Aristotle on the Perfect Life, and: Practices of Reason: Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" (review)

162 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:1 JANUARY 1995 angels, Duns Scotus brought about a radical change within physics itself resulting from the centrality of the concept of place within Aristotelian physics. While the 187 pages that constitute the body of this book are addressed to the texts of Aristotle and his medieval commentators, there are nearly a hundred pages of notes in which the more recent secondary literature is addressed, as well as quotations of the sources provided, and there is also a twenty-seven-page bibliography. But if, overall, this is a stimulating book, unfortunately, some of Lang's major points are based upon misread texts. The text of Physics 8.4 will not support her argument in Chapter 3 that for AristotLe the natural place "upward" is the essential cause that moves fire up. In Chapter 8, Lang says that Scotus redefines place to be the extension of the body. The point at issue, however, concerns not the dimensions of the body in place, but those of the medium or surface surrounding it. If place is the innermost surface of the surrounding body, what can be said of the place of a boat at anchor in a flowing river? What Scotus wants to say is that although the medium and its innermost surface change, the place of the boat remains the same by equivalence, so that the boat is not said to be moved locally. Later in the same chapter Lang claims that for Duns Scotus a body could be in place outside the cosmos by a "passive potency." "Passive potency," she says, "is the primary principle that places body into the cosmos" for Duns Scotus. What Scotus says, however, is that a body outside the cosmos has a passive potency to be in place in the sense that, if there were a body surrounding it (which there is not), it could be in place. I recommend this book for its overall conception and approach and expect that further research along similar lines into the nature and varieties of Aristotelian physics will bear fruit. The errors into which Lang falls show, however, that it is dangerous to try to read single "treatises" of Aristotle or single commentators on a given subject without more thorough immersion in the texts. EDITH SYLLA North Carolina State University Anthony Kenny. Aristotle on the Perfect Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 199~. Pp. viii + 173. Cloth, $49.95. C. D. C. Reeve. Practices of Reason: Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics." Oxford: Clarendon Press, 199~. Pp. ix + z~9. Cloth, $49-95. Intellectualists take happiness (eudaimonia) in Aristotle's NE to be contemplation (theor~a) while inclusivists take happiness to include both contemplation and morally virtuous activity. Overall, Kenny presents the standard intellectualist line, while Reeve presents a novel, but flawed synthesis of the two interpretations. Kenny provides a comparison between the NE and the EE while Reeve provides a broader treatment of the NE. Consider their treatment of the properties of happiness (about one-third of each book). Both Kenny and Reeve give intellectualist interpretations of Aristotle's claims that happiness is complete, self-sufficient, most choiceworthy, and "in accord with the best and most complete virtue." Kenny then argues convincingly for an inclusivist BOOK REVIEWS i6 3 interpretation of the EE and contrasts the NE and EE treatments of happiness. Reeve goes on to give inclusivist interpretations of Aristotle's claims that happiness is the special function of humans, that happiness requires a complete life, and that happiness is the end of politics. A closer look reveals some interesting and problematic aspects of Reeve's interpretation . Reeve analyzes the function argument (1o97b~ 4-1o98a 17) as follows: The function of a thing is (a) its end and (b) its essence. (c) Happiness is exercising the human function well (from a). (d) The human function is something special to humans (from b). (e) Virtue is what exercises a function well (from a and b). (f) Happiness is virtuous activity (from c and e). (g) The human function is rational activity. (h) Therefore, happiness is virtuous rational activity (from f and g). There are two sorts of reason, practical (phronesis) and theoretical (nous). Therefore...