Necessity, Cause and Blame: Perspectives on Aristotle's Theory by R.

Sorabji
Review by: R. W. Sharples
The Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. 103 (1983), pp. 176-177
Published by: The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/630560 .
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176 NOTICES
comprehensible terms, and who rejects some of the
glorious excesses of Platonism without making it
dull-or rarelyso. Towards the end of the book, in the
long final chapter on 'The philosophy of human life',
there are traces of a certain impatience with Aristotle.
On pp. 368-9, for example, we find the following:
'Reading the Ethicsone sometimes has the impressionof
taking a lesson in Greek lexicography rather than in
moral philosophy.... I doubt if even Socrates and
Plato, with their insistenceon definitions, or a modern
upholder of the intimate connexion between philoso-
phy and language, would insist on our following into
detail the shadesof meaning in the Greek works which
we translateas liberalityand prodigality, over-ambition
and proper ambition, buffoonery, wit and boorishness,
and so on.' Such an unsympathetic and curiously
question-begging remark betrays none of the excite-
ment which Guthrie confesses to having felt on first
reading Aristotle. But that excitement is certainly in
evidence elsewhere; and especially when he is dealing
with Aristotle's conceptions of the nature of the
universe, god and mind. He revealshis hand alreadyon
p. 13. '[Aristotle's]philosophy can still be regardedas in
outline at least a unitary system, a brilliant synthesis
culminating in the extraordinary conception of the
Divine Intellect which is the ultimate cause of the
universe, while remaining completely indifferentto its
existence or non-existence.9
This is an intensely personalview; and indeed from
the beginning the book is explicitly a record of
Guthrie'sown personal'encounter' with Aristotle. It is
not intended to be the kind of encyclopaedicaccount of
Aristotle and Aristotelian scholarshipwhich readersof
earliervolumes of the Historymight have expected and,
perhaps, hoped for. It would be churlish, though, to
complain about not getting what we were never
promised. In any case, Guthrie'sspecialcommitment to
certain partsof the corpus does not radicallyunbalance
the book. Nor need one object too strongly to his
somewhat pietistic image of Aristotle the man (though
some of us may dubiously find Diogenes Laertius'
beringed, dapper Aristotle more suggestive). A more
reasonable objection will be to the degree to which
Guthrie appearsto suggest that Aristotle's conclusions
are already determined.'Like the importance of form,
[the concept of potential being] too was the outcome of
a habit of mind fostered by early training, namely the
teleological' (p. 106). On 'substance',Aristotle's 'diffi-
culties' are those of a Platonist 'who cannot bring
himself to believe that universal forms, specific or
generic, exist as transcendententities, but who yet is a
Platonist and fascinatedby the doctrine of immaterial
form as the truest reality' (p. 221). On the material
'cause', 'though Aristotle criticises Plato's conception,
the influence of the Timaeusappears undeniable' (p.
228). Appealing though such hypotheses may be, their
effect is to obscure the importance of other featuresof
'Aristotle's mind' which are more immediately in
evidence, and which Guthrie himself stresseselsewhere:
a fundamentalopenness,and an intense commitment to
argument. Guthrie's evident delight in Aristotle's
granderconclusions is an effective rejoinderto Ackrill's
statement that 'having to learn a doctrine is a boring
task,and speciallydepressingif you know that it is false'
(Aristotlethe Philosopher,p. 2), but to the extent that he
underplays the sophistication and intricacy of the
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OF BOOKS
arguments which lead to those conclusions, his picture
of'Aristotelianism' is incomplete. Another consequence
of his approachis to make Aristotle tidier than he is. He
argues strongly for the identification of 'active reason'
with god, so repairinga gap left by Aristotle himself-
and perhapsfor good reason;there is surely something
in these parts of the corpus of Sir Thomas Browne's
Aristotle (Guthrie,p. 92), 'who in matters of difficulty,
and such as were not without abstrusities,conceived it
sufficientto deliver conjecturalities'.On the other hand,
maybe Guthrieis right;and it is good in any caseto have
the arguments laid out so fully.
But of course there is plenty in the book which is
valuable both for the student, whom Guthrie has
primarilyin mind (p. x), and in whose propereducation
he was always keenly interested,and for the rest of us.
He sets out clearly the landmarksin the literature;he
writes with his characteristicconcern for scholarship
and for his subject;and he presentswith forthrightness
and vigour a view of Aristotle of a type which is
historically more important than any other. (Of the
relatively few typographical errors, proportionately
more occur where Greek is involved; the Greek goes
especially wrong in n. 5 on p. 254.)
C. J. ROWE
Universityof Bristol
SORABJI (R.) Necessity, cause and blame: perspec-
tives on Aristotle's theory. London:Duck-
worth. 1980. Pp. xvi+326,
[I] plate. C24.00.
This is an important,learned,and exciting book;
importantfor our understandingof Aristotle,and
importantfor the historyof the wide rangeof topicsit
covers,includingthe natureof causationandexplana-
tion, the relationof necessityto time, the place of
purposein biology,the distinctionbetweena prioriand
a posteriori,and the analysisof voluntaryandinvolun-
tary action with its implicationsfor legislatorsand
penologists.Anyone of theseissueswouldmakea book
in itself;but they are all linked by their relationto
Aristotle'sthoughton the centraltopic of necessity.
Thisis a topicwhichProfessorSorabjidiscussed some
years ago in his 'Aristotleand Oxford Philosophy'
(AmericanPhilosophicalQuarterly6 [1969] 127-35). This
book, too, is distinguishedby the combinationof
concernwith perennialphilosophical issueson the one
hand,anda keenhistoricalsenseon the other,thatthat
titlewouldsuggest.In thisbranchof classicalstudies,at
least,thecombinationof a synchronicanda diachronic
approachis essential;the philosophical
issuesarestillof
centralinteresttoday, but the assumptionsand the
conceptualframeworkof an ancientthinkermay well
not be thesameasthoseof modernphilosophers (evenif
modernphilosopherswere all agreed,which they are
not).Philosophersof 2 milleniajostleeachotherin S.'s
text and footnotes; but he is well aware of the
importanceof historicalcontext-drawing, for exam-
ple, in his treatmentof Aristotleon voluntaryand
involuntaryaction,on SirKennethDover'sconclusions
in GreekPopularMoralityas to the types of pleasin
mitigation that were and were not acceptableto
fourth-century Athenianjuries.
Given this approach,it is naturalthat, even where
ancientphilosophersare concerned,the book is not
 NOTICES
confined to Aristotle, in spite of its title. S. claims (see
below) that Aristotle'sapproachesto certainissueswere
superior to those which have prevailed in subsequent
philosophy, and which were already,he argues,those of
the Stoics (see for example pp. 64-7). This in itself is
sufficient to refute the old-fashioned idea that there is
little of philosophicalinterestin ancientphilosophy after
Aristotle. There is thus a whole chapter in S.'s book
devoted to the Stoic treatment of necessity and
possibility. The book does not claim to give a complete
account of the history of the problem of determinism
and human responsibilityin antiquity; but it will be of
fundamentalimportancefor all futurework in this area,
both for its contents and also for its excellent and
extensive bibliography.
The foundation and startingpoint of the book is the
discussionof causationand necessitationin the first two
chapters. Both for Aristotle and for S., coincidences as
such have no causes;and for S., though not for Aristotle,
S. argues, coincidences can be necessitated without
being caused. Conversely, and even more importantly,
both for Aristotle and for S. things can be caused
without being necessitated;the answer to the question
'what caused so-and-so?', S. argues, depends on the
context, and not all answers will be causes that render
the result necessary.(For the Stoics, on the other hand,
everything is the necessitated result of one or more
causes, and there are no true coincidences. It might be
added that later on Boethius interpreted Aristotle's
example of the finding of buried treasurenot as true
coincidence, but as the working of divine providence;
Consolationof Philosophy5 pr. 1.55-8.)
However, if 'cause' is relative to context, it might
seem that to speakofthings just as 'caused'or 'uncaused'
will be an oversimplification;anything indeed may be
said to be 'caused'from somepoint of view, but this may
not be very significant. The determinist's claim that
everything is causedin everyrespectmay well bejust an
act of faith, as S. argues, but it may still be the case that
free human actions must be uncaused in certain
important respects. S. holds that to describe human
action as a 'beginning', archi, does not mean that it is
uncaused(227 ff.); but it does seem to imply that there is
somethingabout it that cannot be caused or explained.
S.'s example is that of a student who goes to a lecture
nine times out often, but failsto go on the tenth; thereis
a cause or explanation, S. argues, of his going when he
goes (desire for knowledge) and of not going when he
doesn't (laziness),but there is no causeof his going rather
thannot going, or vice versa,on any specificoccasion (p.
30; cf. p. 232).
Moreover, while it may be that these are the most
typical cases of human actions, one does wonder
whether Aristotlewould have thought so. S. at one point
describes action in pursuit of a conscious policy as
exceptional (p. 239); but it might seem to be central to
Aristotle's ethical analysis (cf. also S.'s apt observation
that freedom need not imply variation, pp. 25o0-1).S.
expressly rejects the distinction some have drawn
between reasonsfor actions and causesof actions (p. 32);
it thus follows for him that any aspect of an action for
which there is no cause-such as performing it rather
than the opposite, in the case cited--is something for
which there is no reason.
S. well argues that, if Aristotle does not see
determinism as such a threat to free will as did later
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OF BOOKS 177
thinkers, this is not because determinism as a thesis had
not yet been formulated, but because he regarded the
difficultiesas being in the determinist'sposition rather
than in his own. In the course of his analysis of
Aristotle's treatment of the voluntary, he provides
reasons for thinking that parts at least of the 'common
books' belong with the EudemianEthicsratherthan with
the Nicomachean, and also for regardingthe Nicomachean
Ethics as the later work.
Some other particularpoints. Pp. 9-Io. The point
about the eclipse tomorrow being accidental(Metaph.K 8
Io65ai6) would be clearerif what Aristotle hadin mind
was the occurrenceof an eclipse at a particularcrisisin
events-like the one foretold by Thales (Herodotus
1.74.2) or the one which delayed the Athenian depar-
ture from Syracuse (Thucydides 7.50.4).
P. 67. It should perhapsbe stressedthat the libertar-
ians, in appealingto internalcauses,were notjust saying
that our actions are not necessitatedby external factors
alone, while allowing that they may be necessitatedby
the combination of these and factors internal to us; for
the determinist Stoics could, and did, argue this much
(pp. 79-83). (Alternatively, one could say that in a
deterministsystem no factorsare truly internal,for they
can all be tracedback to ones existing before the birth of
the agent; see p. 230.)
P. 70 nn. 2, 3. I have now discussed some of the
passages which S. uses to challenge my view here in
'Necessity in the Stoic doctrine of Fate', Symb. Osl. 56
(1981) 81-97.
P. 108. Cleanthes'motive in denying the necessityof
all that is pastcouldhave been to restrictthe term to what
is always so, as opposed to what is sometimes so and
sometimes not (as a result of fate in either case).
P. 147 n. 8. Perhaps it would be better to say that
Aristotle does not hold that rain fallsjust becauseof the
condensation in the clouds; cf. An. Post. 2.12 96a3
if.
Those of us who have been privileged to see partsof
this book in the course of its development, at various
seminars organised through the hospitality of the
Institute of Classical Studies of the University of
London, and at conferenceselsewhere, will find all our
expectations realisedin the completed work. S. tells us
that he is now working on a book on ancienttheoriesof
time (p. 124 n. 14); the presentbook shows that this too
is to be eagerly awaited.
R. W. SHARPLES
UniversityCollegeLondon
ARISTOTLE. A commentary on the Aristotelian
Athenaion Politeia. By P. J. Rhodes. Oxford:
Clarendon Press. 1981. Pp. xiii+795. C45.00.
With this 'monstrous book' (his own words) P. J.
Rhodes joins a formidable galaxy of editors and
commentators, I4EV7rKO~-T7r in a
a';7-o. However,
commentary upon so important a source-book as the
Athenaion Politeia comprehensiveness is surely more
desirable than economy, and the only thing I regret
about this book is its price. I could have wished that it
made some concession to the rising generation of
Classical Civilization students-those sans Latin and
sans Greek-but had it done so it would have had to be
even bigger and more expensive.
Not the least valuable section of the book are the