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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.
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2005
Phronesis L/3
Also available online –
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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