Gerson, 'Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy. Volume XII', Bryn Mawr Classical Review 9506
URL = http://hegel.lib.ncsu.edu/stacks/serials/bmcr/bmcr-9506-gerson-oxford
@@@@95.6.15, Taylor, ed., Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy
C.C.W. Taylor (ed.), Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy.
Volume XII. 1994. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Pp. 269.
$55.00. ISBN 0-19-823527-5.
Reviewed by Lloyd P. Gerson, Philosophy --
St. Michael's College, University of Toronto
gerson@epas.utoronto.ca
The most recent volume in this distinguished series of
studies in ancient philosophy contains eight new essays ranging
over material from the Pre-Socratics to the late Neoplatonists as
well as three reviews of new and important books. I begin with a
brief synopsis of the contents of each of the articles.
Lesher in "The Emergence of Philosophical Interest in
Cognition" challenges some standard interpretations of
Pre-Socratic accounts of cognition. He argues that between Homer
and Plato there is very little evidence to support the contention
that there occurred an evolution or development in the meaning of
the key terms for cognition. He seeks to show both that the
non-philosophical uses of cognitive vocabulary are more
sophisticated than is often supposed and that the Pre-Socratic
philosophers, especially Xenophanes, Heracleitus, and Parmenides,
drew upon distinctions that were rooted in an already long
tradition. This essay includes a wealth of textual support as
well as some subtle analysis of the import of some well-known
philosophical texts.
Patricia Clarke in "The Interweaving of the Forms with one
Another: Sophist 259e" addresses the problem in an
intensely studied and pivotal text in Plato. The questions here
are how Plato supposed Forms to be related to each other and how
an interweaving of Forms is supposed to explain a statement like
"Theaetetus sits". Against Ackrill, Peck, Moravcsik and others,
Clarke argues that the interweaving of Forms refers to their
coinstantiation in some sensible entity. Thus, "Theaetetus is
sitting" depends upon Theaetetus partaking of a Form of Sitting
as well as such other Forms that are simultaneously present in
him. At least one of these Forms would be the Form of Man. The
bulk of the essay is taken up with detailing the problems with
alternative interpretations and showing how Clarke's own solves
various philosophical problems in the text including that of how
Plato's is supposed to understand the difference between a true
statement and one that is merely intelligible.
Daniel T. Devereux in "Separation and Immanence in Plato's
theory of Forms" argues that Plato's separation of Forms, as
indicated in the middle dialogues and testified to by Aristotle,
means the ontological independence of all Forms from the sensible
world. He argues further that Forms and "immanent characters"
are distinct types of entities. The primary target of the
critical aspect of Devereux's paper is a recent interpretation of
Gail Fine rejecting unequivocal separation of Forms. Devereux
takes the first part of the Parmenides as indicating
Plato's commitment to separation.
Paul Thom in "Interpreting Aristotle's
Contingency-Syllogistic" revives the interpretation of Alexander
of Aphrodisias of Prior Analytics 1.14-22 over against
modern interpretations of A. Becker and J. Hintikka where the
theory of contingency-syllogisms is developed. The issue here is
an ambiguity, noticed by Aristotle himself, between saying that
for everything that is B, A is contingent (unampliated sense) and
saying that for everything that could be B, A is
contingent (ampliated sense). According to the interpretation of
Alexander, defended by Thom, chapters 14-22 of book one of the
Prior Analytics actually work out two systems of
contingency syllogisms according to whether there are ampliated
or unampliated predications.
Roger Crisp in "Aristotle's Inclusivism" takes up an issue
that has been at the forefront of work on Aristotle's ethics for
the last generation, namely, whether Aristotle's conception of
happiness is "inclusive" or "exclusive". That is, does Aristotle
identify happiness with one activity, contemplation, or with all
the activities that can be shown to be intrinsically desirable by
the good person. Systmeatically surveying the evidence in books
1 and 10 of the Nicomachean Ethics, Crisp argues for what
he terms "aretic inclusivism," the view that happiness for
Aristotle is not improvable by the addition of other goods
(hence, the inclusivism) but that it is dominated by a supreme
activity. As Crisp puts it, the happiness of a good person can
be improved by only one thing, more happiness.
Richard Bett in "Aristocles on Timon on Pyrrho: The Text,
it's Logic, and it's Credibility" focuses in minute detail on the
central text extant for an understanding of the basic position of
the putative founder of Skepticism, Pyrrho of Elis. This text,
preserved in Eusebius' Preparatio Evangelica, purports to
be from an account of Pyrrho's philosophy by his pupil and
biographer, Timon of Phlius. It is a puzzling text in many
respects. Bett argues that the first of Pyrrho's three famous
questions "what is the nature of things" is to be understood as a
question expecting an ontological rather than an epistemological
answer. Pyrrho is most likely to have held, according to Bett,
that things are indeterminate in their nature, and therefore we
are unable to have true (or false) beliefs about them. As Bett
argues, if this is correct, then later so-called "Pyrrhonian
Skepticism" from Aenesidemus to Sextus Empiricus diverges rather
sharply from the basic inspiration of the founding father.
Kimon Lycos in "Olympiodorus on Pleasure and the Good in
Plato's Gorgias" explores the relatively unfamiliar
terrain of late Neoplatonic interpretations of Plato. He
displays both the general style of these interpretations and
attempts to show the illumination possible when one looks at
Platonic texts from the very different perspective of the 6th
century A.D. He argues that, for Olympiodorus and for the
Neoplatonists generally, the issue in the argument Socrates has
with Callicles is what Plato is telling us through Callicles,
that is, where his view of virtue is to be located on a scale of
virtues ranging from the lowest to the highest. Lycos contrasts
the approach of modern interpreters who focus on particular
arguments to determine their strength and weaknesses from that of
Olympiodorus who is most concerned with the overall aim of the
dialogue and how the arguments fit in to that aim. Thus, the
arguments cannot be understood apart from their purpose.
Robert Heinamann in "Kosman on Activity and Change" attacks
the thesis of the well-known paper of L.A. Kosman in which it is
argued that the potentiality actualized in change is destroyed or
"consumed" at the end of the change. The issue here is to
understood the difference between change and activity as well as
the change that is involved in activities. There is the further
issue of how the actualization that occurs in a change is related
to an activity. Heinamann discusses the relevant texts from the
Physics, showing that on Kosman's interpretation Aristotle
is faced with a number of insurmountable difficulties, especially
regarding entities that have at the same time potentialities for
opposites. The central point of Heinamann's own interpretation
is that potentialities that differ in being can nevertheless be
one in number. Thus, it can be said without contradiction that
the potentiality to be healthy is the same as the potentiality to
be ill and also that to be potentially healthy and to be
potentially ill are different.
Completing the volume are three substantial
discussion-reviews of recent books in ancient philosophy.
Mary Margaret McCabe reviews The Cambridge Companion to
Plato edited by Richard Kraut. Charles Young examines two
recent works on computer assisted dating of Plato's dialogues
Gerald R. Ledger's Re-counting Plato: A Computer Analysis of
Plato's Style and Leonard Brandwood's The Chronology of
Plato's Dialogues. Finally, Daniel Frank discusses Miriam
Galston's Politics and Excellence: The Political Philosophy of
Alfarabi. The last piece may seem to fit oddly in this
volume but as Frank explains, Alfarabi was an important expositor
and continuator of both Platonic and Aristotelian themes. I
think Young's essay deserves special mention as an exceptionally
acute and clear criticism of the problems faced by the use of
stylistic criteria in general in dating the dialogues of Plato.
The use of the computer in this regard has not substantially
altered the issue.
In sum, a rich variety of fare. It is unlikely that anyone
in ancient philosophy will not profit from at least some of the
essays here. The articles by Bett and Lycos are perhaps the most
original and thought-provoking, those by Devereux and Crisp the
most thoroughly and persuasively argued. It is difficult,
though, to believe that many individuals will not be deterred by
the steep hardcover price of this ecletic volume. Why is this
series not published in paper?