For many centuries

Porphyry’s Introduction (Eisagôgê) played a key role in the philosophical cur-

riculum, although nowadays it is no longer among the favourites of students

of ancient philosophy. We are fortunate to have a translation – the ﬁrst one

to be published in English – with introduction and extensive commentary (288

pages on 19 pages of translated text) by Jonathan Barnes, published in the

Clarendon Later Ancient Philosophers series. 6 As is well known, this little

treatise discusses ﬁve items (genus, species, difference, property, accident)

which later became known as the praedicabilia or the pente phônai or quinque

voces, i.e. ‘the ﬁve words’ (on the history of these terms, see further L. M.

De Rijk, Aristotle. Semantics and Ontology, vol. 1, Leiden/Boston/Köln 2002,

491-498). According to Porphyry’s preface, knowing what these items are is

necessary ‘even for a schooling in Aristotle’s predications [. . .] and also for

the presentation of deﬁnitions, and generally for matters concerning division

and proof’. B. is probably right in characterizing this text as an introduction

to logic, and hence to philosophy in general, rather than as just an introduc-

tion to the Categories (the view of many earlier commentators, such as

Ammonius; note, however, that not too much is at stake here, since the Cat.

was itself generally regarded as an introduction to philosophy). The Platonist

Porphyry claims that he has taken his material from ‘the old masters – and espe-

181 pp.; ISBN 0 7546 1362 3; £ 35.00.

5 Other contributions: Helen S. Lang, ‘Philoponus’ Aristotle: The Extension of

Place’; Ahmed Hasnawi, ‘Topics and Analysis: the Arabic Tradition’; William

Charlton, ‘Aquinas on Aristotle on Immortality’; there are also responses by François

de Gandt to the contributions of Jonathan Barnes and Monique Dixsaut.

6 Porphyry’s Introduction, edited by Jonathan Barnes, Oxford (Clarendon Press) 2003;

xxvi + 415 pp.; ISBN 0 19 9246149; £ 50.00.

4 R. W. Sharples (ed.), Whose Aristotle? Whose Aristotelianism?, Aldershot

(Ashgate) 2001; ix

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