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Aristotle as a Historian of Philosophy: Some Preliminaries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

W. K. C. Guthrie
W. K. C. Guthrie
Affiliation:
Peterhouse, Cambridge
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Extract

The work of Cherniss on Aristotle's criticism of the Presocratics may be compared with that of Jaeger on the development of Aristotle's own thought as contained in his Aristoteles of 1923. Jaeger modestly described that epoch-making work as a Grundlegung or foundation for the history of the philosopher's development, and as such it has been of value not only for itself but in the stimulus it has given to further study, in the course of which the balance of its conclusions has been to some extent altered. Cherniss's own study is of the same pioneer kind, and if I confess to a feeling that it goes rather too far, the comparison with the now classic work of Jaeger will, I hope, make clear my general admiration and appreciation of the fact that it is a permanent contribution with which all future scholarship will have to reckon.

I cannot at this stage even begin to discuss in detail the mass of erudition on which Cherniss's case is built up. Nevertheless, the very widespread acceptance of his strictures on Aristotle's historical sense suggest that anyone to whom they seem extreme should lose no time in giving voice to his misgivings, even in general terms, before they become irrevocably canonical. This thought has been prompted by the recent monograph of Mr. J. B. McDiarmid, Theophrastus on the Presocratic Causes, at the beginning of which we read simply that ‘the question of Aristotle's bias has been dealt with exhaustively by H. Cherniss’, whose views then become, without further remark, the starting-point of the younger scholar's own inquiry into the reliability of Theophrastus. Since in what follows I may speak critically of McDiarmid on several points, let me say that his main thesis, the dependence of Theophrastus on Aristotle in much of his φυσικων δόξαι and the consequent danger of regarding him as a separate authority for Presocratic thought, seems true enough. The derivation of Theophrastus's judgments from those of his master was already beginning to be recognised with fruitful results, and the time was ripe for a general review of the evidence.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 77 , Issue 1 , November 1957 , pp. 35 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1957

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References

1 Harvard Classical Studies, vol. lxi (1953), pp. 85–156.

2 As by Kirk, in his Heraclitus: the Cosmic Fragments (1954).Google ScholarCf. e.g. p. 319: ‘The theory of an ἐκπύρωσις in Heraclitus was perhaps directly derived by Theophrastus (like most of his historical judgments) from Aristotle.’ (Italics mine.)

3 ‘Characteristics and Effects of Presocratic Philosophy’, Journ. of the Hist. of Ideas, xii (1951), p. 320. This article contains a most valuable and lucid summary of some of the results of his book on Aristotle's Criticism of Presocratic Philosophy (Baltimore 1935), and in making what at present can be no more than some prolegomena to a commentary on his views, I hope it is legitimate to refer to its statements rather than to the detailed analysis in the major work.

4 For a repetition of his intentions see ch. 5, 986a13:

5 The appositeness of this parallel was pointed out to me by my daughter, Anne Guthrie, of Somerville College.

6

7 An obvious example is the contradictory senses which he gives to the word φύσις in the same passage of Empedocles (fr. 8) in Gen. et Corr. A314b5 and Metaph. Δ 1014b35. Change and revision of his opinions, and even forgetfulness of what he has said before, are not surprising in writings ‘many of which’, as Düring has recently reminded us (A. the Scholar, Arctos, 1954, p. 66), are ‘continually revised series of lectures’ and were never prepared by their author for publication. Cherniss's book provides many instances, though he sometimes exaggerates Aristotle's inconsistency, e.g. in his strictures on the general treatment of Empedocles, (ACP, p. 196 n. 211, pp. 352–3).Google Scholar Aristotle's complaint that ‘Empedocles does not allow one to decide whether the Sphere or the elements were prior’ (Gen. et Corr. 315a19, Cherniss n. 211) was from his own point of view justified, and does something to mitigate the heinousness of interpreting in different ways what was to him a self-contradictory system. Some instances offered are not inconsistencies at all. Thus ACP 357 says: ‘The theory of Anaxagoras may be praised as “modern” when νοῦς is interpreted as final cause and yet held to be inferior to that of Empedocles when Aristotle is arguing that a finite number of principles is preferable to an infinite number.’ But why should Aristotle not have regarded it as superior in some respects but inferior in others? Again (same page) ‘Anaximander is at one time just another Ionian monist, yet elsewhere he is linked with Anaxagoras and Empedocles’. The inconsistency here may lie in the nature of Anaximander's somewhat primitive ideas rather than being imposed on them by Aristotle. Whether τὸ ἄπειον, from which things could be ‘separated out’, was originally a single substance or a mixture, is a question which he had not faced. ‘Uncertainty on Aristotle's part as to what Anaximander really meant’ (p. 25) is very probable, but is not the same as the kind of self-contradiction that is attributed to him elsewhere.

8 Embryological Analogies in Presocratic Cosmogony, C.Q. xxvi (1932), p. 28. B. refers to Aristotle's version of Thales's motive on p. 33.

9 405a19:

10 411a7:

11 It may be, as Ross suggests, that Aristotle's introduction of the ancient theologi here is a reminiscence of Plato's remarks in the Cratylus (402d) and Theaetetus (152e, 160d, 180c), though Plato is quoting them as forerunners of Heraclitus rather than of Thales. In any case, if Plato, as Ross says, is ‘jesting’, may we not allow Aristotle to have his joke too?

12 One must remember that Melissus had argued directly from the non-existence of void to the impossibility of motion, in contradiction of Empedocles and Anaxagoras. (Fr. 7 sect. 7, Cherniss, ACP 402.Google Scholar)

13 I should like to express my thanks to Mr. D. J. Allan for helpful comments and suggestions made while this paper was in draft.