Back to the Rough Ground: "Phronesis" and "Techne" in Modern Philosophy and in Aristotle by Joseph Dunne (review)

Several years ago, Stephen Toulmin and I attempted, in our Abuse of Casuistry, to rehabilitate Renaissance casuistry as a legitimate mode of ethical analysis. We somewhat succeeded and flocks of neocasuists appeared, particularly in bioethics. However, we also stirred up swarms of countercasuists who, like postmodern Pascals, picked at casuistry's weaknesses, especially its insouciance about moral theory. But Dunne's book should cheer the hearts of neocasuists. While not directly about ethics, it studies the notion that is at the core of casuistry—Aristotelian phronesis as the key to practical rationality—and it both deepens and broadens the philosophy of practical knowledge, long distorted and emaciated by instrumentalist and technical reasoning. The title of the book comes from an observation of Wittgenstein's, that theorists walk on slippery ice where conditions are ideal, but "we need friction. Back to the rough ground!" Discourse about religion, art, politics, textual interpretation, and social structures must acknowledge, Dunne contends, that in real life there is friction. Although only when Aristotle appears does the conversation concentrate on ethics, readers interested in the epistemology of ethics will find in this book a formidable defense of casuistic reasoning. Neocasuists will move now on more solid ground, and countercasuists will have rougher ground to travel on their way to criticism.