Aristotle's Criticism of Plato and the Academy

Abstract

MR. CHERNISS'S large volume will be most welcome to all serious students of Greek philosophy; none the less that it lays a heavy burden of duty upon them. There is already a vast literature in many languages dealing with the meaning and value of the criticisms of Plato by his most eminent pupil, and a wide discrepancy of opinion on almost every aspect of the problem. Often it is disputable whether a particular criticism is directed against Plato himself or against some Academic of the first generation, Speusippus, Xenocrates or another, and his version (or perversion) of the master's meaning. Where the critique is levelled against Plato by name, it is often uncertain what precise pronouncement of Plato is being attacked and what the precise point of the attack is meant to be. Even when Aristotle expressly quotes the words of a Platonic dialogue for controversial purposes, his quotations are often not quite accurate (presumably because the very format of a Greek book made 'verification of references' almost impossible). Even when the quotation is exact, we often see that its meaning has been twisted by Aristotle's habit of treating metaphorical language as though it were meant for a literal statement of matter of fact, or his tendency to assume that a word has in Plato the same precise sense as it bears in his own technical vocabulary. How, then, are we to deal with criticisms which, like most of those aimed in the "Metaphysics" at the "Theory of Ideas", are concerned with statements never expressly made in the Platonic dialogues at all? If Plato said these things, it must have been in what Aristotle calls his 'unpublished' teaching. How can we trust implicitly either Aristotle's apprehension of Plato's meaning, or even his accuracy in reporting Plato's words? Small wonder that there should be in the literature to which such a problem has given rise quot homines, tot sententiœ.

Aristotle's Criticism of Plato and the Academy

By Harold Cherniss. Vol. 1. Pp. xxvii + 610. (Baltimore, Md.:Johns Hopkins Press; London:Oxford University Press, 1944.) 33s. 6d. net.