Aristote et Les Problèmes de Méthode

Philosophical Review

Aristote et Les Problèmes de Méthode.Review by: John Herman Randall, Jr.The Philosophical Review, Vol. 74, No. 2 (Apr., 1965), pp. 244-251Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2183269 .

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BOOK REVIEWS

disinterested motives behind moral action, while discounting the possibility of an appeal to reasons necessarily valid for any man. This is one of the best parts of the book, which throughout raises extremely interesting questions and avoids most of the old tedious controversies. The approach is valuable and useful observations abound.

PHILIPPA FOOT

Somerville College, Oxford

ARISTOTE ET LES PROBLPMES DE M?THODE. Papers presented at the Symposium Aristotelicum, Louvain, i960. Louvain and Paris, Editions Nauwelaerts, i96i. Pp. vii, 362. 350 FB.

This volume is the result of the second Symposium Aristotelicum; the first was held at Oxford in August, I957. The group was limited to thirty invited members; the sixteen papers printed were presented in the mornings, with the afternoons devoted to reports on specific Aristotelian projects. The scholars were drawn from Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States (with three representatives; Solmsen gave no paper).

The theme of the papers is Aristotle's method and procedure which, as Pierre Aubenque of Besanqon points out at the start, "a fort peu a voir avec une logique de type syllogistique." This opposition was first noted by Hegel and has been underlined by Ross; there is no mention of the pioneer work of Rudolf Eucken, Die Methode der aristotelischen Forschung (i872). The papers fall into five groups: general, method in metaphysics, method in natural philosophy, method in ethics, and a concluding piece on the school of Aristotle by F. Wehrli of Zurich.

The papers are all well written and clearly developed. They fall into two groups: the more general treatments, which are apt to be rather conventional, and the more specialized topics, which are worked out with close attention to the text. All are informative; perhaps the most original and suggestive are the one on the double notion of "experience" by G. E. L. Owen of Corpus Christi, the analysis of the "linguistic phenomenology" of the Ethics by Fr. J. Donald Monan of LeMoyne College, Syracuse, and above all the brilliant analysis of metaphysical method by Mlle. C. J. de Vogel of Utrecht, easily the gem of the collection.

Owen and Monan are struck by Aristotle's use of linguistic analysis; in contrast, Joseph Moreau of Bordeaux notes how close Aristotle is

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to Heidegger. His paper, on "Aristote et la ve'ritei antipridicative," is the only case in which present-day categories are forced on the text. He notes how for Aristotle truth is not in things but E'V 8tavota: the truth of judgment "presuppose une verite' anterieure, la ve'rite' de la perception sensible." Hence perception is essentially "une revelation de la chose"; such truth is prior to predication, and is founded on "l'intentionalite' de la pensee, dans l'ouverture de la conscience a' 1'etre," as Heidegger holds. Aristotle's originality consists in not making sense a TaarXetv, but an EVEpyEta (4I 7b 6-7). But such truth is only phenomenological; it needs demonstration to become certain science. And demonstration is founded on the vois' that grasps the truth of dpXa. Thus "ily a dans l'intuition intellectuelle comme dans l'intuition sensible une verite' ante- predicative." This truth is found "dans l'intentionalite' constitutive de la conscience, dans son ouverture a' l'etre"; this is why all the sciences are founded on the science of being as being, to which alone it belongs to demonstrate what is the object of each, and that it is: "d'en fonder l'essence et d'en prouver l'existence" (1025b 7-I8). Aristotle's "empiri- cism" would be impossible if it were not founded on "l'intuition de l'essence." Aristotle is thus in the tradition of "Platonic idealism."

Mlle. de Vogel is not an existentialist, but she is a careful scholar. By a close exegesis of Metaphysics A I and 2, she effectively demolishes this view of Moreau's, which she criticizes as found in Fr. Joseph Owens. What are the 7rpC&0a which "explain all else"? They are, says Aristotle himself, the oviot'at as the "forms" of natural things, as Alexander of Aphrodisias understands, as defined in Metaphysics Z io4ib 4-9. These are the objects of the "wisdom" of Chapter i. These "forms" of natural things are their oV' EVEKa, "the good of each thing" (982b 4). "Le r-vos' E'VEKEV est l'ayaco'v de chaque chose"; these form-essences are, taken together, "the best in the whole of nature." There is no reference to any superior good, to any Unmoved Mover; Aristotle is talking of the wholly immanent "form" or EAos "of each thing." Fr. Owens has no evidence that these forms depend on anything higher; human action likewise is not dominated by God, but is ,cai-d fctv SLv. The metaphysics of ethics for Aristotle is wholly immanent: man should perform his own proper [pzyov. But in the Metaphysics is there not a dependence on a realm of Xcoptcrza? In Metaphysics A I and 2 the answer is no! "Les oviraat sont 7rpc6o5-a; or, les 7rpcwhra, comme tels, ne dependent d'aucun autre principe."

Mlle. de Vogel cites other texts to support this wholly immanent metaphysics:

(i) Physics i98a 35-b 5: Two JpXat' move fVaLKC7S; both are in

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natural things. Of these, the "form-essences" are not XWpLtuT, but are aKtvp-cXa; hence they are only ambivalently "natural."

(2) Metaphysics B 2, 996a 22-29: Forms do not tend toward any higher Good. Fr. Owens is thus wrong in saying, "tous les e~tres de l'univers tendent au Premier Principe .... Les formes sont effectivement TpZ "ra." They need an efficient cause to realize themselves in matter.

But they are themselves primary, and irreducible to any superior principles.

(3) Metaphysics A 9, g9Ia 8-i9: Plato's transcendent Ideas cause no movement or knowledge; Aristotle's immanent form-essences are genuine "first causes."

(4) Nicomachean Ethics I, 6: Plato's "Idea of the Good" is likewise cause neither of movement nor of knowledge.

Mlle. de Vogel finds in Metaphysics A and in the Physics no "Aristote Platonise' et the'iste." And Metaphysics A is in complete agreement with ZH&, "qui contiennent la doctrine definitive d'Aristote sur la substance et sur l'acte et la puissance." The metaphysical method in A and ZH& is a method of logical analysis, not of speculative synthesis. This is true of the "Metaphysics in ten books" which according to Ross form a continuous work. It is Book A which stands apart. The Unmoved Mover causes motion, and, as Ross holds, nothing else. Even in A it moves not man or nature as their Good, but only the First Heaven. Fr. Owens is following the Arabs, not Aristotle, in taking the Unmoved Mover as a "total and universal cause." "le voudrais defendre EAristote] contre une interpretation platonisante et theiste, telle qu'elle a iteJ donne'e par Alfarabi et par Avicenne, par Ibn Tofail et par Averroes meme. . . . Tous les philosophes Arabes ont conqus le Premier Moteur comme Cause totale et universelle, et par lI ont pas mal contribue' a platoniser la theiologie d'Aristote." The Arabs were following the Platonizing Alexandrians and the Syrians.

Aristotle's First Mover explains motion, but not the existence or essence of natural things. And he knows nothing of them: such knowledge is had by the lowest intelligence. Avicenna is much closer to Aristotle than is Thomas. But Aristotle is not primarily interested in any spiritual "entities." "Ce qu'il y recherche, c'est essentiellement le &Sa Ti des chases naturelles. Or, ce probleme nous mene aux formes-essences dans la nature." They are the object of First Philosophy.

Mlle. de Vogel offers meticulous analysis to refute all attempts to convert Aristotle's metaphysics of logical analysis into a speculative transcendental Platonism-attempts made from the Arabs down to Owens and, in this volume, by both Moreau and Gerard Verbeke of Louvain. The latter, in his "Demarches de la reflexion metaphysique

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chez Aristote," makes much of the progress from what is "better known to us" to what is "better known in itself"; he takes this as a reflective deepening of sensible knowledge and common opinion. "L'intelligible pour nous n'est qu'une premiere intelligibility, une connaissance partielle." The Aristotelian philosophy is "une rejiexion sur les intuitions spontane'es et universellement ripandues afin de les Rlaborer au niveau scientifique." That level Verbeke treats traditionally and conventionally.

Olof Gigon of Berne raises "Methodische Probleme in der Metaphysik des Aristoteles"; his concern is to reconstruct the materials used in our "kaiserzeitliche Edition" of the Metaphysics. He finds two objects set: the KacoAov, which is Socratic, and the acdria, which is Ionian. "Platonisch-sokratische und ionische Tradition stehen unausgeglichen unterein- ander." This, judges Gigon, comes from the Protreptikos. The considera- tion of adirea must come, he thinks, from an earlier 7TEpl arv The historical survey in Metaphysics A 3, in which Aristotle shows a genuine historical interest, presupposes the dialogue 7TEpt' OcAogoolas. The treatment of Plato in A rests on 7TEpt' I5E(v; that of the Pythago- reans points to an earlier work on them. "Das Schriftenverzeichnis und vereinzelte Zitaten lehren uns, dass es aristotelische Monographien fiber ziemlich viele Vorsokratiker gegeben hat." Aristotle may even have used Theo- phrastus' 7TEpt 0V9CK(iV, or at least the materials on which it was based. Gigon is an indefatigable seeker for assumed "sources."

Aubenque contributes a careful study "Sur la notion aristote'licienne d'aporie," in which he distinguishes several kinds, from mistakes to genuine problems never to be solved completely, like 1rl 'r-o 05v

(Io28b 2). Mlle. Suzanne Mansion of Liege offers a meticulous and detailed study of "Le role de l'expose' et de la critique des philosophies ante'rieures chez Aristote"; she judges that Harold Cherniss has treated Aristotle as a historian "avec une se'verite' parfois excessive," and sees in W. K. C. Guthrie "un sens plus mode're' et, nous semble-t-il, plus equitable." She sees Aristotle treating these Sv~oea seriously and reconstructing them. Even Plato's Ideas formulate the problem well; only the solution is inadequate. Aristotle is always engaged in inquiry; he takes earlier theories too literally, perhaps, but always as possible apXac.

The dean of students of the Physics, Augustin Mansion of Louvain, examines "L'origine du syllogisme et la the'orie de la science chez Aristote." Unfortunately he does not mention Ernst Kapp's important study. Starting with the Platonic method of division and search for a definition, Aristotle came to find science the demonstration of proper- ties. Mansion traces this development through the Topics and the Second Analytics, from division through the "dialectical" syllogism to the

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demonstrative, thus distinguishing three stages. In Posterior Analytics II, 3-i0, Aristotle makes clear why he abandoned the search for the demonstration of essences. Even De Anima I, I goes no further. "II n'a jamais troupe' une meithode ge'nerale permettant d'eitablir sur des bases shares la definition. . . . La science portera sur les propriite's a de'duire de fagon ne'cessaire de la definition." Hence Aristotle does not use the syllogism in his scientific works.

In his paper "'-OzEvat ra- 0acvo/1PEva," G. E. L. Owen shows that the "0acvoiEva" from which apXac are derived mean two different things. In the biological works they mean "observed facts"; but in the Physics and in the Nicomachean Ethics they mean bv~oea, "received opinions" (I I45b 8-20). Thus all "dialectic" starts from oacvOLEva in this latter sense. Likewise, Egraycuy-q means "induction" in Posterior Analytics II, i9, but "dialectic" in Topics I, I2, I05a i0-i9. This second meaning holds in the Physics: its method always starts from

bIv~oea, and it deals with conceptual puzzles, mainly taken from the Parmenides; it is primarily the linguistic analysis of concepts. The

bv8oea of ordinary language rest on experience; as Parmenides and Protagoras showed, they generate linguistic puzzles, which need dialectical criticism. Surely Owen's construing of the Physics is very plausible.

The four papers on method in natural philosophy accept Owen's conclusions, Ingemar During's explicitly. Paul Moraux, in his "La mithode d'Aristote dans I'itude du ciel," notes how Aristotle first shows what is necessary, then confirms it by 6i15oea and by facts; he appeals first "a des considerations extra-astronomiques" to establish ro' &to'i-t, and only then turns to ro' o'er. "L'influence du Timee s'y retrouve 2 chaque page... l'esprit en soit tout different de celui qui marquera, plus tard, les recherches du philosophe dans la domaine biologique." Moraux might have added that the De Caelo is not a work of astronomy, but of rational theology: it leaves astronomical questions to "the mathematicians." D. M. Balme of London, in "Aristotle's use of Differentiae in Zoology," shows how Aristotle's theoretical remarks on classification in the Organon and the Metaphysics are disregarded in the biological writings. "Small wonder that no system can be found where none was intended." Aristotle was actually looking for causal differences. In contrast, During of Gothen- burg studies the functionalism of De Partibus Animalium, I. Aristotle's functionalism was theoretical: "He was a desk-work scholar." Biology, like all bVCTKq4, was theoretical for him. "Theoretical speculation remained his chief interest, in the field of biology too. The influence from Plato and the Academy was, after all, stronger than the influence

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from Theophrastus." Heinrich Dorrie of Saarbriicken, in "Gedanken zur Methodik des Aristoteles in der Schrift 7TEpt' OvX s," carefully underlines the method of the OVULKoS. followed throughout, except where the "separated" vois demands that of the First Philosopher. "Er geht von dem aus, worn sich die Seele afissert, und von ihren Afisserungen schliesst er auf ihr Wesen zurfick." ("Afisserungen" is misleading, since Dorrie recognizes that the inquiry is about "das Leben.") The whole work is pursued by the method of natural philosophy; only where vois is concerned, "nur an dieser einen Stelle musste das sonst engeschaltene Schema durchlockert werden." The treatment of the oivy as KLVOVV then proceeds as before, 9$VUCK6s. D6rrie does not solve the problem of the two

contrasted methods: "das ist die Aporie, fur die ich keine Losung weiss." The three papers on the Ethics, in English, will probably interest

American readers most. Next to Mlle. de Vogel's, Fr. Monan's piece on "Two methodological aspects of moral knowledge in the Nicomachean Ethics" is the most illuminating in the volume. He holds an irenic balance between Oxford and the Continent, confessing to "a personal conviction concerning the fundamental unity between some forms of continental phenomenology and contemporary British language analysis." He adopts Austin's term of "linguistic phenomenology" for Aristotle's method in the Ethics, and studies, not the way Aristotle talks about Opo'vMcms, but the way he actually uses the term in his procedure. Aristotle considers two questions: What is man's ultimate Good? And what actions are good? The latter he treats at much greater length and before tackling the former; he makes no appeal to voi-s, but to the everyday use of normative language, which reflects men's moral experience, to a phenomenological study of "experiential value-judgment." Everyday value language uses the categories of "virtue," "the mean," and the "Ka&v." The mean is not merely quantitative; it furnishes an obligation. The ultimate Good is treated in I and X, partly by a dialectical criticism of common opinion, partly by an analysis of man's function, which takes him to human nature. Thus Aristotle starts with a "pre-metaphysical, phenomenological" analysis of moral language, and goes on to psychology, in which Opiortcs is "a knowledge which is intuitively experiential, derived ... from singular conduct situations."

W. Gerson Rabinowitz, critic of Jaeger's reconstruction of the Protreptikos, examines "Ethica Nicomachea, II, I-6, Academic eleaticism and the critical formulation of Aristotle's discussion of moral virtue," and finds there an implicit critique, not of the Megarians, but of Eleaticism in the Academy, that of the "Friends of the Ideas" in the

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Sophist, the opponents of Eudoxus. Aristotle is maintaining that virtue is the product of y&Eatg, yet real; it is a C'Lse, an acquired "second nature." Rabinowitz finds Aristotle starting from the Sophist (247a 5-9, 247c 9-e 4, and 248c 4-9). He is giving "a defense of Eudoxus' concep- tion of virtue as generable," accepting the Eleatic definition of it as

ell a Eetgs

D. J. Allan argues for a "Quasi-mathematical method in the Eudemian Ethics." He finds the difference between the JNicomachean and the Eudemian Ethics in that the former is designed for the 7TOAtTLKO'SK, as part of his general architectonic science, while the latter is written for the man concerned to find the Good Life, independently of statecraft; it rests on the Metaphysics, not on the Politics. Happiness is "the ultimate good achievable by man"; it is "a life of good activity of soul"; it is functional. The excellences of character are directed to "the pursuit or avoidance of pleasures and pains"; the mean is a mean in pleasures and pains, and in the Eudemian Ethics the latter are stated in the definition of moral excellence: pleasure and activity are identified. Allan himself thinks the more systematic analysis of the Eudemian Ethics "the later Aristotle," and the "natural and progres- sive," but less mathematical, argument of the Nicomachean Ethics the earlier.

The volume ends with the account, by Wehrli of Zurich, of "Aristoteles in der Sicht seiner Schule, Platonisches und Vorplatonisches," in which by considering the younger Peripatetics, he finds the two kinds of Aristotelian writing, the exoteric dialogues like the Eudemus and the Protreptikos, and the scientific writings, continued as two different literary genres. His thesis is, "dass die exoterischen Schriften des Aristoteles inhaltlich wie formell anderen Gesetzen folgen als die Pragmatien." Wehrli judges that Rabinowitz's skepticism as to the Protreptikos "geht aber offiensichtlich zu weit." The school continued the theological speculation of Aristotle's dialogues; it did not abandon it, as Theo- phrastus bears witness. Aristotle and his school here continued the pre-Platonic tradition. "Wir werden ja durch nichts dazu gendtigt, die Entstehung des ganzen exoterischen Werkes auf einen einzelnen Lebensabschnitt des Aristoteles zu begrenzen." This may be true of the Platonic doctrine; it does not hold of the "Darstellungsform."

These sixteen studies are nearly all worth careful reflection; three at least give new directions to Aristotelian interpretation. They all furnish a good picture of present-day concerns with Aristotle. And they are refreshingly free from concentration on the problems of Aristotle's "Entwicklungsgeschichte." Jaeger has been assimilated. We can

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now go on to analyze Aristotle's thought, and perhaps even to learn from his philosophy.

JOHN HERMAN RANDALL, JR.

Columbia University

ARISTOTLE'S THEORY OF PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES. By EMMANUEL M. MICHELAKIS. Athens, Cleisiounis Press, i96i. Pp. vii,

"15.

Mr. Michelakis describes Aristotle's account in the Nicomachean Ethics of how a private individual can discover what is To Telos and To Ariston, how he "affirms" this goal, and how he deliberates what ought to be done to achieve it. He compares Aristotle's account of how the lawgiver discovers "the practical principle" (p. 84) and deliberates what laws should be enacted in his city to achieve it.

In outline Michelakis' description runs as follows. Aristotle assigns the process of discovery to Nous en tais praktikais and the subsequent "affirming" and deliberation to Phronesis. In this he deviates from the account in the Eudemian Ethics and De Anima, which are both earlier works. The deliberation is by practical syllogism, the discovery through induction, which Aristotle thinks of as being in syllogistic form. Aristotle makes the method of ethics and politics inexact and empirical. He thereby dissociates it from the method of mathematics and rejects his earlier account in the Protrepticus. In law the empirical method involves genuine scientific research.

On the whole, Michelakis is concerned not to present new inter- pretations, but rather to amplify and give reasons in favor of familiar ones. This is a rather limited task, but Michelakis performs it ably. I should mention two considerable merits of the book. One is the general plan of setting side by side an examination of practical reasoning in the private individual and one of practical reasoning in the lawgiver. Each throws light on the other and prompts one to consider new questions. Secondly, it is useful to have dug out and assembled together such widely scattered material, both views of modern commentators and relevant Aristotle texts with translation.

In this controversial area, it is not surprising if one finds oneself in disagreement on a number of the topics. I will confine myself to two.

Ethics, Politics, and Mathematics: I believe Michelakis exaggerates the extent to which Aristotle dissociates the first two from mathematics. Michelakis seems to think that Aristotle assimilates them to optics, mechanics, harmonics, observational astronomy (pp. io- iI), by

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Aristote et Les Problèmes de Méthode