Die Philosophie der Antike. Band 3. Ältere Akademie, Aristoteles-Peripatos (review)

Book Reviews Hellmut Flashar, editor. Die Philosophie der Antike. Band 3. ;4ltereAkademie AristotelesPeripatos . VOllig neubearbeitete Ausgabe. Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie begriindet von Friedrich Ueberweg. Basel/Stuttgart: Schwabe & Co AG Verlag, :.983. pp. xxii + 645. DM x48. For many generations of European scholars Ueberweg's Outline of the History of Philosophy has been one of the major reference works in the field of philosophical historiography. First published in three volumes between x862 and 1866, it was immediately perceived by critics as an alternative to the manuals written under the influence of Hegelianism such as the one by Johann Eduard Erdmann (Berlin, 1866), which, as one of those critics said, had a tendency to press the historical- material into the "trilogy of dialectic" (XI). Ueberweg's intentions (as reported by Dilthey, "Zum Andenken an F. Ueberweg," Preussische Jahrbuecher 28 (x87x): 3o9-*~, quoted on XI-XIII) were to follow the steps of Schleiermacher and Trendelenburg in renewing "the objectivism of Aristotle" and thus to foster a peculiar brand of "empiricism" which matched his own philosophical convictions. The result was a work that was universally acclaimed for its impartiality, thoroughness, balance, and wealth of material . Philosophical systems and schools were presented as objectively as possible and, above all, with carefully documented references to the sources. When Ueberweg died at the age of 45 in June of 187a three editions of the Grundr/ss had already appeared and a fourth one, prepared by Rudolf Reicke, was forthcoming. Between 1876 and x9o6 Max Heinze assumed responsibility for the 5th through 9th editions, which now appeared in four volumes. By xgo7 the publisher (E. S. Mitder & Sohn, Berlin) realized that, given the principle of thoroughness which the Grundriss was supposed to represent, it was no longer realistic to expect that a single scholar could assimilate and give a balanced exposition of the results of the mass of new research in the different periods of the history of philosophy. Thus, the Grundr/s, was entrusted to one or two specialists in each period. Ancient philosophy was assigned to Karl Praechter, who was then professor at the University of Halle. Praechter radicalized the use of the philological-critical method and produced in a sense a new work with merits of its own. He saw through the press the loth, 1lth, and x~th editions 09o9, 19x9, 19~6, respectively)of Vol. I (DiePhilosophie des Altertums). The book discussed in this review is part of the work designed to replace Praechter's volume. Indeed, the need for a new edition of the whole Grundr/ss had been felt for some time. Paul Wilpert of the University of Cologne had made concrete proposals for such a project before his death in 1967 ("Editionsbericht. Die [403] 404 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY e4:3 JULY 1986 Neugestaltung des 'Ueberweg'," Archiv fm,r Geschichte der Philosophie 43 (1961): 8599 ). When the present editor of the section on ancient philosophy, Professor Hellmut Flashar of the University of Munich, took over the task in 1968 it still seemed possible to compress it into one volume, but in keeping with the spirit of thoroughness of the old Ueberweg the final result will be a four volume Philosophie der Antike written in collaboration with more than eleven specialists. If one carefully observes the list of collaborators, it immediately strikes the eye that, naturally enough, Flashar has enlisted the help of K. Gaiser and H. J. Kraemer, two scholars whose names are associated with the research carried on at the University of Tiibingen in the fifties and sixties into Plato's unwritten doctrines. It should be noted, however, that their thesis that there was a body of secret, esoteric Platonic oral doctrines involving a highly elaborate philosophical system different from what appears in the dialogues has been received with scepticism or simply rejected by wellknown specialists. See, e.g., G. Vlastos's scathing review of Kraemer's book, Arete bei Platon und Aristoteles: Zum Wesen und zur Geschichteder platonischen Ontologie (Heidelberg , 1959), in Gnomon 41 (1963): 641-55 (reprifited in Vlastos, Platonic Studies [Princeton, a973], 379-98). Whether the new Ueberweg will remain indissolubly finked to the early thesis of the Tiibingen School is a matter to be decided...