The Reconstruction of the de Philosophia

Aristotele, Della Filosofia by Mario Untersteiner; Aristotele

Review by: D. J. Allan
The Classical Review, New Series, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Jun., 1966), pp. 175-177
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/708224 .
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 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 175
what follows to be discussing the historical documentation of the Politics in
general. 'One does not get the impression that Aristotle in his Politicsmade
systematic use of the results of his studies in the sphere of constitutions ....
One gets strongly the impression that Aristotle documents only when he has
examples ready in memory.' Though Aristotle sometimes could have given
examples when he does not, there are other places where he seems to be
bringing forward ideas of his own for which no examples existed. Such are
the 'total kingship' of iii. 14 and the first kind of democracy in iv. 4. Even in
Books iii-vi Aristotle seems to be not an empiric but a theorist, though he
theorizes on an empirical base. Mr. Aalders has adopted a good deal from
Day and Chambers's Aristotle's History of Athenian Democracy(Berkeley, I962).
He is more interesting on the use of examples in the Politicsthan on the mixed
constitution.
Mr. Gigon in his 'Die Sklaverei bei Aristoteles' runs through the Politicson
slavery giving a clear exposition and critical comments of a philosophical
character. 'Aristotle's grand and in the highest sense philosophical effort to
order and coordinate all things sometimes leads him into difficultiesthat have
to be removed by means of precarious improvisations.'
OrielCollege,Oxford RICHARD ROBINSON

THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE

DE PHILOSOPHIA
MARIO UNTERSTEINER: Aristotele, Della Filosofia. Introduzione, testo,
traduzione e commento esegetico. Pp. xl.+310. Rome: Edizioni di
Storia e Letteratura, 1963. Paper, L. 6,ooo.
MR. UNTERSTEINER has already made a highly important contribution to
the study of the development of Aristotle's thought, in the shape of some
papers in the Rivista di Filologia Classica, vols. lxxxvii-lxxxix (1951-61). These
have prepared the ground for the present work, which consists of a text and
translation of the fragments of the dialogue On Philosophy,with Introduction
and Commentary.
In his first article Untersteiner maintained that Aristotle in the dialogue
began with a review of religious and philosophical belief from the earliest times
down to Plato, and proceeded to define the principlesrequisitefor the explana-
tion of physical change as form, deprivation of form, and a substratum or
matter; and that consequently the passage in the first book of the Physicsin
which he introduces that triad, after similar criticism of the hypotheses of his
predecessors,is virtually a fragment of the dialogue. It was suggested interalia
that Book i, chapters 8 and 9 are loosely hinged to what goes before, and that
some sentences seem designed to adapt this to its new position in the treatise.
In the other two Rivistaarticles Untersteiner is concerned with the reconstruc-
tion of the de Philosophiaand distribution of the probable fragments between
its three books. He suggests with much plausibility a change in the received
order of fragments. He would place first of all, as stating the main theme, a
passage of Philoponus, of which Festugire and Wilpert have made consider-

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176 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW
able use in their reconstructions, but which only Ross among editors has hither-
to actually printed as a fragment. The drift of it is that the name sophia has
borne six different senses which reflect the advance from mere practical
techniques to the knowledge of transcendent causes of the cosmic order; and
that this advance is repeated again and again as men, laid low by cataclysms,
scale the heights of civilization. Bywater had already suggested that knowledge
of Aristotle's de Philosophiacould have come to Philoponus through Aristotle's
work with the same title, which he mentions. In the edition now before us the
emphasis is rather on the interpretation of the recognized fragments. Unter-
steiner has enlarged their number by the inclusion of the Physics passage above
mentioned, and by a few less remarkable additions. The reviewer is encouraged
to find that a passage of Albinus' Epitome, which was suggested by him as
Aristotelian in C.R. lxx (1956), p. 225 is admitted, and furnished with a good
supporting argument.
Readers will be grateful to the author in the first place for the information
he gives in the commentary about the authors adduced and the context in
which they preserve Aristotelian material; and secondly for presenting the
opinions of scholars to a great extent in their own words. This makes the book
easier to use without interruption. The comparison of opinions has led in some
cases to far-reaching and instructive discussions. One of the most important
of them concerns the cosmology of Aristotle. Here we may note that Unter-
steiner has carried on the research of Bignone in trying to isolate the passages
which are probably to be ascribed to Plato as a speaker in the dialogue. His
principle is that any fragments suggestive of creation,even in its weaker sense
of an imposition of order upon chaotic material, presumably come from
Plato's part, whilst those which proclaim the eternity of the world in the past
and, in general, suggest an immanent rather than an external cause of order,
come from Aristotle speaking in his own name, his theology in the de Philosophia
being already much the same as in the de Caelo. For Aristotle, once he had put
aside the Forms, there remained as an object of religious contemplation the
divine qua visible order of the cosmos. This, however, was consistent with
belief in a transcendent EOes.To ask whether Aristotle, in this dialogue or in
the treatises, is a polytheist or monotheist is to press upon him a division which
has no meaning for him.
The view that the concepts of ~lil and El~os and 83'vajuSwere in some shape
or other presented for the first time in the dialogue is, I think, probable: the
arguments here assembled are not separately very persuasive, but lend each
other support. While inclined to admit this, I myself still think that the mention
in the fragments of sleep, nourishment, and power of sensation and movement
suggests a more psychological discussion than is recognized in the current
reconstructions, and should look to the psychological writings, rather than the
Physics, as a place where echoes might linger. But I pass over this here. Some
other lines of criticism may be indicated, not that I wish to press them.
(I) Untersteiner's reconstruction, like that of Wilpert, leans heavily upon
belief in the Aristotelian origin of the Philoponus passage, Ross fr. 8. It is here
perhaps that he is most vulnerable, and the fragment has now been assailed by
Wolfgang Haase, 'Ein vermeintliches Aristotelesfragment,' in Synusia: Festgabe
fiir W. Schadewaldt (I965). (2) As regards the time of composition of the de
Philosophia also it is clear that the view here taken will not commend itself
to everyone. In the same manner as Jaeger Untersteiner makes a distinction

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 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 177
between this work and the purely Platonic earliest dialogues. It comes from
a time when Aristotle by the rejection of the Forms had definitely separated
himself from the Academy. Meanwhile, another Italian scholar, Berti, has
departed radically from Jaeger's assumptions, while stressing in a way of his
own the close continuity between Aristotle and Plato. He argues that the de
Philosophia may well be a work of Aristotle's Academic period, written at no
great interval after the Timaeus, and even that we can detect the influence of
its cosmology upon that of Plato in the Laws.
of Glasgow
University D. J. ALLAN

REAPPRAISAL OF THEOPHRASTUS

PETER STEINMETZ: Die Physik des Theophrastosvon Eresos. Pp. 376. Bad
Homburg: Dr. Max Gehlen, I964. Paper.
THE modern view of Theophrastus as a man who pinpointed particular diffi-
culties inherent in his master's philosophy, but nevertheless remained true to
this philosophy as a whole and sought to solve these difficulties in the spirit of
Aristotle, displaying an almost anxious wariness of expressing a single idea di-
vergent from the latter's teachings, has been stamped, Steinmetz contends, by
the influence of Eduard Zeller. He argues that Zeller was led to this un-
balanced interpretation by two factors: in the first place, he failed to notice
upon which remarks of Theophrastus the Aristotle Commentators had placed
their emphasis, and, secondly, he illegitimately applied the modern distinction
between philosophy and natural science and so neglected the Kleine Schriften
on the ground that they belong properly to the latter field.
Although individual treatises among Theophrastus' physical works have pre-
viously engaged the attention of scholars, and research within the last decade
has resulted in a better appreciation of his achievements in Logic, Ethics, and
Rhetoric, no one, Steinmetz contends, has attempted to interpret his physical
writings as a whole and so reconstruct his physics. Such a reconstruction, he
adds, would enable one not only to gain a better idea of Theophrastus as a
thinker but also to assess more readily his influence upon Epicurus and Zeno
and to recognize from what assumptions Hellenistic Natural Science and
Poseidonius began.
This, then, is the important and difficult task which Steinmetz sets himself.
His book falls broadly into three parts: in the first he discusses the Kleine
Schriftenand examines in detail de Ventis,deLapidibus,and deIgne; in the second
he discussesTheophrastus'views upon such basic questionsof physicsas motion,
time, and space, the elements, meteorological phenomena, etc. and, finally,
he embarks upon the difficult and hazardous task of reconstructing Theo-
phrastus'conception of the physical world, which he considers to represent an
attempt to replace Aristotelian theories rendered obsolescent by progress in
scientific and philosophical research.
The picture of Theophrastuswhich emergesfrom Steinmetz's reconstruction
is manifestly not that of a man who 'sich ... fast angstlich huitet, einen von
der Lehre des Stagiriten abweichenden Gedanken zu iuB3ern'.Steinmetz
rightly stresses Theophrastus' independence and originality as a thinker.

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