Barnes1988 the Presocratics in Context

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CRITICAL NOTICE

The Presocratics in Context

JONATHANBARNES

I

"This book is intended to bethe starting-point from which newwork on thePresocratics will derive impetus and inspiration" (p.vii).It "stands ... asthe beginning of a new programme of reading and interpretation of thePresocratics" (p.13). It pretends "to justify a new method ofapproach tothe reading of the Presocratics" (p.183).' 1

Audacious claims, iconoclastic and ambitious. Thetitle is itself some-thing of a boast. The argument is uncompromising. There is a swash-

buckling vigourof

thought,and a

willingness -an

eagerness -to address

folly by its proper name.And isthere really room for a newapproach to the Presocratics? Canwe

really set about rethinking earlyGreek philosophy? "Humph", the scepti-cal reader willmutter, "such pretensions can only puff themselves intofalsehoods - or else deflate into familiar truths".

Not so, not so. The boast isfirmly grounded, the audacity a proper pride.This is - to be blunt - the best bookon the Presocratics I have seen foryears.I am minded to rank italongside Reinhardt's Parmenides - and is therehigher praise?Dr Osborne says some newthings. She says some true things.She says some interesting things.She says some important things.

And therefore formost of this review I shallgrowl and grumble.2


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II

There is anintroductory chapter expounding the new methodology, andpreferring it to the traditional approach. The new method is to be testedonHippolytus' account of the Presocratics. Theprocedures and habits ofHippolytus are first examined in the controllable cases ofAristotle andSimon Magus. Then, at the heart of the book, come detailed analyses ofHippolytus' discussions of thephilosophies of Empedocles and Heraclitus.Substantial appendixes deal with Book I of theRefutatio, and with theApophasis Megale of Simon, and offer an English translation ofRefutatioIV-X opposite a reprint of Wendland's Greek text.3

I shall pass some comments first on the newmethodology, then on DrOsborne's appreciation of Hippolytus, and finally on her interpretation ofHeraclitus. Many of her most interesting and challenging pageswill per-force bepassed by.

j III

The approach to the Presocratics which Dr Osborneregards as traditionalconsists essentially in this injunction: Distinguishas carefully as you can theipsissima verba of thePresocratics (the fragments sensu stricto); base yourinterpretation primarily uponthem; call upon the other textsonly when thefragments do not suffice - and then with thegreatest caution.

The new approach offers a new injunction: Read the 'fragments' if youwill, but read them in context; attend to the interpretations of those ancientauthors whoquote the Presocratics; found your own interpretation on their

interpretations.The orthodox say: Free the fragments from their false contexts. Theheretic says: Take the whole texts - fragments and contexts and all.

I discern threearguments against the traditional method.(1) If we focus on thefragments, we blinker ourselves.For the selection

of those fragments which survive was determined by "the same interestedand biassed readings as the notorious doxography" (p.3); it is a foolishoptimism to believe, with Barnes, that "these fragments preservethe most


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important and most interesting of their philosophical doctrines" - "it ismore often the case that the selection offragments is governed bycuriousand perverse personal preoccupations on the part of the doxographers"(p.7) . - No doubt Bames wasfoolishly optimistic. Nonetheless, the tradi-tionalists have a sound defence. They mayhold, first, that interest and biasmay be recognized and trumpeted. ('Of Parmenides' Way of Opinion weknow little - for the ancient authors were more interested in theWay ofTruth. Hence I cannot pretend to offer you a rounded accountof Parme-nides' thought.') The traditionalists are not obliged bytheir method to beoptimists. And secondly, any view ofthe Presocratics isbound tobe limitedin this very way. Telepathy apart, we know the Presocraticsonly throughlater authors. We shallnever remove theblinkers, do what we will.

(2) We cannot tell whether we are facedby ipsissima verba or not: themodish searchfor 'fragments' presupposes a modern concern forscholarlyquotation which wasforeign to ancient writers (see p. 4).

There are genuine difficulties here, which scholars often overlook. Thefirst question the traditionalists need to ask of a text isthis: Does the authorpurport to quote here? And sometimes the answer must be: Who knows?But Dr Osborne greatly exaggerates the difficulties. I may be allowed a few

lines on the matter.She illustrates her claimby adducing the four texts assembled by Diels-

Kranz under Heraclitus B36 and B76."Are these onefragment", she asks,"two fragments, or four fragments?" (p.5).The answer isplain: They areno fragments. We can tell from these texts that their authors are notpurporting to quote: we have no reason to think that we arehere dealingwith fragments; and a traditionalist will have no difficulty in discerning this- or in discarding the texts from hisprimary evidence. (Which is not tosay

that all traditionalists have discarded them.)She justifies her claim by asserting that whereas modern editions can useinverted commas tomark off quotations, "such devices were not available


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to the writers whoactually quoted them" (p.4). But the ancients had andused unambiguous devices for marking off quotations. Galen frequentlyquotes - and frequently with polemical intent. In his attack onArchigenesin diff puls II, for example, he introduces verbatim citationsby writing:xaia W6i jru)? yeygapp£vqv (VIII 591K); iavirwIfiv (ibid);Ifiv (592); ?xovo?r?5 (602);Ev Ijj

(625); EVTal6TI ,ltfl g1ÍoEL(626); £nl tfl IeXeulfi TOf)X6you (627);3taQaYQá


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Secondly, we can often spot anachronisms and biasses of one sort oranother. If the Neoplatonists interpret Heraclitus by way of their owndistinction between a world ofperception and a world ofintellection, wecan properly rejecttheir exegesis and for obvious reasons. Moretritely, wecan often establish that anancient interpretation misreads - by accident ordesign - some particular word orphrase in a Presocratic text.No doubt theancients were betterplaced than we are. It does notfollow that we cannever correct or surpass them. And in point of fact we often can.

The hermeneutical stance hasit that "the aim is not asingle conclusivereading but an exploration of the range of meanings brought out by thecreative use of the text"(p. 10). "Every different interpretative standpoint

will produce different insights, and this justifies the exploration of eachancient interpretation as a legitimate reading ofthe text" (pp.11-12, myitalics). Thus, in the end, "Hippolytus' interpretation has served as a basisfor an exploration in the thought of Heraclitus andEmpedocles. It has notbeen set forth as the truth"(p. 186). And ingeneral, "there is noway thatone can cutthrough the layers to some 'objective truth' about themeaningof the 'fragments'

"(p.22). Rather, the ancient interpretations should be

taken simply as "the jumping-off point for our ownexplorations of possible

readings". We are explorers, mapping out readings. We are trappers,setting gins for creative insights. And the truth? The correctinterpretation?How naive - howvery Anglo-Saxon - to think that there isany such beast.

I think all this iswrong, and perniciously wrong.So, really, does DrOsborne. She isperfectly happy to say of Hippolytus that "the finalpicturewhich he succeeds in conveying is highly tendentious and unorthodox[anglice, false]as an interpretation of Aristotle" (p. 62) Y I do not believethat Dr Osborne wants to 'explore'possible readings. Certainly,I do not. Iwant to find out what on earth the stuff

reallymeans. I want to discover the

truth - or at least to uncover some falsehoods. If that were ahopelessventure, then I should give up the game and turn totapestry-making.

The hermeneutic stance is to beexploded. And in any case, the newmethod can dovery well without it. But the methodrequires a moral, and Ihave argued that the moral which Dr Osborne draws is false. Yet Isuspectthat it was offered more as apiece of bravado than asa credo; for elsewhereDr Osborne iscontent with something more modest. Thus she says ofHippolytus' readingof Heraclitus that it is"incomplete so far as our total


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reading of the context-free fragments" (p.185).Even were the criticright,Dr Osborne's methodwould still be thecorrect method. Nonetheless, wewant results. And to these I now turn.

Marcovich describes Hippolytus as "an unscrupulous and reckless plagia-rist" (op.cit., p.36). He was acopyist, and astupid copyist: "sometimes hewould copy his source so hastily or mechanically that he would notnoticeeven amajor error in it..., or he wouldmisunderstand his source and thenwrite down a nonsense" (p.50). Dr Osborne demurs. She allows thatHippolytus sometimes copies, and that he issometimes pretty careless inhiscopying . But she holds that in thepassages which matter - inthe passageswhere Hippolytus is presenting the pagan philosophies which prefigure theChristian heresies - "his handling of the material issensitive rather thanmindless andoriginal rather than second-hand" (p. 14).

The claim istested on two cases in which we have a control, namely onHippolytus' accounts of SimonMagus and of Aristotle. I do not knowwhatto make of the curious account of SimonMagus. On the story of Apsethos,Dr Osborne says that "the composition as it stands represents Hippolytus'own creation" (p.73); but she also notes that "itis possible that he hassimply derived the whole story from another anti-heretical context now

lost" (p.73 n.4). The other mainpart of the account, the story of Helen, isgenerally supposedto derive from Irenaeus - "the adherence is soclose thatHippolytus is used to provide the otherwise lost Greek textof Irenaeus"(p.73). Even if Dr Osborne isright in suggesting that Hippolytus has usedhis own genius in refashioning the material hetook from Irenaeus, we shallstill see him asessentially a copyist.

And in any case, the account ofSimon is not obviously pertinent to DrOsbome's project. It is apiece of biography (or rather, of anecdotage), not

of philosophy. Even if Hippolytus here proves himself an independentoperator (inthe etiolated sense which Dr Osbornepostulates), we may notinfer that he is also an independent - and an intelligent - operator inphilosophical matters.

Aristotle is abetter test. Dr Osborne offers asequence of arguments toshow that in VII xv-xix Hippolytus tackles the Peripatetic philosophy in ascholarly and independent manner. I shall comment on afew of her morecontentious points.

(1) Aristotle is thepagan parallel to Basilides; and since the parallelismis Hippolytus' own invention, the probability is that he has himself


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(3) Hippolytus' arguments about obaca are taken from Catand Met(p.44)." Again, Dr Osbome misreads the text. ISShe seesparallels where Isee only the vaguest of similarities (p.46). She indulges in some specialpleading (p.48).

(4) Hippolytus explicitly refers to Cat(p.51), which he actually quotes.Alas, such references prove nothing: it is afamiliar habit of ancient - andmodem - scholarsthat they refer to works whichthey have never evenseen.

(5) He refers to Aristotle inhis account of the views of Basilides. Butwhy should this make it "reasonable tosuggest that Hippolytus shows someimmediate knowledge of Aristotle's works" (p.51)?

And against Dr Osbome's thesis?First, Hippolytus purports to presentza 'Aewcoi?7?w 60xo+vla (VII xiv), which - in the context - shouldmean "Aristotle's philosophy".19 But no-one who wasacquainted withAristotle's works could possibly imagine that Hippolytus' paragraphs re-presented the whole ofPeripatetic thought. More generally, the nature ofthe material - partial, inaccurate, facile, ej une - mightseem toexclude anynear acquaintance with Aristotle's own texts.(Yet an objection rears: bythe same token onemight argue that Heidegger had never reada word ofGreek philosophy ... Well then, the nature of the material shows this:either Hippolytus had never readAristotle, or else he read him with noscholarly understanding.) Again,Dr Osbome does not considerthe variousintermediate sources forPeripatetic philosophy, or the likelihood of theiruse by Hippolytus. She does notgo in for Quellenforschung of the sortsuggested by Wendland's criticalapparatus or by Marcovich's introductorycomments. I confess that itseems to me overwhelmingly unlikelythatHippolytus had read or used Aristotle, and virtually certain that hedrew hisknowledge of the Peripatos from some late sourceor other. But this

requires further investigation.


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Dr Osborne concludes her discussion ofHippolytus' account of Aristotleby ascribing to him "a close and intelligent reading of Aristotle's text"(p.65). Had we lost Aristotle's works, she suggests, and were weobliged torely on Hippolytus, then weshould be foolish to restrict our attentionto the'fragments' which he quotes - rather, we should look to Hippolytus' in-terpretation of the texts he knew(cf. p.61 ) .°The interpretation is surelyinteresting - for the light it may shed on Hippolytus and on the history ofAristotelianism (cf. p.66). But in itselfthe interpretation is perfectly ludi-crous as an account of Aristotle's views. Had Aristotle notsurvived, weshould welcome thesmall fragments which Hippolytus preserves; and weshould print the Hippolytan context in which they are embedded. But as for

Hippolytus' version of Aristotle's philosophy, we should tossit, with alightlaugh, into the nearest waste-paper basket.

In sum, I cannot agree with Dr Osborne's warm assessmentof Hippoly-tus. Marcovich, I fear, is nearer the truth. Despite this, I think that DrOsborne's pages on Hippolytus contain matter of thegreatest value: shereads Hippolytus' Refutatio as a text, and not simply as a matrix forfragments; she is concerned to understand and to explain the generalstructure of Hippolytus' attack on the heresies; and on numerous particular

points she isilluminating.21

V

Heraclitus is compared to Noetus: in order to understand whatHippolytuswishes tosay about Heraclitus, we must appreciate his attitude to Noetus.Dr Osborne's remarks on thissubject (pp. 134-142)are brimming with goodsense and sound judgement.


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As for Hippolytus' account ofHeraclitus, she finds aclear plan to thetext: Hippolytus first gives a programmatic summary of Heraclitus' views("The all is divisible andindivisible, created anduncreated, ...": IX ix1),and then "proceeds to give a detailed account ofthe material on which hebased" thissummary claim (p. 153). Dr Osborne makes Hippolytus neaterand more coherent thanhe is: even if her analysis of the section iscorrect(p. 145 n.35), the detailed account does notcorrespond to the programme.Of course, the text is corrupt, and transpositions maywell be required.Even so, of two things one: either the text is morehorribly mangled thaneven Marcovich thinks, or else Hippolytus made a fist ofthe thing.

A few comments on individualfragments:

- Bl: Hippolytus introduces thefragment by saying6TL 8? Àóyoç EQtLvMelio 3tàv ... ovic?5 ÀÉYEL(IX ix 3). Hence (so Dr Osborne infers) hefound in the Heraclitean phrase Ton bE X6you Io+6' i6VTOg6ei ... areference to 'the all'. Hence we must have taken Iob6e to refer to'the all'.Hence his textof Heraclitus musthave contained a sentencebefore Io+6ewhich made this reference clear.Perhaps his text of Heraclitus began:


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Marcovich's textgives the following train of thought:(1) [see B51](2) The all is invisible[see B54](3) The all is visible[see B55 - and alsoB56]

This train ofthought is as clear asDr Osborne's, and it requires much less inthe way of emendation. It is notwholly satisfactory: B54 and B55refer tothe superiority of the invisible over the visible and viceversa, and so do notobviously support claims (2) and (3); nor does B56seem tooffer evidencefor (3). Maybe Hippolytus stretched the texts hequoted. But I incline tothink that we must rest content with a nonliquet: I doubt if we canreconstruct Hippolytus' text at thispoint. Nevertheless, it is, I think, plainthat only the most daring of interventions could give Hippolytus the sem-blance of a"clear argument".- B56: "What the riddle demonstrates is that the seen and the unseen ...are actually all the same andequally worthless" (p.163, my italics).22Infragments B56-61 Dr Osborne sees, on the basisof the Hippolytan context,a concern to"deny the traditional distinctions of value"(p. 164), to "under-mine the conventional distinctions of morality" (p. 168).I do not thinkthatthe Hippolytan context requires - or even suggests - this interpretation. DrOsborne strains the sense of the Greek.Certainly, Hippolytus holds that,according to Heraclitus, "good and bad are the same"(IX x 3 - cf.2). Forthis he citesB58 (the tormenting doctors). Dr Osborne says that "similarimplications of value can be identified in the other opposites mentioned inthis passage" (p. 164).Well, they can be - but they need notbe, and nothingin the text indicates thatthey should be. She claims that"Hippolytus'introductory comment makesexplicit the association withgood and evil" ofB57 (p. 164). The introductory comment is this: "That iswhy23Heraclitussays that neither light and darkness, nor evil andgood, are different but oneand the same" (IX x 2). I cannot see that thisimplies a moral interpretationfor light and darkness. Theemphasis is on the unity of opposites, not on therejection of values.


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- B57 (Hesiod on day and "Heraclitus' point is that it is impossiblethat day and night are two things, since it is impossible to envisage bothtogether.... it is in virtue of their being one and the same thatnight andday are alternatives since this aloneexplains the logical impossibility oftheir occurring as two together" (pp. 166-167).Thisreads a lot into B57. Nodoubt we must readsomething into B57 ifwe are to give it any sense. Buthere Dr Osborne cannot callon Hippolytus to support her reading - and sheascribes to Heraclitus a line ofthought which is at once recherch6and silly.- B59 (the "Hippolytus' introduction, and hisgloss on the pre-cise instrument involved, both suggest a reading which identifies thestraight and crooked paths as a reference to'straight' and 'crooked' usesofthe same machine inthe fulling industryand in torture" (p. 168). There isnoevidence that one and the same machine had these two functions inantiqui-ty. (The word xox?,la5 may indeed designate an instrument of torture - butthat is not the samepoint.) Hippolytus' introduction is short:"Straight andcrooked, he says, are the same"(IX x 4). This does notsuggesttwo uses of amachine, nor does itsuggest anything to do with torture.Hippolytus' glossis this: "The turning of the instrument calledxoxÀLaçinthe fullery is straight and crooked - for it goes upwards and in acircle atthe

same time" (ibid). This gloss makes it quite evident that Hippolytus isthinking not of two machines and two functions butof one machine and onefunction - acylinder (I suppose)which revolves about its own axis whilesimultaneously rising verticallyin a straight line. Dr Osborne here ignoresor misreads theplain sense of Hippolytus' text. And ironically this is one ofthose texts where her new method is of some considerableimportance. Forwithout theHippolytan context wecould not even reconstructHeraclitus'text, let alone understand its reference.

- B66 (the fire next Hippolytus takes this textto refer to "universal judgement and consummation by fire"; but "it is quite possible that thewords were used in avery different context, with reference to the role of firein perception: 'Fire will attend to allthings in turn, distinguish them andcomprehend'

"(p.171). Possible, at a pinch.26 But how can Dr Osborne


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entertain the possibility? Her new method shouldsharply dismiss such'modern' suggestions: we have theplain interpretation of Hippolytus; wehave no reason to

reject it;so let us

acceptit. Here - and

rumly -Dr

Osborne seems todefy her own precepts.- B63 (the 'resurrection' fragment): Dr Osborne's discussion ofthis text isthe most elaborate application of the new method. She thinks that theHippolytan context willhelp us to produce a correct text of thesepuzzlingwords; and, further, that the Hippolytan interpretation will help us tounderstand what Heraclitusoriginally meant. As for thetext, we shouldread £y£gaei (£yegli§6vImv MS, iyEQTi?iuvtcuv Bernays, edd)

(pp. 176-177).The sense is this:

The logosis here amongthem but foolish men rise inhostilityagainstit and setthemselves asguards againstan awakeningof thelivingand the dead(p. 178).

We ordinary chapsresist the truth; what's more, we try to stop other chapsfrom waking upto it. (Do we try to stop the dead too?Well, the living "arelike the dead orthe sleeping in their ignorance" (p . 178) . )If this isright, it isa major contribution toHeraclitean scholarship - and abright testimony tothe powers of the new method.

Hippolytus introduces thefragment thus: "He actually refers to a resur-rection (avaoiaa?5) of this visible flesh in which we wereborn, and heknows that god is the cause of thisresurrection, thus: ..." (IX x 6). DrOsborne holdsthat Hippolytus must be referring specificallyto the resur-rection of Christ (p.174). Hence behind the corrupt £yegli§6vImv weshould expect to find a reference toChrist's resurrection, and 9YEC)CFLgisthe word towelcome - forÈYELQwis often used inconnection with theraising of Christ Hence Hippolytus understood the fragment as

follows:Whengodwashere in this world men roseup againsthim and set themselvesasguards againsthimwho wasthe awakeningof thelivingand the dead(p. 177).

To get the original Heraclitean sense fromthis, we need only replace Christby the and read §yegaig in an abstract rather than a personifiedsense. Hey presto.

There aresome queer thingshere. First, Hippolytus is not referring to the

resurrection of Christ but to the general resurrection. Dr Osborne allowsthat the first reference toavaa?aa?5 in IX x 6 must be to the generalresurrection, but she holds that the second reference applies to Christ


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(p. 174). But the second reference picks up the first (TAYTH? Ifigava -almaewg) and therefore must also indicate thegeneral resurrection. But

secondly,Dr Osbome's own

interpretationof B63 doesnot in fact contain

any reference to the resurrection of Christ: the?yceav5 in her text is Christhimself ("I am the resurrection ... " )8, it is not the resurrection of Christ.Dr Osbome's falseunderstanding of Hippolytus' avaozaws is thus irrele-vant to her interpretation of B63.

Thirdly, if we ask where in B63Hippolytus saw a reference to theresurrection, then the answer isplain: he saw it in the word È3taVLmaO'ttaL.It is true that 97FL)CYLgis also used for"resurrection", but Hippolytus' textleaves no doubt that hisdvdoraobg

prefiguresHeraclitus' È3tavLmaO'ttaL.

To translate the verbby "rise against" is, in this context, perverse. And thusDr Osborne's interpretation collapses."- B67 (God is night and day): at IX x8 Hippolytus writes:

Ev8ETO-6'tq) xEtpoXaKp jtdvra 6401DI6v 610v vouv aua ôÈ xaiI6vN011101)alg£aEwg 6L'6ÀLYWV§1£6Ei%aovx 6vTaXevoiov6hhM'Hqax-hElIovItafurnív. (Textfrom Marcovich)

Scholars have worried about the'chapter' to which Hippolytus apparently

refers.3° According to Dr Osborne, "in this chapter" refers not to anychapter of Heraclitus, but to "the summary which Hippolytus has just givenof Heraclitus' doctrines" (p.179). How can that be? Well, first, we mustrecognize that the subject of the verb is not Heraclitus but rather6Rof) jtdvra (ibid). Next, the v8?o5 vov5should be taken as the"particularidea, common to Heraclitus and Noetus"(p. 180). Finally,instead ofadding with Marcovich and everyone else, we should correct the grammarby excising Ra"v (ibid).Thus:

Inthissummaryallthings togetherhave set forth hisparticularidea,and at thesametime I havebrieflyshown that theparticularidea of the heresyof Noetus isnotChrist's idea but Heraclitus'(ibid).

This willhardly command assent: willany reader imagine that 3avza 6po+could be the subject of Plainly the subject of the verb is


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Heraclitus - thesubject of the preceding xakei and thefollowing ÀÉYEL. 32That isbeyond discussion.

It follows that we need thetraditional .33 What, then, of thenotorious 'chapter'? There has been much fussabout nothing - for thechapter does not exist.Although the word XE(p6EkaLOVmay mean "chap-ter", it has other senses. In one of these it refers to shortsections orexcerpts . And that is mostprobably the sense which it bears in thepresenttext. 3SThen zoviw looks forward, and the whole textsays:

In thefollowing passage[i. e.inB67]he has set downall of his ownthought* -and atthe same time that of the sect ofNoetus,whom Ihavebrieflyshown tobe adisciplenot ofChrist butof Heraclitus.

Everything fits neatly into place.3'

VI

This has beena robust review. Ibelieve thatmany of the things Dr Osbornesays in her book arefalse, and that a few of them areperverse. But I alsobelieve thatmuch of the book - which inmy curmudgeonly styleI have kept

mum about - is true, and that muchis importantly true. Moreover, even if


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everything in it were false, the book would still be amajor achievement. Forthe new method is theright method. Only one story of a path remains.

I end as I began - and not from politeness. This is thebest book on thePresocratics I have readfor decades.

Balliol College, Oxford

Documents

Barnes1988 the Presocratics in Context