Aristotle and his Philosophy (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 231 business with the many) and the fact that he takes no positions of his own. To the five reasons Woodruff offers as to why Socrates is made to deliver "an attack unparalleled in Plato's work," one might add a sixth, psychological and dramatic, reason: that Hippias and Socrates, polar opposites that they are, are nonetheless bound together in one drama, and need each other to make sense, even as the conflicting parts of soul for Plato all need each other to make sense. In his obsession with the unitary and his contempt for multiplicity, Socrates is inevitably at war with Hippias, even as the passionate and rational aspects of soul are devoted to very different ends. The book is handsomely produced, well-organized, and exhaustively annotated; cross-references proliferate occasionally to the point of irritation.~ There is much of use to the general reader as well as to the specialist. LYNNE BALLEW Emory University Abraham Edel. Aristotle and his Philosophy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 198~. pp. xii + 479. NP. At a time when studies in ancient philosophy are normally conducted in a rather piecemeal fashion, an extended work on Aristotle is particularly welcome. Professor Edel knows the corpus well, has meditated on it long, and has a fine sensitivity to the connections between and among the important Aristotelian concepts. This sensitivity to connections is, in fact, the basis of Edel's approach to Aristotle. He sees him as a philosopher who "has a well-constructed and fairly clearly analyzed conceptual network that he uses with considerable power in field after field of human inquiry" (42). The ideas and principles constituting this network are mutually supportive, no one of them being wholly true by itself. The network can, however, be tested by "tracing its impact in the various domains of Aristotle's inquiry" (vii). Such an approach to Aristotle is immediately appealing to anyone who attempts to teach him. In a survey course in ancient philosophy, the Aristotle segment presents the greatest difficulty to the instructor. Where to begin? Everything said seems to require the exposition of something else first. After a week or two, however, the "mutually supportive" (43) character of Aristotetian concepts begins to pay huge dividends. Even a nodding acquaintance with a small set of basic notions gives the student confidence in approaching fresh assignments, and each fresh assignment deepens his acquaintance with this basic set. This phenomenon of what might be called "benevolent recoil," makes Aristotle a most rewarding philosopher for student and instructor together. Edel's choice of where to begin is with matter and change. He proceeds thence to teleology, continuity and potentiality, being and its partitions, and substance(s). This group of concepts forms the metaphysical network, and is described by Edel as a set of "intellectual experiments" (93)- The experimental nature of philosophical docThere are five misprints: "statues" for "statutes" on 4o, n. 3o; "similarity" for "similarly" on 62; "suspicious" for "suspicion" on i so; "persaude" for "persuade" on 119; and "Volume V" for "Volume IV" on 193, Fowler entry. 232 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 22:2 APR 198 4 trines is, indeed, a recurring theme, and is applied even-handedly to Edel's own method of interpreting Aristotle. Psychology and epistemology follow, succeeded by sections devoted to practice and production. Edel reminds us forcefully that these latter topics are sciences for Aristotle, and that if we incline too snobbishly towards concentration on the theoretical , there will be a price to pay. Production, for instance, may be low in social position, but because "its categories dominate Aristotelian metaphysics" it will have its "theoretical revenge" (339). There are extensive notes and three appendices, on "The Works and their Contents ," on the question "What is a Science?", and on "Necessity and Determinism." As is now mandatory, Edel knows the biological treatises, and perceives some interesting parallels between these treatises and other more familiar works. So, for instance, in discussing what happens when a man becomes learned, he suggests going to the biology to consider the action of rennet in "setting" (17o), as well as consulting the chemistry for the causes of the solidification of liquids. Implications...