Aristotles Ethics as First Philosophy (review)

Eve A. Browning

Journal of the History of Philosophy, Volume 47, Number 4, October 2009, pp. 620-621 (Article) Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press DOI: 10.1353/hph.0.0162

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because they are ne (206). The Stoics ethical theory does not depend on their idea of a divine intelligence that orders everything for the good of the universe (291), nor does their claim that virtue is identical to happiness represent a major departure from Aristotles ethics (34041). The later Christian claim that the virtuous person does the right actions because they are right represents no major departure, either, for that motive is central both to the Aristotelian and to the Stoic account of the virtues (384). Might one at least see a major departure in Aquinass demotion of naturally acquired moral virtues to virtues only in a relative sense, and especially in his argument that all moral virtues simpliciter are gifts of grace, infused by God together with the theological virtue of charity? While Irwin grants that Aquinas introduces a Christian element by treating charity as an appropriate directing principle, he emphasizes that the directive role of moral virtue is Aristotelian (528). To his credit, Irwin acknowledges at least one aw in his grand unifying vision. If his account of Aristotelian naturalism is correct, and if he is right to cast Aquinas as its best exponent, why does Aquinas attribute the naturally acquired moral virtues of temperance and courage to lower powers of the soul and only the virtue of justice to the will? Why does he treat temperance and courage as directed to the individuals own good, lumping naturally acquired justice together with the God-given virtue of charity as higher virtues, concerned with the good of other individuals or the common good? On this issue Irwin ventures some rare criticism of Aquinas, along with some equally rare praise of Scotus and Ockham (52627, 54344, 67980, 709). But he never really answers the larger question about his approach to the history of ethics: how much do we lose, even philosophically, when we begin with our own convictions about timeless truths, then labor to nd considerable agreement among moral philosophers of the past? For suggested answers readers might need to consult Schneewind, contributors to The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, and other drudges who favor the Cantabrigian approach (10). Bonnie Kent University of California, Irvine

Claudia Baracchi. Aristotles Ethics as First Philosophy. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Pp. ix + 342.Cloth, $90.00. Aristotles writings contain more direct statements about priorities and rankings among the various sciences, degrees of accuracy within them, routes to knowledge from rst principles, rst philosophy and its characteristics, and the relation between sciences and practical concerns than almost any other philosopher we know. Yet taken together, Aristotles statements on these matters belie the apparent systematicity of his philosophical temperament. Almost every devotee of Aristotle is compelled to choose certain texts as authoritative and relegate others to some specic topic-context in which they have limited validity. An only slightly shaky consensus among Aristotles readers has emerged through this process over time: on that consensus, Aristotelian rst philosophy equals what later came to be called metaphysics, and is characterized by its remoteness from particular human discourses and desires, and from the types of knowledge we connect most directly with perception. First principles are also divorced from perception and are known through an incompletely explained intuitive process, but remain indemonstrable. Theoretical wisdom or contemplation soars above the domain of the human struggle, providing a stabilizing but distanced and abstract mode of considering the highest and most divine matters of which we are capable of thinking. In this book, Claudia Baracchi offers a fresh way of understanding the relationship between theoretical and practical concerns in Aristotle. She presents what could be called a holistic interpretation of Aristotles philosophical project, one that links the loftiest metaphysical passages with the most intimately personal and practical texts. In this beautifully written, densely argued, and thoroughly delightful book, Baracchi does nothing less than

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present a new way of reading most of the key Aristotelian texts, one that places ethics and politics at the foundation and center, but extends their sway throughout the human philosophical enterprise. Though not all her interpretations will win every readers heart, all are meticulously grounded in texts with ample Greek citations bracketed inside translations; this gives her argument a degree of transparency that is literally engaging. The book is organized into an Introduction that sets out the plan; a Prelude taking up issues of knowledge, wisdom, and rst principles via discussion of Metaphysics A and Posterior Analytics B.19 (1652); a Main Section interpreting the rst seven books of the Nicomachean Ethics (53219, the bulk of the book); an Interlude on Metaphysics G; and a Concluding Section on Nicomachean Ethics books 1012 (260307). The main thesis of the book is stated as follows: The twofold claim put forth in this study, subsequently, is (1) that the science articulated in the Metaphysics remains essentially architectonic, that is to say, involved in human action and even human construction, and (2) that, conversely, the domain of ethics must be considered in its originary character, that is to say, in its ontological priority as well as systematic comprehensiveness (39). Baracchi believes that, for Aristotle, the ethical/political domain of human experience is the true source and driver for all human activities, including those typically considered most remote or even divorced from it, such as the various abstract sciences and metaphysics. Individual acts of knowing spring from specic human minds grounded in social circumstances and driven by individual desires. Thus, metaphysics is grounded in practical, ethical, and political concerns. But beyond that, ethics is properly metaphysical. Due to the self-determining character of human life, and due also to the intrinsically open or innite nature of human conversation or logos, it is ethics that presents properly metaphysical traits, although saying this already entails a semantic reconguration of the term metaphysics. It could be suggested that the ethical reection is beyond physis in the sense that it concerns what is not by nature, not simply and automatically determined by nature, although neither separate from nor against it (51). Throughout the main sections commentary on Nicomachean Ethics 17, Baracchi shows how Aristotle interweaves and makes interdependent noesis and praxis : In other words, thought and action appear not to be related according to the formers priority and the latters derivative character, but rather to be mutually determining. For while deliberation determines the course of action appropriate to the end, action is implicated in the formation of the virtues that, in turn, identify the end and make it visible (123). In the end, Baracchi gives us an Aristotle committed to a political practice (or making) infused with intellectual insight and a speculative posture involved in ethico-political matters (306). The result is an understanding of Aristotles project that, paradoxically, renders it at once less tidily schematic and more cohesively elegant. This book is a very signicant contribution to the literature on Aristotle and, more broadly, to the general human project of harmonizing what may appear to be disparate intellectual and practical demands. Eve A. Browning University of Minnesota, Duluth

Eyjlfur Kjalar Emilsson. Plotinus on Intellect. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007. Pp. viii + 232. Cloth, $65.00. In Plotinuss universe, Intellect is the rst product of the One. Yet why and how precisely is Intellect produced? What characteristics distinguish it, and its particular way of knowing, from its higher cause? Questions such as these will lead one deep into the metaphysics and epistemology of the Enneads, where the operative principles that underlie particular passages often need to be teased out carefully. Indispensable requirements for this task are attention to philological and historical detail, and a general sensitivity to the problems Plotinus is facing. Emilsson combines both admirably.