Studies in the Historiography of Greek Philosophy (review)

Book Reviews Jaap Mansfeld. Studies in the Historiography of Greek Philosophy. Assert: Van Gorcum, 199o. Pp. x + 48~. Cloth, Gld 175.oo. This volume is a set of papers, varying widely in length, documentation, and technicality , illustrating the thesis that closer attention to the concepts of history held by its historians can on occasion contribute new insights and solutions to questions in the history of Greek philosophy. Of course, some scholars have had this general idea before; in fact, I count myself one of them. But there is a new, fine-textured scale of scrutiny, sometimes almost microscopic, proposed and illustrated by some studies that does offer a new contribution, and a demonstration worth attention. The date of Anaxagoras's trial is very plausibly fixed (at 437/6 B.c.), in a way that reconciles the variant reports. The deflection of the form of Gorgias's nihilistic "On Nature" argument by a Pyrrhonic sceptic in the pseudo-Aristotelian Melissus, Xenophanes, Gorg/as is accurately detected. A case for the existence of a reference work of "opinions" of various authorities compiled by Hippias the Sophist, is well argued, from the notion that Hippias's work inspired both Plato and Aristotle to quote the same lines of Homer (about Okeanos and Tethys) when treating "flowing" philosophy and "water as arche." The first of these studies rests on an awareness of historians' different chronological methods; the second, on recognizing the restatement of older content in patterns of newer canonical form; the third involves hearing verbal echoes that certainly seem to repeat a common source (who would surely be the first classical encyclopedist, with his fondness for reference lists and indiscriminateness in nominations to them). Many of the essays are overloaded with documentation which could become a separate work on nineteenth-century doxography in its own right, but which does nothing to illuminate the author's constructive points. If a moral were drawn from this collection, it could be that on every point someone has held every possible opinion. Does this book, perhaps, show that we can put an end to this controversial doxography with new, sharp analytic technique? Unfortunately, I think not, except for very special cases. Like stylometry, the atomic minuteness and immense multitude of the elements of historiography as it is here treated make it possible to find some selection of particles that coincide with some points of the outline of any higher critical pattern. For example, when the author tries to rewrite Zeno's fourth argument against motion by introducing his higher critical assumptions that (1) it is a joke and (2) he, unlike Aifistotle, sees what is funny about it, the result is chaotic. That fourth paradox, as Aristotle gives it, is perfectly in place as the fourth of a set of four disjunctive cases to be eliminated. But, in defiance of Aristotle's statement that Zeno says there are three [1:31] 132 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 3o." 1 JANUARY 1992 rows of cars, Dr. Mansfeld reconstitutes a different argument, in which two rows of "relay teams"jump past each other. The analysis he offers does not translate easily into mathematical statement; it looks as though the argument is that runner 3 in rank A passes only one counterpart in rank B on a given kinematic leap, but in the same bound is passed by two B runners. (This treats motions by the A and B series, which are simultaneous, as successive.) The confusion is supposedly part of the humor, in its resistance to analysis. So at least I read this reconstruction, which assumes a strangely Kantian ("reduction to nothing of an expectation") notion of laughter. I can document my preferred view by choosing other details that match my hypothesis that Zeno was a good mathematician and a normal track fan. A. N. Whitehead, I find, fit his selection of historic particles together to show that Zeno tried for, but misunderstood and missed the theory of limits of Weierstrass. Thus, with these studies, as everywhere else, it is a needed caution that facts and theories are very different, and so are proof and partial confirmation. With these qualifications, I am generally enthusiastic about the uses we...