Ethics with Aristotle (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 625 wind and drought have a common cause (the appropriate hot, dry exhalations), so that the connection between comets and wind and drought becomes a meta-sign for the truth of that single underlying explanatory theory. There are also helpful remarks on the pragmat/c~ of explanation in the Meteorology, challenging the divisions sometimes argued for between a record of real scientific inquiry, the exposition of the evidential basis for a scientific theory, and the assembling of results for pedagogical purposes. On the epistemological side, there is a long but helpful discussion of the epistemological foundations of dialectic by Bolton, with comments by Brunschwig and Devereux . According to Bolton, dialectic rests on the appeal to endoxa, which can be ranked according to the extent as well as the strength of their acceptance, and in the special form known as "peirastic," reasons from premisses that are as endoxon as possible. What is most endoxon is what is intelligible to us (as opposed to intelligible by nature), and what is intelligible to us is what is intelligible in the light of perception; endoxa are relevant to justification by peirastic means, then, because they are based on the data of experience, and peirastic is useful and necessary for science because it is concerned with the most empirically well-justified data, which the first principles of a given science must want to explain. This empiricist view contrasts strikingly with familiar recent accounts of endoxa that (modifying Owen's view that endoxa are typically analytic and known a/n/on) ascribe a "constructivist" view to Aristotle, according to which endoxa "hang together to constitute a world," with no room for the thought that the endoxa, things "most intelligible to us," are backed up and explained by what is most intelligible by nature. Other essays take up issues in Aristotle's modal logic (Mignucci, Kosman); epa~gg, which is not well-served by the conventional translation, "induction" (CaujolleZaslawsky ); his teleology and the craft analogy (Broadie), and his "cosmic teleology" (Preus); and animal phronesis (Labarri~re). On strictly metaphysical issues, there are sensible remarks about definition in Metaphysics Z by Frede and Morrison, and a piece on the notion of matter in Z 3 (with a long discursus on Einstein and the nature of space-time) by Maudlin. There is also an unhelpfully technical account of the uniformnonuniform distinction (Thorn), and an obscure discussion of"bipartite science" in the biology (Kullman). Physically, the book is not strongly bound, and has far more than its share of misprints. But the very eclecticism of the collection argues for its inclusion on the acquisition list for institutional libraries. FaANK A. LEWIS University of Southern California Sarah Broadie. Ethics withAristotle. New York: Oxford University Press, x991. Pp. xiii + 46,. Cloth, $55.oo. Ethics udth Aristotle is a terrific book. Although it discusses a standard range of topics (happiness, virtues and parts of the soul, the voluntary, practical wisdom, incontinence, pleasure, and Aristode's values), Broadie's treatment of these topics, and others that 626 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 31:4 OCTOBER t993 come up along the way, is very far from standard. Indeed, on nearly every issue she treats Broadie is able to mount a vigorous and effective challenge to existing interpretations in the course of developing and defending a sophisticated and intriguing alternative . There is much to be learned about Aristotle's ethics from Ethics with Aristotle. I should say, too, that there is also much to be learned about ethics proper--the book earns its title. For reasons of space I restrict myself in this review to setting out a few of the main elements in Broadie's rich and deep interpretation of Aristotle's conception of the best human life. In recent years, it has been customary to suppose that in the greater part of the Niconmchean Ethics (EN) Aristotle thinks that human happiness consists in the systematic and harmonious realization of a variety of ends--excellent theoretical activity , excellent practical activity, morally virtuous activity, friendship, pleasure, etc.-each valued for its own sake. Notoriously, EN X.7-8 is not easy to fit into this picture. There, on a very natural reading of...