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Aristotle on Meaning and Essence David

Charles New York: Oxford University Press,
2000, xiv + 410 pp., \$92.25

Kyle A. Fraser

Dialogue / Volume 43 / Issue 01 / December 2004, pp 171 - 173

DOI: 10.1017/S0012217300003346, Published online: 13 April 2010

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Kyle A. Fraser (2004). Dialogue, 43, pp 171-173 doi:10.1017/
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 Book Reviews! Comptes rendus 171

s'appliquer a structurer les intermediaries en nombre determine pour echapper a

l'illimite de ses extremes. L'auteure choisit done Vapeiron commefilconducteur de
son analyse de la pensee dialectique dans le dialogue et cherche a montrer le rapport
entre la premiere partie du dialogue consacree a des considerations dialectiques et
la nature des problemes poses dans le reste du dialogue concernant les elements de
la vie bonne (p. 288-316). La conclusion paradoxale du dialogue sur les manifesta-
tions du bien et sa hierarchie, alors qu'on s'attendrait a une definition de la nature
du bien, apparait a l'auteure comme le fruit d'une «rhetorique ironique» (p. 338)
de la part de Socrate. La grande majorite des homines ne peuvent pas penetrer dans
la demeure du Bien, ils ne peuvent qu'attendre a sa porte et se satisfaire de ses man-
ifestations et d'une hierarchie des biens (p. 328-340).
Cet ouvrage interessera non seulement les platonisants et les specialistes de la
philosophic grecque, mais aussi tous ceux qui oeuvrent dans les philosophies mo-
dernes ou contemporaines qui s'inspirent de la pensee dialectique, comme celles de
Kant ou de Hegel. Bien plus, dans la mesure ou toute philosophic souleve des ques-
tions de types particuliers auxquelles le philosophe cherche des reponses dont il
n'est jamais entierement satisfait, l'ouvrage de Monique Dixsaut devrait interesser
tous les philosophes. Car e'est bien de la nature et de la specificite de la rationalite
philosophique a la recherche de l'essence de toutes les choses qu'il s'agit dans cet
ouvrage sur la dialectique platonicienne.

YVON LAFRANCE Universite d'Ottawa

Aristotle on Meaning and Essence

DAVID CHARLES
New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, xiv + 410 pp., $92.25
Anglo-American approaches to Aristotelian metaphysics have been deeply influ-
enced by the reconstructions of the "Oxford analysts," most notably of the late
G. E. L. Owen. In Owen's seminal articles, Aristotle emerges—like the later Plato
of G. Ryle and J. L.Ackrill—as a primitive exponent of analytical methodolo-
gies. The principles of Aristotelian metaphysics—being, unity, identity, essence,
accident—are reconstructed by Owen as foundational concepts implicit in ordi-
nary linguistic practices. Metaphysics is, in effect, reduced to a form of logic,
focused on the clarification of the conceptual apparatus of ordinary language.
David Charles, in his Aristotle on Meaning and Essence, continues in this tradi-
tion of Oxford analytic scholarship, to the extent that he seeks to relate Aristotelian
essentialism to contemporary essentialist theories, as advocated especially by
Hilary Putnam. But his agenda is decidedly not one of reconstruction. Instead of
presenting Aristotle as a primitive and undeveloped version of the modern essen-
tialist, groping awkwardly for the right words and concepts, Charles makes the
startling claim that Aristotelian essentialism is a defensible and viable alternative
in its own right.
Charles defines a number of varieties of modern essentialism, but all of them
share the following (non-Aristotelian) assumptions. The modern essentialist is
roughly a kind of Neo-Kantian, who maintains that our scientific picture of the
world—as composed of natural kinds with intelligible and definite causal struc-
172 Dialogue
tures—is merely a projection of our ordinary linguistic intentions in describing the
world. When we identify an object as X we assume, implicitly, that any other object
that is X must share the same fundamental properties as our X. Our deep-seated
referential intentions disclose a tacit commitment to the existence of universal
essences. The project of science is just an extension of these ordinary commitments:
science is an attempt to define the exact character of the fundamental properties
that we implicitly ascribe to entities when we identify and classify them. The upshot
of this "modern essentialism" is that the world and its essential structures are a con-
struction, arising out of our linguistic and explanatory practices.
By contrast, Charles argues that Aristotelian science and essentialism are not
mere extensions of the intuitions of ordinary speakers. Aristotle draws a crucial
distinction between semantic definitions, which express the ordinary signification
of words, and scientific definitions, which must conform to the causal structure of
the world. Semantic definitions, as Aristotle represents them, involve no assump-
tions about the fundamental essences of natural kinds, or even about the existence
of such kinds. For confirmation of this thesis, Charles looks closely at the account
of scientific discovery outlined in Book 2 of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics. In
Book 2, Chapter 8, Aristotle describes how one might progress from an ordinary
grasp of what "thunder" or "eclipse" signifies, to a scientific grasp of the explana-
tory essences of these phenomena. He shows clearly that the scientific grasp of
existence and essence is not merely a clarification or analysis of the ordinary mean-
ing, but involves explanatory assumptions and commitments that far outstrip ordi-
nary conceptions.
For instance, the ordinary meaning of "thunder," that it is a "noise in the clouds,"
does not commit the ordinary speaker to the idea of any underlying causal structure
or fundamental property that would explain "why" there are noises in the clouds.
Ordinary definitions do not involve explanatory assumptions. By contrast, defini-
tion in the scientific mode is an attempt to explicate the underlying essence of the
phenomenon (thunder), which explains its observable properties (noise). At this
level of investigation, the practice of definition (the search for "what X is") con-
verges with the practice of explanation (the search for "why all Xs are X"). When
the scientist arrives at the full definition of thunder, "noise in the clouds caused by
the quenching of fire," he has a grasp both of what thunder fundamentally is (def-
inition) and of what fundamentally causes thunder to be what it is (explanation).
This interdependency of definition and explanation, which is characteristic of
Aristotle's essentialism, does not obtain at the level of ordinary meaning. When an
ordinary speaker agrees that "thunder" signifies "noise in the clouds," he does not
thereby imply any commitment to a deeper, explanatory essence that would finally
and adequately explain these noises. Charles looks closely at Aristotle's views on
signification in order to explain how the full signification of a word—its real or
objective signification—outstrips the ordinary grasp of what a word signifies.
Whereas from a contemporary "essentialist" standpoint a word can signify only
what we conventionally decide it should signify, on Aristotle's view the true signi-
fication is based on an objective relation between words and entities. For Aristotle,
words signify real kinds and their essences. The thoughts which mediate this rela-
tion between words and essences—viz., our "concepts"—are causally derivative of
essences through a process of "likening." Through this "likening," the content of
our thinking is made identical in actuality to the essences that it thinks. But this
 Book Reviews! Comptes rendus 173

identity develops through a series of stages and degrees. At the level of ordinary
conceptions, the identity of thought and essence is general and incomplete: thunder
is indeed a "noise in the clouds," but there is still a fundamental ingredient missing,
which would specify just what kind of noise we are dealing with. At the level of sci-
entific definition, by contrast, the identity of thought and essence is closer: we now
know not only the fact that there are noises in the clouds, but also the cause, so that
our thinking now mirrors the explanatory structure of the phenomenon.
An implication of this realist theory of signification is that "meanings" are the
result of our interaction with essences; they are not set up a priori and subsequently
imposed upon the world, as in modern essentialism. The search for the scientific
signification of a word like "thunder" involves much more than an analysis of ordi-
nary conceptions, since it embodies explanatory assumptions about essences, and
their unity and priority, which far outstrip ordinary intuitions. Charles shows that
these explanatory assumptions are based, not on ordinary meaning, but on meta-
physics. He relates the formal account of scientific discovery in the Posterior Ana-
lytics to the inquiry into substance in the central books of the Metaphysics,
establishing that the same convergence of definition and explanation that is for-
mally advocated in the Posterior Analytics is worked out in practice in the meta-
physical investigation of substance. The idea of a unitary and primary essence,
which is the explanatory basis of the method of the Posterior Analytics, is shown
to be rooted in Aristotle's metaphysical investigations.
This book in fact covers much more territory than my preceding remarks may
suggest, and I am only able here to indicate its main unifying idea. Virtually every
area of scholarly contention is broached, from the nature of perception, to the role
of nous in grasping primary essences, to the tension between the ideals of demon-
stration and the less-than-ideal explanations of the biological writings. The author
seems to aim at a kind of encyclopedic completeness, and this puts some strain on
the unity of the argument. Digressions from the main line of inquiry are frequent
and extensive in scope. Though Charles always comes back to the central point,
the circuitous route may leave the reader a bit disoriented. However, this tendency
towards completeness does not manifest itself as dogmatism and system. Charles
takes great pains to integrate hypothetical objections to his main contentions—
though in some cases he plays the devil's advocate so expertly that he considerably
weakens the plausibility of his own claims.
There is another, more annoying, way in which the author's penchant for com-
pleteness and precision surfaces in the book's presentation. Every main position or
argument is formalized into a series of numbered propositions and sub-propositions,
to which the author then refers in subsequent pages. In order to follow the argu-
ment, the reader has to flip back and forth, in order to remind himself (e.g.) just
what proposition A* is. To be sure, Charles is very precise and thorough in defining
each hypothetical position, but the effect is tedious and inelegant.
All in all, this is a well-argued and compelling book, which, despite its tiresome
formalism, has the merit of treating Aristotle as offering a substantial and coher-
ent alternative to Hilary Putnam and the modern essentialists.

KYLE A. FRASER University of King's College, Halifax