Aristotle ‘An impressive and first-rate overview of Aristotle’s philosophy. I can’t think of a better introduction.’ Richard Kraut, Northwestern University, USA ‘Christopher Shields’ book introduces the philosophy of Aristotle in a comprehensive, informative and perspicuously argued way that engages with the philosopher’s arguments with critical surety and acuity.’ Vasilis Politis, Trinity College Dublin Routledge Philosophers Edited by Brian Leiter University of Texas, Austin Routledge Philosophers is a major series of introductions to the great Western philosophers. Each book places a major philosopher or thinker in historical context, explains and assesses their key arguments, and considers their legacy. Additional features include a chronology of major dates and events, chapter summaries, annotated suggestions for further reading and a glossary of technical terms. An ideal starting point for those new to philosophy, they are also essen- tial reading for those interested in the subject at any level. Hobbes A. P. Martinich Leibniz Nicholas Jolley Locke E. J. Lowe Hegel Frederick Beiser Rousseau Nicholas Dent Schopenhauer Julian Young Freud Jonathan Lear Kant Paul Guyer Husserl David Woodruff Smith Darwin Tim Lewens Rawls Samuel Freeman Aristotle Christopher Shields Forthcoming: Spinoza Michael Della Rocca Hume Don Garrett Fichte and Schelling Sebastian Gardner Merleau-Ponty Taylor Carman Heidegger John Richardson Aquinas Christopher Hughes Wittgenstein Bill Child Adorno Brian O’Connor Foucault Béatrice Han-Pile Kierkegaard Andrew Cross Christopher Shields Aristotle First published 2007 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2007 Christopher Shields All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Shields, Christopher John. Aristotle / Christopher Shields. p. cm. – (Routledge philosophers) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Aristotle. I. Title. B485.S44 2007 185 – dc22 2006030862 ISBN13: 978-0-415-28331-1 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-28332-8 (pbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-96194-0 (ebk) ISBN10: 0-415-28331-0 (hbk) ISBN10: 0-415-28332-9 (pbk) ISBN10: 0-203-96194-3 (ebk) This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” ISBN 0–203–96194–3 Master e-book ISBN Dedicated with gratitude to Terence Irwin Acknowledgements xi List of Abbreviations xiii Chronology xv Introduction 1 Aristotle: Life and Works One 8 1.1 Aristotle in the Ancient Biographical Tradition 8 1.2 Aristotle’s Character 15 1.3 The Facts of Aristotle’s Life 17 1.4 Reading Aristotle 22 1.5 Aristotle’s Corpus and the Structure of the Aristotelian Sciences 28 1.6 Conclusions 34 Explaining Nature and the Nature of Explanation Two 36 2.1 Beginning in Wonder 36 2.2 Explaining Explaining 40 2.3 A Puzzle about Change and Generation 49 2.4 Matter and Form I 53 2.5 Matter and Form II 58 2.6 The Efficient Cause 64 2.7 The Final Cause I 68 2.8 The Final Cause II 78 2.9 Relations Among the Causes 90 2.10 Conclusions 94 Thinking Three 98 3.1 Definition 98 3.2 Essence and Accident 99 3.3 The Structure of Scientific Knowledge 106 3.4 An Overview of Aristotelian Logic 118 3.5 Dialectic 126 3.6 Univocity and Homonymy 133 3.7 Conclusions 143 Aristotle’s Early Ontology Four 146 4.1 The General Orientation of Aristotle’s Categories 146 4.2 Aristotle’s Work: The Categories 150 4.3 The Pre-Categories : an Anti-Platonic Conviction 151 4.4 The Theory of Categories : Kinds of Beings 157 4.5 Generating the Categories 159 4.6 The Fundamentality of Substance 172 4.7 A Puzzle about Bi-valence and Modality 181 4.8 Conclusions 192 Puzzles of Nature Five 196 5.1 Change 196 5.2 The Infinite 203 5.3 Time 206 5.4 Zeno’s Paradoxes of Motion 215 5.5 The Unmoved Mover 220 5.6 Conclusions 229 Substance and the Science of Being qua Being Six 232 6.1 Aristotle’s Metaphysical Interests 232 6.2 Aristotle’s Work: the Metaphysics 233 6.3 A Puzzle Remaining from the Physics 234 6.4 The Science of Being Qua Being 237 6.5 The Most Basic Principle of All Science 246 6.6 Substance Reconsidered: Form and Actuality 255 6.7 Conclusions 267 Living Beings Seven 270 7.1 Psychological Applications of Hylomorphism 270 7.2 The Soul: Life is Meant in Many Ways 271 7.3 Against Reductive Materialism and Substance Dualism 278 viii Contents 7.4 The Hylomorphic Analysis of Living Beings 285 7.5 A Problem for Soul–Body Hylomorphism 290 7.6 Perception and Thought 293 7.7 Conclusions 304 Living Well Eight 306 8.1 The Final Good for Human Beings 306 8.2 The Character of Human Happiness 310 8.3 Happiness and the Human Function 316 8.4 The Virtues of Character 323 8.5 A Puzzle about Akrasia 329 8.6 Friendship 334 8.7 The Final Good for Human Beings Reconsidered 340 8.8 Conclusions 346 Political Association Nine 350 9.1 The Orientation of Aristotle’s Political Theory 350 9.2 The Emergence and Priority of the Polis 353 9.3 The Best Constitution 363 9.4 An Ugly Aspect of Aristotle’s Political Naturalism? 368 9.5 Conclusions 373 Rhetoric and the Arts Ten 375 10.1 Aristotle’s Orientation in Rhetoric and the Arts 375 10.2 Rhetoric as a Craft 377 10.3 Poetic Production 381 10.4 Tragedy 385 10.5 Catharsis 386 10.6 Mimêsis 391 10.7 Prescriptive or Descriptive? 393 10.8 Conclusions 396 Contents ix Aristotle’s Legacy Eleven 398 11.1 Aristotle’s Legacy into the Modern Period 398 11.2 Aristotle Today 402 Glossary 405 Notes 419 Bibliography 446 Index 453 x Contents In view of the intended audience of this book, I have been keen to receive feedback from students and other non-specialists approaching Aristotle’s philosophy for the first time. I am accord- ingly very grateful to the undergraduate students in Oxford who read all or part of the manuscript in conjunction with their courses of study: William Clausen, Max Gee, Marilyn Oldfield, and Robert Wills. I thank them for their most welcome assistance. Just at the time he finished his degree, Thomas Ainsworth read the entire manuscript with uncommon insight and rigour. His perceptive and helpful recommendations have improved this book considerably. I am also indebted to the careful and adroit reading of Colin Shields, who saved me from more errors than I can comfortably count. It is no ordinary delight to have an opportunity to record my gratitude to him. Several graduates in Oxford have also read part or all of the manuscript and in each case provided extremely valuable criti- cism. I thank Cissie Fu, Thomas Hannaford, Scott O’Connor, and Nathanael Stein for their invaluable assistance. I am pleased also to acknowledge the professional consideration of two anonymous referees for Routledge who read a draft manuscript with thoroughness and insight; both offered construc- tive criticism, the effects of which I hope they will see reflected in the finished book. Where they in some cases have called for expansions and inclusions that I have not delivered, I can plead only the restrictions of space and the exigencies of balance set by a volume of this sort. Vasilis Politis read the manuscript at the same Acknowledgements stage of its development and offered me many informed and clear-headed recommendations for improvement, both substan- tive and pedagogical. I express my warm gratitude to him for his highly expert guidance. Other colleagues have also been kind enough to read or discuss parts of the manuscript with me. I can discern specific moments of improvement from interactions with John Fisher, Lindsay Judson, Fred Miller, Phillip Mitsis, Adrian Moore, Graham Oddie, Robert Pasnau, Paul Studtmann, and Rachel Singpurwalla, who also took time from her own busy schedule to read the entire manuscript with her characteristic discernment. I regard myself as fortunate beyond measure to have had their generous assistance. Some of my most embarrassingly inchoate thoughts about Aristotle were formed now two decades ago, while I was writing a dissertation on Aristotle’s conception of the soul under the direction of Terence Irwin. Were it not for his kindly attention, superior knowledge, pedagogical patience, and marvelous generosity of mind, I would never have been directed down the path leading towards the eventual production of this book. Despite its many remaining shortcomings, this book is dedicated to him, as an inadequate gesture of gratitude for the gifts he has given. xii Acknowledgements Works of Aristotle are cited in the notes and in all textual refer- ences by their standard abbreviations. While most of Aristotle’s works are referred to by their English titles, several retain their traditional Latin titles. I have followed this pattern in the text, since this is how Aristotle’s readers will come upon his works in translation. In some cases, both English and Latin titles are current. In two cases (marked with an asterisk), for no easily ascertainable reason, no English title is used. Below, I provide the standard abbreviations, followed by the Latin and English titles of his works: APo Analytica Posteriora Posterior Analytics APr Analytica Priora Prior Analytics Cat Categoriae Categories DA De Anima On the Soul DC De Caelo On the Heavens De Interp De Interpretatione On Interpretation EE Ethica Eudemia Eudemian Ethics EN Ethica Nicomachea Nicomachean Ethics GA De Generatione Animalium On the Generation of Animals GC De Generatione et Corruptione On Generation and Corruption HA Historia Animalium History of Animals IA De Incessu Animalium Progression of Animals MA De Motu Animalium On the Movement of Animals Met Metaphysica Metaphysics Metr Meteorologica Meteorology MM Magna Moralia * Great Ethics PA De Partibus Animalium On the Parts of Animals Abbreviations Phys Physica Physics PN Parva Naturalia * Short Natural Treatises Poet De Arte Poetica Poetics Pol Politca Politics Rhet Rhetorica Rhetoric Top Topica Topics xiv Abbreviations NB: Many of the dates given in this chronology are conjectural. On the status of our evidence regarding Aristotle’s life and times, please see §1.1 and §1.3 below. All dates are BC. 384 Aristotle is born in Stagira, in Macedonia, in present-day northeastern Greece 367 Aristotle migrates to Athens in order to study in Plato’s Academy, which was then widely regarded as the premier seat of learning in Greece 347 Plato dies and Speussippus ascends to the headship of the Academy; Aristotle leaves Athens for Assos, on the coast of present-day Turkey. During this period, Aristotle marries Pythias, a young relation of Hermeias, ruler of Assos, who is a friend and former associate of the Academy. Aristotle has a daughter, also called Pythias, with her 344 Hermeias is deposed; Aristotle relocates to nearby Mytilene, on the island of Lesbos; associates with Theophrastus, a native of that city and another former associate of the Academy 343 Philip, king of Macedonia, summons Aristotle to his homeland to tutor his son Alexander (later, the Great), who is then thirteen 335 Philip dies; Alexander becomes ruler of Macedonia; Aristotle returns to Athens and establishes his school, the Lyceum; during this period Pythias dies and Aristotle estab- lishes a relationship, perhaps a marriage, with Herpyllis, also a native of Stagira, and has a son, Nicomachus, with her Chronology 323 After extending his conquests to Egypt, Syria, Persia and into India, Alexander the Great dies in India; in the face of rising anti-Macedonian sentiment, Aristotle withdraws from Athens for the final time 322 Aristotle dies in Chalcis xvi Chronology This book should not read as a substitute for grappling with Aristotle’s often challenging philosophical texts. Beyond the obvious thought that no such substitute exists lies the more conse- quential consideration, equally obvious to seasoned Aristotelians though perhaps less immediately recognizable to novices, that much of what I claim Aristotle maintains will have had its creden- tials as authentically Aristotelian queried by someone or other in the long tradition of Aristotelianism. With now two and a half millennia of minute engagement with Aristotle – in the form of exegesis and explication, of appropriation and appeal to authority, and also of criticism and contumely – almost nothing beyond the barest summary of his work is uncontroversial. Neither should this book, accordingly, be regarded as a brief compendium of Aristotelian philosophy. It is not that I deny that there are correct and authoritative interpretations of key Aristotelian doctrines; nor indeed have I shied from offering my preferred readings when it has seemed serviceable to the task of this book. Yet it has not been my primary goal in this work to articulate or defend nuanced interpretations of individual Aristotelian doctrines, the appropriate vehicle for this sort of enterprise being rather the scholarly monograph or the professional journal. My chief objective has instead been to motivate the principal features of Aristotle’s philosophy at least to the degree that it is necessary for his newest readers to approach his writings with facility and understanding: my abiding wish is that Aristotle’s readers will make the necessary effort to determine for themselves what he means, what is of value in his philosophy, what should be accepted Introduction as defensible, and what should be rejected as unsustainable. This book will have served its primary purpose if this aim is met, and those new to Aristotle have found themselves able to explore his works on their own, sufficiently equipped to make such a program- me of inquiry intellectually profitable. Given the objective, it has seemed sensible to adopt the following policies for this book. First, I have tried to incorporate a fairly liberal number of passages, at least as many as are required for those approaching Aristotle for the first time to familiarize themselves with key texts pertinent to the issues targeted for discussion. When translating these passages, it has been necessary to confront some of the more rebarbative aspects of Aristotle’s sometimes fierce and unwelcoming prose. In doing so, I have tried to keep the needs of Greekless English readers in mind, while simultaneously striving not to offend the demands of legitimate fidelity. (I discuss some features of Aristotle’s prose in §1.4, ‘Reading Aristotle’.) I have also incorporated a Glossary at the end of the book in which I cross-list alternative translations of the key terms students are likely to encounter in some of the most widely used contemporary English translations. Second, after providing an overview of Aristotle’s life and writ- ings, I have spent a fair bit of time discussing and motivating two framework issues: (i) his four-causal account of explanatory adequacy (Chapter Two, ‘Explaining Nature and the Nature of Explanation’); and (ii) his conception of the tools and methods required for successful philosophizing (Chapter Three: ‘Thinking: Scientifically, Logically, Philosophically’). I do so in the belief that not much of Aristotle’s substantive philosophizing can be under- stood or assessed without a prior mastery of these matters; indeed, Aristotle has had visited upon him unseemly forms of misrepre- sentation and hasty dismissal at the hands of those who have not made any serious effort first to understand the terms within which he advances his views. To take but one rather simple example, tedious in itself but prevalent nonetheless: it is commonplace to encounter strident rejections of aspects of Aristotle’s teleology authored by those who have plainly never read what he has to say about this topic. Now, it may be that these very aspects of 2 Aristotle Aristotle’s teleology should be rejected – but if that is so, then they should be rejected for the right reasons . In any case, no-one rightly excoriates the views of another without first determining that the views in question are authentic and then also that they are worthy of rejection. It serves the interests of no-one to foist facile views upon Aristotle or any other great philosopher merely for the satis- faction of short-term self-promotion. Consequently, in these two framework chapters I set out and motivate the terms within which Aristotle conducts much of his philosophy. Students who come to his work with a narrow interest in, for instance, his ethical or political theory would be advised first to familiarize themselves with at least these two chap- ters before turning to my discussions of his ethics and politics. For, as they will discover, his inquiries in these area are cast in the terms provided by his basic explanatory framework. Even then, I fear, if they have done only this much spade work, students will miss much of the force of these theories, since in them Aristotle draws freely upon the metaphysical and psychological doctrines he articulates and defends elsewhere in his corpus. It would thus be optimal to read the whole book as a continuous treatise, because later chapters freely draw upon earlier chapters. Although it is somewhat controversial, I accept the view – and presuppose in the current volume – that Aristotle is a highly systematic thinker, such that his views in one field cannot often be fully understood without frequent recourse to his views in another. That said, at least rudimentary misunderstanding can be staved off if students will review at least Chapters Two and Three before turning to Aristotle’s more detailed, substantive discussions, as they are presented in Chapters Four through Ten. As an aid to study, I have tried to indicate, by means of reasonably full cross- references, discussions in the later chapters which draw upon specific topics treated in the earlier sections of the book. Finally, I have ended each chapter with a list of Further Reading, broken into two sorts. First, and most importantly, I provide lists of primary texts within the corpus where Aristotle pursues the issues discussed. These lists of passages are not keyed to any one translation, but students would do well to favour Introduction 3