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Book Reviews Daniel H. Frank. The Arguments 'From the Sciences' in Aristotle's Peri Ideon. American University Studies, Series V, Philosophy, Vol. ~. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang Verlag, 1984. Pp. 15o. $15.e 5. Three arguments "from the sciences" from Aristotle's lost work on Forms are reported by the third-century A. D. Greek commentator Alexander of Aphrodysias. Frank translates the passage (in Met. A.9.79a3-8o.6), attempts to ground the arguments in specific texts of Plato, and discusses two Aristotelian objections. Frank maintains that Aristotle's target is Plato himself at Republic 51od-e, 52 lcff., and Timaeus ~7d-~9 d. Despite the language of crafts (paradeigraa, techne) in Alexander 's report, Frank ignores obvious passages about craft-knowledge (e.g., Cratylus 389aff., Republic 596bff.), presumably because he thinks Plato rejects Forms for artifacts since the latter, unlike mathematical objects, are invented not discovered. (9o). This support is dubious given the textual evidence to the contrary, Plato's view of the cosmos as crafted, and his geometrical physics. Frank also holds that the so-called argument "from opposites" at Phaedo 74-75 and Republic 479-8o can provide no grounding because it is not generalizable to "sortals" (8~). But if he is right that Plato thinks sensible particulars do not have essences (47), why can he not say "This pale is at one time (or in one respect) man, at another not"? Frank assumes that in denying that individuals (ta kath' hekasta, not particulars) can be the objects of a science, Plato is rejecting one sort of abstract item in favor of another, e.g., being a square four inches on a side in favor of being a square (44). The "types" or "universals" rejected lack "the requisite unity and simplicity" and "fall short of having the requisite generality to pick out a determinate kind" (44). Those accepted are non-sensible counterparts of sensible objects "stripped of all unnecessary properties," e.g., the Form Square is "a square of no determinate length" (4x). Here Plato unwittingly conflates "the (generic) property common to ta polla" with "a (super) species, an impossible object" (4o), or conftates "the uniform character" with "an eternal exemplar or model" (4x). Why must we suppose Plato is aware and committed to the existence of abstract items other than Forms that can serve as the objects of science, especially to "nonscientifically knowable accidental unities" (41) which are such that it is a "category mistake" (not simply getting the kinds wrong) to confuse them with the genuine objects of science (39)? This is especially perplexing when one considers that Plato is probably the first Western philosopher to develop a theory of abstract items. It is historically and philosophically more plausible to suppose Plato thinks that changing [263] 264 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY perceptibles cannot be objects of knowledge, so that if science is possible, there must exist in addition some unchanging, abstract items. Aristotle is correct in claiming that the arguments (if sound) only show that there are some things besides perceptible particulars and not that these are Platonic Forms, hut Plato's mistake is understandable in a pioneer who has not yet envisioned a variety of candidates for real abstract items. Frank himself hints at a reasonable way of understanding the deficiency of sensibles (to3), which has been suggested by Nehamas and Penner) namely that they are deficient as things with which to identify beauty, equality, etc. They cannot provide adequate answers to what beauty is, what equality is, etc. This view does not require particulars to be imperfect examples and Forms "paradigm examples," the "super subjects" of universal literal self-predications (41, 54)According to Frank, the "Aristotelian universals" that Aristotle claims are the true objects of science also "are 'out there' awaiting discovery" but they are "properties and only properties" which may or may not be instantiated by individuals (114-16 ). Whereas Platonic Forms were supposed to "enjoy a 'substantial, independent existence ' ," Aristotelian universals "enjoy a 'non-substantial, independent existence' " (xt5). What is the difference? "Substance" translates a technical Aristotelian term but Frank rejects well-known accounts of what substantiality consists in. He asserts that the dependence of Aristotelian universals on...

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