Aristotle: the Growth and Structure of His Thought (review)

Book Reviews Aristotle: the Growth and Structure of His Thought. By G. E. R. Lloyd. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968. Pp. ix+324. $7.00) When one sees yet another book on the philosophy of Aristotle, one is entitled to ask, why has this book been written? The answer Lloyd gives to this question is, to provide an introductory study of Aristotle's thought which will be useful to undergraduates in philosophy and to that dwindling (if not mythological) class of interested laymen. Insofar as Lloyd has dealt with the variety of philosophical and scientific enterprises which Aristotle concerned himself with, he has satisfied his original intention . A secondary concern is to show the development of Aristotle's thought d la J. E. Raven's short work on Plato's Thought in the Making. As one might expect, Lloyd deals with the early influence of Plato on Aristotle and the gradual breaking away of Aristotle from this standpoint, especially in regard to his concern with empirical data, ta phainfmena, or the problematic opinions of men in general. The author divides his study into a brief discussion of the early writings of Aristotle, the development of the Lyceum (there is such a great deal of space spent on this subject that one wonders what kind of introductory students of Aristotle the author has in mind), the 'evolution' of Aristotle's fundamental presuppositions and metaphysical categories, the range of his interests, and discussions of most of his major works. While generally agreeing with Werner Jaeger's thesis concerning Aristotle's development , Lloyd holds that Jaeger's distinctions between Aristotle's dogmatism and his empiricism, his metaphysical concerns and his attention to research reveal an oversimplification of Aristotle's intellectual development. Although it is said (p. 41) that Aristotle adhered to Plato's theory of forms for only a relatively short period of time (since he rejected it in his early work On Forms), no mention is made of the account given of Plato's theory of forms in the Metaphysics, an account which stresses the concept of mathematical forms. The obvious discrepancy between the traditional accounts of the theory of the forms and Aristotle's delineation of it in the Metaphysics is rarely analyzed in Aristotelian studies even though it raises a number of questions about Aristotle's understanding of Plato, the nature of Plato's theory, or the evolution of the theory after Plato. At any rate, Lloyd provides a brief, but interesting, exposition of the development of Aristotle's thought in antagonism to Platonism. En passant, he makes some interesting comments about the notion of ousia. In ordinary Greek usage ousia meant wealth or property, consonant with the English usage, 'a man of substance'. However, Aristotle reversed the Platonic priorities by averring that substance in its primary sense meant 'this man', 'this individual'. A view diametrically opposed to the notion that invisible forms are prior to, and superior to, concrete particulars (pp. 52-53). Despite the brilliance of his analysis of the different modes of ousia, Lloyd quite rightly points out that the notion is ambiguous (e.g., matter is said [793 80 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY both to be and not to be ousia). The underlying paradox generated by Aristotle's view that particular beings are substances in the primary sense, but that knowledge (in the strictest sense) is of universal forms does, as Lloyd points out, lead to a fundamental problem in Aristotle's metaphysics. Unfortunately, the author has nothing illuminating to say about this problem. This is a persistent weakness in Lloyd's book: that is, everytime a serious problem is encountered in his analysis of Aristotle's thought he simply points to it and leaves the reader to work it out for himself. For this reason one will find little of interest in this study if one is looking for philosophical analysis. This might seem an unfair criticism of a book of this type, but it is legitimate if an author raises purely philosophical questions and not merely questions of textual accuracy. In regard to his biological studies, Lloyd maintains that Aristotle did not develop the concepts of form and matter or potentiality and actuality on the...