Love and Friendship in Plato and Aristotle (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 667 Whether this book heeds the directive force--the operational meaning for its readers--of statements such as the above, and the degree to which in their reference to the Republic they are accurate or not, must be left for its readers to decide. Whether it does or not, what can be said in conclusion about this book is that it does not give the kind of help that one expects from commentaries or interpretations of ancient works. Nor does it facilitate a grasp of Plato's monumental work-as-a-whole; it doesn't identify key passages or pivotal transitions. It passes over the changes of tone in Socrates' discourse; it adduces only the commentator's views of the Republic and no others, without stating why this commentator's interpretation is better than others. And, in not making explicit either its own assumptions or what the author calls the Republic's method of "eidetic analysis," the book does not make clear what the relation between the two is. More specifically, no track is kept of the sometimes crucial distinctions between, and relations among, "the dialogic city," "the good city," "the best city," "the city in speech," "the best regime," "the true city," "the perfect city," "the city of fevered heat." Above all, this book represents what must be called a monological reading of a supremely dialogical work. VICTORINO TEJERA SUNY, Stony Brook A. W. Price. Love and Friendship in Plato and Aristotle. Oxford & New York: The Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1989. Pp. xiv + 264. $45.oo. The Platonic philosopher, possessed by the untamed power of erOs(Symp. 2o3d), is part dishevelled beggar and part cunning pursuer of good and beautiful things (and persons ). His Aristotelian counterpart is more respectable (i.e., not manic), but affectionate interest in others is still central to a virtuous life. What is required to wrestle with such topics are psychological acuity, philosophical precision, and an openness to the unexpected; all are here, in abundance. Beginning with the Lysis and Symposium, Price questions Vlastos's contrast between Platonic egoism and Aristotelian altruism. Both eudaimonists, he believes, invest good persons with value--as individuals. He also thinks Diotima's teaching about the ladder of love is highly personal (but, compared with the Phaedrus, insufficiently so): the ascent of the Platonic lover does not require discarding persons to get to the Forms. On this more inclusive interpretation of beauty's hierarchy, the lover's glance is bifocal: the Forms are preeminent as objects of thought (and, ultimately, of er6s);but the beloved is the perpetual recipient of the pregnant lover's generation in beauty. So configured, the transcendental vision is both contemplative and active (5o-53). Price tackles together the problems of immortality and personal identity, with mixed results. Experience of love points to Hume's bundle-self: "falling in or out of love so transforms one's attitudes that it becomes difficult to identify with oneself across the transmutations it effects" (6o). Pressing hard a distinction between the subject and its life opens fresh perspectives on what it means for the Platonic lover to share and transmit a life. (And the expression of insights is often elegant: the fruit of 668 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 29:4 OCTOBER 1991 educative pederasty is an "unending tree of a family of minds" [~9].) Less convincing are claims that "the quasi-immortality that Diotima offers attaches to lives individuated independently of subjects" (3 I) and that immortality is something achieved instead of an essential property of the soul (the souls of evil people are immortal too, as the myths of judgment make clear). The picture of the soul that emerges from Price's reading of the Phaedrus is also distorted. Ignoring the soul's eschatological career leads to contrived uncertainties. Price seems unsure whether deliverance from incarnation is permanent for perfected souls (cp. 69 and 73); hence, he doubts that sublimation (sic) can ever be complete (84). No surprise, then, that it is a "mystery" (53) how the Form of Beauty can be "incomparably more ravishing" than boys or that, because it is irrational, divine er6s is no part of wisdom (94)- However, Plato's...