Aristotle's Doctrine Research Articles

Mourning into Joy: Music, Raphael, and Saint Cecilia

Although Saint Cecilia is venerated throughout the Western world as the patron saint of music and Raphael's famous painting Ecstasy of Saint Cecilia is filled with musical iconography, the ancient origins of Cecilia's association with music have long been shrouded in mystery. This book, a masterful investigation of the Cecilian cult from its beginnings in Christian antiquity down to the Renaissance, explains how Cecilia came to be linked with music and offers a new interpretation of Raphael's painting. Thomas Connolly finds the key to the mystery in a theme he identifies as mourning-into-joy. This theme, rooted in the Bible and in Aristotle's doctrine of the passions of the soul, became prominent in the visual and literary arts as well as in theology and spirituality and expressed the soul's passages between vice and virtue as a conversion of sadness into joy. According to Connolly, this idea strongly influenced the legend and worship of Saint Cecilia, a model for all who sought spiritual transformation. Connolly argues that the medieval mystical mind saw music as an intimate expression of the experiences of conversion and spiritual growth and that the conjunction of spirit and music became crystallized in the figure of the saint. His explanation not only provides a better understanding of Raphael's work and other Renaissance and Baroque art but also clarifies puzzling literary questions concerning Saint Cecilia, such as Chaucer's treatment of her in The Second Nun's Tale.

Sobre el sentido común y la percepción. Algunas sugerencias acerca de la facultad sensitiva central

Standing upon Leonardo Polo's interpretation about Aristotle's doctrine on sensitive cognition, some aspects of the sensorial organical inmutation required in it are examined, and a thesis concerning de common sense as center and root of sensibility –not only exterior, but also interior– is suggested. According to this thesis, even the sensorial and organical inmutations belonging to the other internal senses can return to de organ of the common sense, which becomes the central and radical organ. Therefore all sensible objectivation should take place in the common sense. This conclusion does not agree with Polo's position

La proportionnalité des grandeurs dans la doctrine de la nature d'Aristote

SUMMARY. — I investigate some texts taken principally from Aristotle's Physics, in order to analyze the manner in which mathematics is used in that work. The discussion focuses on the notion of proportionality, for it gave rise to certain modernized interpretations of Aristotle's doctrine. I show that science in Antiquity does not truly succeed in treating speed in itself as a physical "magnitude " and that on the other hand the idea of "force", for other reasons, does not have all of the characteristics of this notion of "magnitude" either. It follows that the modernized interpretations are at least inexact and rash.

Two Studies in the Early Academy (review)

280 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 3 1"2 APRIL 1993 recent, competing interpretations and its accessibility to contemporary philosophers (e.g., through lucid comparisons with Frege). Loux also explores various problems with the account, though I am less sanguine than he is that these are problems with Aristotle's theory rather than with his construal of it. The interpretation demands much finessing of recalcitrant texts. For example, on his view matter is a "this" and form a "such." So passages that call form a "this" (t0de) or "this something" (rode t0 require deft maneuvering, as do passages withholding "thisness" from matter. Louxjoins a number of scholars in denying that form is predicated of the composite. This view is adopted by those who believe that form is both a universal and primary ous/a, and it seems tailored to circumvent the argument in Z. 13 that no universal is ous/a. Z. 13 is taken to show that no universal is the ous/a of a subject of which it is predicated; form is a universal, but since it is predicated only of matter, it still succeeds as 0us/a of the composite. Some philosophers and scholars will find unappealing the denial that form is predicable of the composite: it seems as odd as denying that whiteness is predicable of a white man. Moreover, if the thesis is fundamental to Aristotle's theory, we expect him somewhere to say so. Instead there are texts (e.g., Z.8.1o33a3o-3 l) that simply predicate the form of the composite, as though such predications were never in question. In contrast to Loux, many interpreters identify an object's form, 0us/a, and essence. The essence is evidently predicated of the composite (e.g., lo~9b13-14), but since Loux distinguishes 0us/a and essence, this is unproblematic for him. However, his distinction is difficult to square with. the following passage from Z. 7, where Aristotle, in discussing the generation of artifacts, says: "By form I mean the essence of each thing and its primary ous/a" (lo3~bl-~). (Loux treats this text at p. 186n48 and p. 189n54.) Also questionable on textual grounds is Loux's claim that form is always predicated of matter accidentally. A number of texts in the central books of the Metaphysics (e.g., ~o35b~4-25) and elsewhere state that the proximate matter of living organisms loses its identity when the form is removed. This evidence strongly suggests that in the case of organisms form is essentially predicated, not just of the composite, but of its proximate matter as well. If one takes seriously these textual difficulties, they raise fundamental questions about Loux's general scheme. But even if one is not persuaded by some of his central proposals, Loux has provided an exceptionally provocative, unified, and subtle analysis of Aristotle's doctrine of ous/a, and his suggestions about particular texts and criticisms of alternative positions are often insightful and helpful. The book is a major contribution to its topic. MARY LOUISE GILL University of Pittsburgh R. M. Dancy. Two Studies in the Early Academy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991. Pp. xii + 219. Paper, $14.95. The first study deals with Eudoxus: it argues that he attempted to explain the relationship between forms and ordinary things by developing an "immanentist" theory--in particular, forms are to be construed as physical ingredients of things. The second BOOK REVIEWS 281 study deals with Speusippus: it argues that he attempted to explain the existence of all things by positing a principle, the One, which itself does not exist. The two studies are united by a common theme: the early Academy was not a church from which dogma was declaimed but a meeting-house in which problems were debated; and the studies gives us glimpses of two of these Academic debates. ~ The early Academy is dimly and fitfully illuminated; and Dancy presents his conjectures with an appropriate modesty. The book is written in a light style, which at times descends to the demotic; but it is also painstaking and scholarly: arguments are elaborated with rigor and care; texts are cited at length;' and references to...

Age rationing, the virtues, and wanting more life.

The goal of this paper is to show that Callahan's reasons for withholding life extending care cannot be made out exclusively in terms of contemporary notions of distributive justice and fair allocation. I argue that by relying on a notion of justice which links the merit of the individual with the fairness of a social pattern of shares, Callahan imputes vice to the elderly as he denies them eligibility for life-prolonging care. Aristotle's doctrine of the mean is a useful tool for character evaluation. One can speak meaningfully of a proper disposition of a person of a certain type (an elderly person) with respect to the good of continued life. I claim that the mean of one's disposition with respect to the good of continued life would be relative to one's age group, and would be determined by that principle by which an elderly person of practical wisdom would determine it. This leads to very different conclusions than those drawn by Callahan.

Aquinas as a Commentator on De Anima 3.5

AQUINAS AS A COMMENTATOR ON DE ANIMA 3.5 JAMES T. H. MARTIN St. John's University Jamaica, New York DOES ST. THOMAS AQUINAS in his commentary on De Anima 3.5 provide an acceptable gloss on Aristotle 's cryptic remarks about active mind? That is, can one accept .that what Aquinas says about active mind is what Aristotle meant but for some reason did not say? Many modern commentators, among them Franz Brentano, Marcel de Corte, Paul Siwek, and Francisco Peccorino, appear to think so and present an interpretation of active mind which agrees substantially with what Aquinas says in his Sententia Libri De Anima (Sent.).1 i Senteiitia Libri De Anima, opera omnia iussu Leonis XIII P.M. edita (Paris: Vrin, for the Leonine Commission, 1984). While he does criticize St. Thomas Aquinas for some statements which " seem to betray a certain lack of clarity concerning the nature of active intellect,'' Franz Brentano awards the first place among earlier commentators on Aristotle's doctrine of active mind to Aquinas : " Indeed, I am not sure whether I should not say that he correctly grasped Aristotle's entire doctrine" (The Psychology of Aristotle: In Particular His Doctrine of Active Intellect, ed. and trans. Rolf George [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977], p. 155). De Corte holds that the originality of his study consists entirely in combining " all the technical means refined by modern criticism and which the thirteenth century did not have at its disposition " with the " Thomist interpretation of the Aristotelian theory of intelligence," an interpretation with which de Corte agrees, and which he presents as a necessary correction of the errors of modern commentators, who are "more or less instilled with an unconscious Averroism which radically vitiates their power of understanding" (La doctrine de l'intelligence chez Aristote [Paris: Vrin, 1934], p. 2). Siwek notes that "many of St. Thomas's explanations of Aristotelian psychology are altogether consonant with our own explanations,'' and warns his readers against undervaluing Aquinas's views (Aristotelis Tractatus de Anima Graece et Latine, editit, versione latina auxit, commentario illustravit [Rome: Desclee & C.i, 1965], p. 30). Peccorini com621 622 JAMES T. H. MARTIN Aristotle's text is concerned with two minds, "a mind which is such as matter by becoming all things, and another which is such as an active principle by making all things" (430a14-15). What are these minds, and what do they do? The central elements of Aquinas's exegesis of De Anima 3.5 consist in his answers to these questions. He holds that these two minds are " parts or potencies of the soul " (Sent. 3.4. 126). The role of passive mind, the "mind which is such as matter," is to apprehend the intelligible object (Sent. 3.4. 101-2), while that of active mind, the mind " which is such as an active principle by making all things," is to abstract the intelligibles (Sent. 3.4. 103-4), a role which he explains in this way: Active mind makes those things intelligible in act which previously were intelligible in potency. It does this by abstracting them from matter, for in this way they are intelligible in act, as has been said. Aristotle was led to posit an active mind to exclude the opinion of Plato, who held that the natures of sensible things are separated from matter and actually intelligible. Thus for Plato it was not necessary to posit an active mind. But because Aristotle holds that the natures of sensible things are in matter and not actually intelligible, it was necessary that he posit a certain intellect to abstract them from matter and so make them actually intelligible. (Sent. 3.4 50-63) Active mind on Aquinas's reading makes the potentially intelligible forms of sensible things actually intelligible, and in this way these sensible things become objects of thought. If one accepts this role for active mind, one is forced to accept as well, I think, that active mind is part of the soul rather than something separate from the knowing human subject. Aquinas argues this point at length in his commentary on De Anima 3.5. If thinking , the action of the passive mind, is in fact...

Goodness as transcendental: The early thirteenth-century recovery of an Aristotelian idea

In this paper I investigate the philosophical developments at the heart of what appears to be the earliest systematic formulation of the doctrine of the transcendentals by comparing the first questions of Philip the Chancellor'sSumma de bono (the so-called first treatise on the transcendentals — ca. 1230) with its immediate ancestor, a small group of questions from William of Auxerre'sSumma aurea (ca. 1220). I argue that Philip's innovative position on the relation between being and goodness, the centerpiece of his doctrine of the transcendentals, is motivated by an Aristotelian conception of theoretical knowledge that grounds inquiry in metaphysical classification and definition understood in terms of Aristotle's doctrine of the categories. The concerns about taxonomy and definition that Philip introduces into the early thirteenth-century discussion of the metaphysics of goodness lead him to the theses that are the foundations of the medieval doctrine of the transcendentals, among them that being and goodness are conceptually distinct but the same in reality.

Plato and the Senses of Words

Plato and the Senses of Words THOMAS A. BLACKSON GIVENTHEIRCONCERNwith language and with philosophical problems related to language, no one should be surprised if the ancients were the first on record to concern themselves with the senses of words. Indeed, surprise would be warranted if the facts were otherwise. The received wisdom is that Aristotle laid the foundation for subsequent thought on words and senses. Every serious student of the history of philosophy knows that to many cornmentors not only does he seem to discuss homonymy (i.e., multiple senses) in several places, but his most characteristic views appear to involve claims of homonymy. Aristotle's Doctrine of the Four Causes, e.g., is commonly taken in part as the claim that the Greek counterpart of the English word 'cause' is homonymous in a way that escaped the notice of earlier philosophers. Received wisdom, however, is often challenged, and this particular bit of wisdom sometimes appears to be challenged in a way which threatens to trivialize Aristotle's achievement. Many of Plato's most influential commentators insist that he is aware that some words have several senses. Sir David Ross, e.g., claims that Plato is "alive to the possibility" of homonymy but regarded it as "only occurring somewhat rarely."' Contemporary commentators are even bolder. Paul Woodruff insists that Plato knows that "the naive principle that each word must have one meaning" is false." It is a mistake, of course, to suppose that these assertions constitute a serious threat to the received wisdom on the senses of words.a The interesting question is which, if any, of the ancients concerned himself with words and senses in more than a nontrivial way. To be only aware of the existence of homonymy is not sufficient to show such a concern. Homonymy is as prevalent in Greek as it is in English. One would be hard pressed to justify that Plato or any other ancient philosopher was not aware of its existence. ' David Ross, Plato'sTheoryofldeas, 2d ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953), 12. 9 Paul Woodruff, Plato:HippiasMajor(Indianapolis: Hackett, 198~), 156. 3 I do not claim that Ross and Woodruff intend their assertions as a challenge to the traditional wisdom. What view they intend their remarks to refute is not clear to me. [169] 17o JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 29:2 APRIL t991 To show a nontrivial concern with words and senses is another matter altogether. One way is to exhibit an interest in tests for the presence of homonymy . In some cases, homonymy is obvious. Consider, e.g., the English word 'cape'. It clearly has more than one sense. 'Cape' may mean "sleeveless cloak" or "point of land jutting into the sea." The English word 'is', by contrast, does not obviously have multiple senses.4 A test is needed to decide such problem cases, and the first philosopher to make progress in developing such a test should be recognized as making a contribution to the philosophy of language. Although much could be said about the ancient tests for homonymy, my interest in this paper is with the ancients on the extent of homonymy. I want to know which, if any, of the early philosophers believed that homonymy is not confined to situations where it is readily detectable, as in the case where 'light' is said of dark feathers, but also may appear in contexts where its presence is not at all obvious, as, perhaps, in the case where 'exist' is said of minds and bodies. The first person to claim that homonymy can be "philosophically insidious" in this way deserves to be recognized as making a contribution to the philosophy of language and as propounding an idea which is part of the stock in trade of analytic philosophers. The traditional, but, again, not unchallenged, answer to my question is that Aristotle first claimed that homonymy can appear in contexts where its presence is not obvious. The philosophers who have mounted the most serious challenge to the traditional answer are, again, Plato's commentators. They insist that Plato makes such a claim in connection with his discussion of cause and explanation in Socrates' biography in the Phaedo at 95e-lo5...

Aristotle on the Foundations of the State

Aristotle's Politics shows an apparent tension between a recognition of the desirability of individual liberty and his claim that ‘none of the citizens belongs to himself but all belong to the state’. We can start to resolve that tension by considering Aristotle's doctrine of man as a political animal. Artistotle offers a particular account of the nature of man according to which his specifically human capacities cannot be realized outside of the state. This is not an account adopted arbitrarily for Aristotle's political theory but follows directly from his analysis of substances in the Physics. On Aristotle's account of human nature, man is essentially rational and virtuous and the political theory allows the rational and virtuous man to be as free as possible without intefering with others. Some are less rational and are subject to authority in virtue of this. We can see that Aristotle's theory has advantages over rights-based theories since Aristotle has an account of what constitutes human flourishing, without which one cannot found rights claims.

Aristotle and the Finitude of Natural Kinds

In the April 1986 issue of Philosophy, James Franklin argues in 'Aristotle on Species Variation' that Aristotle holds that natural kinds form a continuous series, which Franklin takes to be a dense series, and thus one composed of an infinite number of natural kinds. Franklin's interpretation conflicts with the interpretation, commonly offered of Aristotle's natural kinds, which maintains that they form a finite series of contiguous and discrete kinds.1 I have also defended the more common interpretation in a recent examination of Aristotle's views on the continuity of natural kinds.2 Franklin's defence of his interpretation divides up fundamentally into two parts. Aristotle simply holds that natural kinds form a continuous series in two passages in his biology, Historia Animalium VIII.1.588b4-14 and De Partibus Animalium IV.5.681aI0-15, and there is no evidence from elsewhere in the corpus that explicitly rules out or conflicts with these two passages. If considered in isolation, the HA and PA passages make a reasonable case for Franklin's interpretation. Furthermore, Aristotle does employ a sense of 'continuous' (suneches), which, if applied to kinds, would yield a dense series of kinds. In Physica VI .2.232b24-25 he defines the 'continuous' as that which is 'divisible into items always divisible', which is the sort of continuity formed by magnitudes, motions and times. If Aristotle extends this sense of continuity to kinds, then kinds as infinitely divisible would certainly seem to form a series in which any two given kinds would always have another kind between them, no matter how close they may seem to be in the series. Thus an infinite series of kinds would ensue. A basic feature of Aristotle's metaphysics provides, however, a serious obstacle to Franklin's interpretation, in the form of Aristotle's doctrine of infinity. All the relevant evidence from elsewhere in the corpus supports the traditional view that Aristotle denies the existence of any actual infinity. Since Franklin's view

Late Greek Syllogistic

The history of logic in late antiquity has not been a favourite subject of scholarly inquiry. The texts are imagined to be long, dull, and repetitive: they are perhaps quarries for information about earlier logicians, but their own content is unoriginal and unexciting. Anyone who holds that view should read Tae-Soo Lee's monograph on Die griechische Tradition der aristotelischen Syllogistik in der Spdtantike*. Late Greek syllogistic emerges from Lee's study as a subject well worth examination. Admittedly, it is not original in any strong sense. But it does offer numerous clarifications, developments, and modifications in Aristotle's doctrines, many of which are intelligent and some of which are remarkably subtle. Lee takes as his primary texts the three surviving commentaries on the Prior Analytics the commentaries of Alexander, of Ammonius, of Philoponus. He examines their general conception of the nature of logic, explaining in what sense logic for them is genuinely formal and in what sense it is nevertheless only an instrument or tool (8pyavov) and not a proper part of philosophy. He scrutinises their notion of a Trrpo6'rtaLs, their complex classification of avuvrytaL or nrrpo&OLs-pairs, and their accounts of the operation of &VTLGTpoqA. He looks at their definition of avXXoyLa~o's and at their ideas about a systematic development of syllogistic. In sum, he describes a version of categorical syllogistic which stands midway between the original theory of Aristotle and the traditional logic of the mediaeval and modern schoolmen. As we should expect from a study prepared in Gottingen, Lee's monograph is admirable in its execution. He writes lucidly and he avoids cant. His analyses are acute and rigorous. He knows modern logic but he does

Aristotle's Theory of Descriptions

Aristotle has a doctrine, or series of doctrines, of predication, being, unity and sameness, which scholars have recently illuminated by reference to problems in the philosophy of logic. (See references below to papers by Gareth Matthews, Nicholas White and Alan Code.) But they have not so far found a single key to the understanding of these doctrines. The key can, I believe, be found by comparing Aristotle's doctrines with Russell's Theory of Descriptions. Russell's theory is couched in the formal mode of speech: it is concerned with distinguishing amongst expressions which rank grammatically as subjects of sentences those which alone are true subjects. Aristotle's theory is couched for the most part in the material mode: he speaks of unities or beings as though they were a subclass of entities, in a way which has allowed Gareth Matthews recently to talk of this doctrine as a doctrine of kooky objects.' The doctrine of or per accidens predication, appearing as it does in Aristotle's works, has a more linguistic ring, and perhaps it is this which has prevented it from being used to illuminate his use of the term accidental (kata symbekikos) to headline his more metaphysical doctrines of sameness, unity and being. When one examines the doctrine of per accidens predication, however, one is forcibly struck by the similarity between the way in which Aristotle describes this phenomenon and the way in which Russell analyzes propositions containing definite descriptions. Aristotle's kooky objects are near relations of Russell's logical fictions. And the use to which Russell puts his theory in solving problems of intentionality turns out to be strongly reminiscent of the use to

Aristotle's Doctrine of the Material Substrate

For a quarter of a century Aristotle's interpreters have disagreed over Aristotle's doctrine of matter. One school, which counts among its members Hugh R. King, W. Charlton, and Barrington Jones, holds that Aristotle is not committed to prime matter. I The other side, which includes Friedrich Solmsen, H. M. Robinson, and Russell Dancy, holds that Aristotle is committed to prime matter.2 The issue has been put with admirable clarity by Robinson:

Style and Pedagogy in Plato and Aristotle

It is said that at the University of Chicago during the Hutchins era an undergraduate was once overheard saying sadly to his girl friend: 'It's no good. It'll never work: I'm a Platonist and you're an Aristotelian.' This story, true or apocryphal, captures the feeling that Plato and Aristotle possessed minds of a radically different stamp, a feeling engendered less by differences of doctrine than by differences in style. Of course, Aristotle differs from Plato on many major points: he rejects the theory of Forms; he largely rejects the theory of soul as separate from body; he regards the senses as in principle reliable; he treats biology, rather than mathematics, as the paradigm science; his general interest is in the empirical rather than the mystical. And yet, if one compares him with a thorough-going materialist and empiricist, such as Epicurus, he appears on the same side as Plato, a believer in explanation by form and purpose (rather than by efficient causality alone), in the unity and harmony of the cosmos, and even in the importance of the non-material. Aristotle brought Platonism down to earth; but it remained a type of Platonism. But this new variety of Platonism-if we may call it so-is expressed in an utterly different style from Plato's-dry, concise, systematic, unliterary: some people would not even call it a style. We cannot, I think, just say that the more earthy and commonsensical doctrine required a more everyday style. Aristotle has a great respect for common sense, but he progresses well beyond it, and he believes firmly in the dignity and nobility of science and philosophy. Nothing in his work suggests that he thought that eloquence as such was inappropriate to philosophy, even empiricist philosophy, or that-as some twentieth-century writers suppose-it is evidence of insincerity or frivolity. Nor do I think we can simply put the difference in style down to the accident that Aristotle's dialogues have disappeared and what survives consists either of his lecture-notes or of works given to students for study in conjunction with lectures. Why did these works survive, if not because Aristotle's chief mature doctrines were in them, and were not ever put into dialogue form? Moreover, while Aristotle's extant works are not 'literary', they use a style that is excellent for their purpose; this might have happened initially by accident, but Aristotle's persistent use of the style after he hit on it indicates a deliberate and conscious choice, presumably because he felt that it was working well for teaching purposes. Similarly, Plato may have

IV—A False Doctrine of the Mean

Introduction. Aristotle says that ethike arete, excellence of character, is a disposition in virtue of which we are well disposed in respect of feelings (pathe'). Feelings are said to be such things as appetites, emotions such as anger and fear, and, in general, all conditions that are attended by pleasure or pain. (II 05bI 9ff) Taken in isolation, this might sound as though Aristotle makes excellence of character a merely inner matter, but this is not so. Most feelings involve a desire to perform certain actions, so being well disposed in respect of feelings involves being well disposed in respect of actions too. The occasions on which the two come apart are not relevant to anything I say in this paper so let us concentrate on feelings for the moment. What it is to be well disposed in respect of feelings is, apparently, specified by saying that excellence of character is a disposition (concerned with feelings) which is in a mean. The thesis that virtue (excellence of character) is a disposition in a mean is Aristotle's doctrine of the mean. Whether you think of the doctrine as empty, or interesting, bold, and (roughly) true, is partly determined by what you think it is. J. 0. Urmson' has defended it as the latter, and it is his account of what the doctrine is that provides the main stalkinghorse in this paper. When Urmson gives a summary of Aristotle's account of excellence of character, he begins it like this. (Note that he is using 'emotion' as his translation of pathos.)

More on Aristotelian Epagoge

During the last two decades there has been growing interest in Aristotle's doctrine and use of dialectical, non-demonstrative forms of argument. One of the results is that his concept of epagoge or induction has received renewed attention in scholarly literature. I am thinking of the monograph by Kurt v. Fritz from 19641 and two articles in Phronesis, one by Walter Hess (1970)2 and one fairly recent by D. W. Hamlyn (1976)3. Much may be learnt from reading these works, as well as what has proved a natural starting-point for modern research into the topic, viz. Ross' discussions in his A ristotle4 and his edition of the A nalytics5. In this paper I wish to add only one substantial point that concerns the interpretation of Prior Analytics II 23 (section III). The remaining sections serve mainly to establish the proper context for that point, section I by considering the various senses of epagoge and the corresponding verb epagein in Aristotle, section II by trying to find the proper place for nous or reason in connection with epagoge, and section IV by glancing rapidly at the notorious final chapter of the Posterior A nalytics. In much of what I say in these sections I am particularly indebted in one way or another to Hamlyn's paper, but do not in general mark where I follow or reject his interpretations.

Aristotle: A Contemporary Appreciation.

Under the guidance of Professor Veatch, Aristotle stands forth again as the philosopher who, above all, speaks simply and directly to the common sense of all mankind. Today, Professor Veatch believes, the time may be ripe for belated recognition that Aristotle is a truly live option in philosophy.The discussion begins with the Physics for Aristotle, the discipline embracing all aspects of the natural world and examines Aristotle's doctrine of categories and his celebrated four causes. Turning to the De Anima, Professor Veatch casts aside many errors of interpretation which have come about because of mistaken readings of the term soul and gives an intelligible account of Aristotle's psychology, seen within the context of his system as whole. Next, the varieties of human achievement are surveyed in Aristotelian terms, with introductory discussions of the Ethics, Politics, and the Poetics. Turning to the Metaphysics, the author demonstrates that the question of the unity of subject matter in Aristotle's metaphysics does not warrant the great difficulty that has been made of it. Finally reversing to good effect the traditional order Aristotelian logic is presented with superb clarity and ease.

Essence and Accident

In a paper entitled 'Essence and Accident' Professor Copi attempts to offer an explanation of these concepts in an account which he claims derives very largely from Aristotle but which differs from Aristotle 'in order to accommodate some of the insights formulated by Locke in his discussion of real and nominal essences'. It is my contention that: i. Copi's account of Aristotle's doctrine of essence is importantly misleading: z. the 'most serious' objection to Aristotle's doctrine as introduced by Copi is in fact no criticism of Aristotle's doctrine and is itself open to the charge of incoherence. If my arguments are sound then I maintain that it follows that Locke's criticism of Aristotle on the matter of essence and accident, at least as presented by Copi, is to no avail. i. Copi holds that the essence of X is an attribute of X, even though it is a special kind of attribute. This can be seen as follows: 'The basic dichotomy between substantial change and other kinds of change is parallel to that between essential attributes or essences and other kinds of attributes, which may be lumped together as accidental attributes or accidents' (p. I5I). 'Of the various bases that have been proposed for distinguishing between essence and accident, two stand out as most reasonable.... If we can distinguish the different kinds of change, then we can say that a given attribute is essential to an object, if its loss would result in the destruction of that object, whereas an attribute is a mere accident if the object would remain identifiably and substantially the same without it' (p. 1 I).2 It is not the case that for Aristotle the 'essence'3 ('-ro -rtl ?V (etvat') of X, where 'X' is either a species or an individual, is an attribute of X, as one passage which Copi himself actually cites shows (Metaphysics Io3oa3). On the contrary, the 'essence' of X is precisely what X is. That the 'essence' of X is what X is, is consistently and persistently maintained throughout his writing on the matter. For example, Aristotle says in

Aristotle: A Contemporary Appreciation by Henry B. Veatch

BOOK REVIEWS Aristotle: .A Contemporary .Appreciation. By HENRY B. VEATCH. Blooming~ ton, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1974. Pp. ~14. $7.95 cloth, $~.95 paper. While this book is addressed primarily to those students of philosophy who have read, but have not seriously studied Aristotle, it is also a book from which much can be learned even by those more familiar the Philosopher . One reason for this is the point of view from which Aristotle is presented. Being one of those rare Aristotelians nowadays who is thoroughly knowledgeable of contemporary analytic philosophy, Prof. Veatch is in a position to show how Aristotelianism can be a " live option " in philosophy today. And this he does by arguing that Aristotle's appeal to "common sense " is, as Veatch puts it, " an antidote to the alienations of both modern science and and modern philosophy." Thus, in being shown how and in what senses Aristotle holds his own vis avis contemporary philosophy , even the expert in Aristotle can, by reading Veatch's book, gain a new appreciation of "the master of those who know." Dubbing Aristotle as " the philosopher of common sense," i. e., the philosopher who goes by the axiom that what most men most of the time take to be true is likely to be true in fact, Veatch goes on to show in succeeding chapters how this principle of common sense guides Aristotle 's thought in his physics, ethics, metaphysics, and logic. Veatch's theme throughout is that, in contrast with the kind of program Aristotle offers us in these areas, the world presented to us by contemporary philosophy and science is a " world that humanly and commonsensically we simply cannot live in." Beginning then with Veatch's account of Aristotle's physics, we find the author rightly unfolding Aristotle's doctrine of the four causes in the context of change or becoming. Veatch not only shows how Aristotle's view of change is an answer to the Heraclitean, Parmenidean, and Zenonian views on the same subject but, what is more intriguing and important for what he is about, he also contrasts Aristotle's view of causality with the modern view of causality stemming from Hume. Specifically, Veatch points out that, unlike modern and contemporary philosophers, Aristotle held that an efficient cause and its effect are simultaneous, so that for Aristotle it is not true to say that a cause precedes its effect in time. This temporal separation of an effect from its cause in modern philosophy has, Veatch suggests, precluded any explanation as to just why a certain event B follows another event A. As Veatch puts it: ". . . Substitute for this notion of 14~ BOOK REVIEWS 148 causation the one of a cause as preceding its effect, and there is no way in which there can be either any causal action on anything or anything for the cause to act upon. Rather, when the effect comes into being, the cause will already have ceased to be. Hence there is no way in which an efficient cause can any longer be thought of as acting upon something so as actually to bring about its proper effect with the result that the whole panoply of efficient, material, formal, and final causes simply goes out the window." (pp. 58-54) Turning next to Aristotle's philosophy of animate and human beings Veatch concentrates on Aristotle's account of knowledge. First he attributes to Aristotle the following realistic dicta: (1) that things in the world are what they are independently of our attitudes toward or opinions about them, and (~) that despite the errors to which we are prone, we human beings are capable of knowing things as they are in themselves. Accepting knowledge as a fact, Aristotle explains how that fact is possible. In showing how he does this, Veatch discusses knowledge, as he did causality, in the context of change. Knowledge and physical change both involve the reception of form by something that is in potency to that form. The difference between these two changes is that whereas something's receiving the form of red involves its actually becoming red, my coming to know red does not involve my actually becoming red. The reason...

The Significance of "Mimesis" in the Light of Aristotle's Doctrine of the Four Ontological Causes

The Significance of "Mimesis" in the Light of Aristotle's Doctrine of the Four Ontological Causes