8/12/2019 Analytic Philosophy Volume 32 Issue 3 1991 [Doi 10.1111%2Fj.1468-0149.1991.Tb02270.x] CHRISTOPHER GILL -- Aristotle's Psychology

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intuit ion lies. McGinns discussion of the topic does not, I have suggested, getit right. But it is a stimulating and energetic contribution to the debate,which does much to clarify what is a t stake, an d what the options are. As suchit is typical of Mental Content as a whole.

XIAGDALEN COLLEGE, O X F O R D ELIZABETH F R I K E R

Aristotle s PsychoLogyBy D A N IE L N R O B IN S O NColumbia Universi ty Press, 1989. xi 144 pp. 32.50cloth

This is a disappointing book. Th er r a re all sorts of reasons why it would beinteresting to learn what a n academic psychologist which is wha t Robinsonis) thinks abou t Aristotle. Aristotle has been claimed as a forerunner of for

instance) functionalism, Davidsonian action theory, and cognitive psych-ology; and it would be very useful to learn from a psychologist how well hethinks such claims stand up. Unfortunately, any such hopes are quiteunrealised by this book. Robinson makes no attempt to correlate Aristotelianand contemporary psychological thinking, or to examine in depth any one ofAristotles theories from the standpoint of current psychology.

Instead, the book seems designed to offer the kind of int roduction toAristotles psychology that an Aristotelian scholar might offer. Th e obviousproblem with this project is that Robinson is not an Aristotelian scholar.Although he is reasonably familiar with Aristotles works in translat ion)and with some of the relevant secondary works, he does not have the masteryof the material that would enable him to provide a fully coherent andsuggestive survey. I n each of the chapters, he tends to rely heavily on one ortwo secondary works; and , although the exegesis ofAristotle is not disastrous,there is no real argumentative bite. Also, there are some mistakes in thetransli teration of Greek terms which could easily have been corrected beforepublication.

A further problem arises about the books subject. Robinson ranges wellbeyond what Aristotle would regard as psychology: he takes in Aristotlestheories of causation, biological classification, ethical virtue and politicalcommunity, as well as the material treated in the Z P Anima and the accounts ofmotivation and practical reasoning in the ethical treatises. There is, of course,a case for claiming that such topics are par t of psychology, as we understandthis. But this brings us back to the problem of the books standpoint . I s this astudy of Aristotles thinking on what we understand by) psychology, or ofwhat Aristotle understands as a distinct subject? Since one of the books centralclaims is that Aristotle has a psychological theory of great scope and cohesion,it is unfortunate that this key issue has not been addressed fully.

One positive merit of this book is that, having been written by apsychologist, it might come to the attention of students who would nototherwise know anything abou t Aristotle. However, such students would dofar better to read Jonathan Lears Aristotle The Desire to Understand

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(Cambridge University Press, 1988, paperback) , which covers a similarrange of topics to those of Robinsons book, b ut which offers a real chance ofmaking sense of Aristotles contribution to psychology in both the ancientand modern senses.UNIVERSITY O EXETER CHRISTOPHER GILL

Finding the Me an Theory and Practice in Aristotelian Political Philosophy

Princeton University Press, 1990. x 288 pp. 35.00By STEPHEN G SALKEVER

Salkever wants to show that Aristotle provides a richer source ofjustification for American liberal democracy than the Enlightenmentan d Rom antic traditions. I t is an impr obab le thesis which faces two largehurdles.

The first hurdle is the conviction many will have tha t the metaphysicalmatrix from which Aristotelian moral commitments flow just could not bethe source of anything like the package that comes labelled liberaldemocracy. This problem is not identified clearly enough, and in trying todeal with the incompatibility between Aristotelianism and Humeanism,Salkever shows little awareness of the metaphysical dep ths he is skating over.His main argument, against the Enlightenment critique of Aristotelianteleology, is best judged as political science rather than philosophy, since itmakes no pretence of considering even basic philosophical and Aristotelianlitera ture on teleology, explanation, an d identity.

Th e second hurdle is the view that Aristotelian ethical an d political valuesare incompatible with those of the Enlightenment and liberalism. Salkeversees little to prevent him simply asserting the opposite. Th e problem here isthat ancient society was not a market economy, whereas liberal democracyis so closely connected with market economy that it is sometimes used as aeuphemism for it. Aristotelian elhike and politike seem irreconcilable with themodern position where great areas of social decision-making are removedfrom the sphere of ethics and put into another sphere, supposedlyindependent of it, economics. N o serious attention is given to this problem, orto Aristotles opposition, so influential in the middle ages, to wealth asexchange-value rather than use-value, to trade and usury, and in general tothe pursuit of any calling for the sake of a purpose other than the telosinherent in that calling, particularly its pursuit for the sake of money.

Salkever wants to hold both that Aristotelian philosophy is superior tothat of the Enlightenment, and that Enlightenment moral and politicalcommitments are better than those normally attributed to Aristotle. So he isapt to do less than justice to the connections between Aristotles meta-physical commitments and his moral and political ones; he modernisesAristotle, arguing for instance that he was a critic of Greek virility cultureand so a sort of feminist; and he plays down those parts which fellow liberalsusually and anachronistically abjure as totalitarian, such as the view thatthe pol s is prior to the individual.

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