The Origins of Aristotelian Science (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 457 Michael Ferejohn. The Origins of Aristotelian Science. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991. Pp. ix + x74. Cloth, $24.5 o. This is a work about the Posterior Analytics of Aristotle, or rather it is a new interpretation of the theory of demonstration (O.,t66e~tg) and how it is expounded withinthat work. Few would contest that the Analytics is difficult, and while there have been commentaries,' works of interpretation are few. Ferejohn aims to fill this void. The book is arranged in two parts, with an introduction, notes, a full bibliography, and index. The introduction sets out Ferejohn's thesis clearly; the rest of the book fills out the detail. Each chapter is broken up by subheadings relating to quite small sections of text. This helps considerably in working through fairly complex material. The first great difficulty facing any reader is deciding what the Analytics is about. For many it is a methodology of science. Ross thought so: "For the Posterior Analytics is a study of scientific method .... "* Barnes, noting that Aristotle did not use the tool of demonstration in his own science, concluded, and not for this reason only, that "it offers a formal model of how teachers should present and impart knowledge."s Ferejohn occupies different ground and rejects both of the views just mentioned (139 n.4). His starting point is the text itself, taken together with selected parts of the Prior Analytics and put into the context of an Academic background. He firmly rejects any idea of reading backwards into the text any of Aristotle's later views. He sees the work as a coherent whole which can stand alone. He does not see it as philosophy of science or as general epistemology but as representing "the initial stages of the movement towards the modern conception of a science" (a). The second difficulty is understanding exactly what demonstration is, especially since, as Barnes notes, "in the whole of the Aristotelian corpus there is not.., a single perfect example of a demonstration."4 Ferejohn begins by rejecting the syllogisticviews of, e.g., Hintikka and also the antisyllogistic views of, e.g., Barnes. He regards demonstration as a two-stage process in which the first or,"framing" stage is presyliogistic and based on an Aristotelian method of division (6tct~eotg), which is descended from, but not the same as, the Platonic method of division. He sees the second stage as strictly syllogistic. The purpose of the framing stage is to collect premises, and this cannot be clone without certain prior assumptions: (1) that the contents of the subject-genus exist and (2) that there is minimum background information about what it is that is being divided. The assumptions (~.al~Sctv6~rvct), and the starting points (&0;(ct0, are used in the presyllogistic phase and many of them fulfill their purpose at this stage. The logical axioms of Noncontradiction and Excluded Middle are among the starting points as part of the nonsubstantive background assumptions. Definitions (6000 are also among ' Most recently, W. D. Ross, Aristotle'sPrior and PosteriorAnalytics (Oxford, x949) and Jonathan Barnes, Aristotle'sPosteriorAnalytics, Clarendon Aristotle Series (Oxford, 1975). ' Ross, Aristotle'sPrior and Posterior Ana]ytics, 71. sJonathan Barnes, "Aristotle's Theory of Demonstration," in Articles on Aristotle, Vol. ~, Science ,ed. Jonathan Barnes, Malcolm Schofield, Richard Sorabji (Duckworth, 1975), 77. 4Barnes, "Aristotle'sTheory," 66. 458 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY or PHILOSOPHY 3X:3 JULY I993 the starting points and are not themselves discovered in the process of division, nor are they syllogistic premises. The definitions are apprehended by perception (etio0~o~g), memory (l~v~tTI)and intuition (vogg), that is, "by the process of general concept formation , which is available to all humans" (48). They are deployed on a field of inquiry which will reveal any given subject-genus as "a hierarchy whose constituent necessary, immediate connections are expressed by (and so give rise to) the ultimate atomic premises of the demonstrative syllogism-chains within the science which studies that genus" (36). Part Two is about the explanatory context of demonstrations and the kind of connections Aristotle permits between terms. Ferejohn uses parts of the Categoriesand the Topics as well as the Analytics when he...