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Mind Association

Love and Friendship in Plato and Aristotle. by A.W. PriceReview by: Micheal PakalukMind, New Series, Vol. 99, No. 395 (Jul., 1990), pp. 487-489Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Mind Association

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Book Reviews 487reasonablejudges, the presumption is further weakenedthat more than onepersonmustbe ableto givea relevantresponse f theostensiblyprivate anguage sin fact to be intelligible. It has to be specificallyarguedthat there couldnot becircumstancesn which the role of reasonable udgewas theprerogative f asingleindividualsomeone who had shown himself to have normal reactionsin thecheckable ases.Travis does indeedhavefurtherargumentsat this point,but myimpression s that they proceed for the most part along alreadyfamiliar ines,ratherthan exploit anything that is distinctive of his model. If not, we have arecurrence f the kind of difficultyalreadymentioned:as with the exampleof themilk, it is not clear how, e.g., 'He has toothache' could be sometimes true,sometimesfalse, withoutchange of meaning, so not clear what significance oattachto the inabilityof reasonable udgesto contribute n the privatecase.WhatI amhereindicatingareuncertainties n my partas to how the argumentgoes, ratherthancertainties hat it goes wrong. As in the precedingsections,theargumenton this topic is extremelyrich, complex and inventive,with so manytwists and turns, so many alternativescanvassed, objections countered andrefinementsntroduced, t is nevereasy to be confidentthat one'sobjectionshavenot been takeninto account,at least implicitly.This constantattentionto detailandexactitude s generallya virtue, but the ever-presentqualifications n minorpoints canmakefortiresome nterruptions f the mainlineof thought.The readerhasalso to contendwitha numberof infelicitiesof style. There is, for instance,adistractinguse of words ike 'speaking'and 'understanding' s count nouns'on aspeaking','understandings';he verb 'say' is regularlyused with an awkwardaccusativeand infinitiveconstruction ...in the one we would state fact in sayingthe item to have P' (p. 27)-and more generallythere are too many passageswhichhaveto be rereadbefore theirmeaningcanbe taken n. However, t is wellworthmaking the effort to keep up with the author on his thoroughand wide-ranging explorations.Whether he has represented Wittgenstein correctly issometimesquestionable,but in generalhe is clearlyvery much in commandof hismaterial,and in anyeventhis own ideasaresufficiently nteresting n themselvesto meritclose consideration.TrinityCollege,Oxford BEDE RUNDLE

Love and Friendship n Plato and Aristotle. By A.W. Price. Oxford: OxfordUniversityPress, 1989. Pp. xiv + 249. ?22.50The characterof this book is to a greatextent revealed n this fact: there is nointroductory hapter.A.W. Price'sfirstchapter s on Plato'sLysis, his first line:'What s the topicof the Lysis,and what is its conclusion?'Priceplungesdirectlyinto details.This is unfortunate;orone wouldliketo see a philosophical ntroduction hatdiscussedsuchissues as the reasons orthecurrentrevivalof interest n friendshipin moralphilosophy,or thereasonswhyfriendshiphasbeen forso longneglected.At leastone would like to be given, at the start, a view of the landscape:what isingenious, or unexpected, or hard for us to understand, or important toappreciate, n the rich, classicaldiscussionsof friendship.Admittedly,Pricetells us on his firstpage thathis aim is 'to display that their

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488 MichaelPakalukapproach sc. of Plato and Aristotle]is reflectiveand fertile, well-conceived ntheoryandpregnant n practice; o respond o it brisklywith theclichesof modernthought is to prefer the pleasuresof the parrot o the painsof the philosopher'.gather romthis that Price'sbook s meant to be, let us say,moretherapeutichandoctrinal: here is a wayof doingsocialphilosophy,embodied n the accountsofPlato andAristotleof friendship,whichwillappearchoiceworthy, f competentlyand properlydisplayed.There can be little doubtthatPrice achieves his in the writingof his book:butwill readersreapthe benefit?Loveand Friendships very densely written.Price'ssentences are oftentimes exquisitely subtle; all are delicately nuanced andqualified.Althoughtheir styles are quite different,Priceneeds to be decodedasQuineneedsto be decoded-because the thought,withgreatagility,is continuallysteering awayfrom paths that are easy becausethey lead downhill. There is anaskesis n readingPrice's book;one comes away intellectuallydisciplined;andperhapsthat is its main point.The texts Price subjects to careful exegesis are familiar: Plato's Lysis,Symposium, nd Phaedrus,Aristotle'sEthics(EudemianVII and NicomacheanVIII andIX) andPoliticsI andII. Chaptersare devoted to 'The Household' ch.6) and 'The City' (ch. 7), exhibitingthe full scope of the Greeknotion of philia.Some neglected topics receive a refreshingly ull treatment, e.g. What sort offriendshipcan exist betweenmasterand slave(ch. 6, 4)?What is Aristotle'sviewof eroticlove (Appendix4)? Exactly howis it, according o Aristotle,that a goodman can be friends with a bad (pp. 128-30)?At the same time, some topics, of which one should like to see a detailedtreatment,go unaddressed.For instance,Pricesays little about the characterofthe 'flatterer'-that anti-friend or both Plato and Aristotle.Along with othercommentators,he ignoresthe longerargument n EN IX.9 intendedto establishthatthereis a naturalneedfor friends.Again,Price does not focuson the preciseoperationof particular irtues justiceparticular ndgeneral,practicalwisdom) nthe lives andactionsof friends.And generally,Pricedoes not, except in passing,applyhis conclusionsaboutEthicsVIII andIX to questionsarisingout of the restof the Ethics-a disappointmentor thosewho takethe books on friendship o beof crucial mportance or understandinghe Ethicsas a whole.Nonetheless, LoveandFriendship ow becomesindispensable or the investigationof such matters.Price's discussions of a varietyof topics are distinctiveand important;I canonly providea samplerhere. He is convincing n his rebuttalof Vlastos'chargethat love, for Plato,can haveonly an instrumentalustification.And Price'sdeftcritiqueof John Cooper'swell-knownaccountof the role of goodwill (eunoia)acrossthe threetypesof Aristotelianriendshipoughtto be regardedas definitive(ch. 5). The ascentof eros(Symposium2ioa-d) is persuasively escribedby Priceas a seriesof 'consolidations' nd 'intimations'pp. 38ff)-and in his AppendixI,he effectivelycounters Martha Nussbaum'ssuggestion(Fragilityof Goodness,pp. I79f) that Plato'sdescriptionof the ascentpresupposes he homogeneityofbeauty.In addition,Price'scharacterizationf Aristotle's complete riendship'asa 'complex particular'pp. I24-30) is quite helpfulfor revealingwhat is wrongwith the complaint that friends, in an Aristotelian friendship, could onlycontribute o each other'shappinessas interchangeablenstancesof humanvirtue.Throughout,much skill and a very soundjudgmentare evidencedin Price's

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BookReviews 489use of texts. Price never strains;he does not push or distort to advancehisargument.The text of Loveand Friendship loses with an epilogue, a lengthyquotationfrom M. Guyauon the social characterof humanlife, the essence of which iscontained n theselines: It is necessary hatindividual ifeshoulddiffuse tselfforanother, n another,and, if needbe, giveitself.Well,this diffusion s not contraryto nature: t is, on the contrary,according o nature; urthermore,t is the veryconditionof true ife'This is the visionthatinformsPrice'sbook,Pricerepeatedlydrawsattentionto those featuresof the classicalaccountsof love and friendshipthatwouldhelpus, as the book-cover ays,overcome theold dichotomybetweenegoismand altruism'.One way in which the 'dichotomy' s sometimesovercome s by denyingtheseparateness f humanbeings.This, in turn,canbe done in variousways:oneis toclaim,likesomeGreekand Arabic nterpreters f Aristotle, hatall humanbeingshave numerically he same mind (cp. CharlesKahn, 'Aristotleand Altruism',Mind,go);another s to deny thatnumerical dentity,strictlyspeaking,applies ohuman beings at all (as Derek Parfit might be understoodto hold). Price isconvinced,and it seems to me correctly, that there is an attractivevia mediabetweenthese two views in the discussionsof Platoand Aristotleon friendship.This middle position could be described as one which allows for a (partial)identity of a 'life' among those who are, as persons (or minds, or souls),numericallydistinct.Pricehimselfdoesnot explicitlydevelopsuch a view in LoveandFriendship:swas stated, his intent is to displaythis view at work. Nor, naturally,does heattemptto apply this view, once displayed,to contemporarymoralphilosophy.But that could be seen as a virtueof the book for, as Aristotlemight say, suchapplicationbelongs to a different nquiry.ClarkUniversity MICHAEL PAKALUKPast Masters:Hobbes,Locke,Berkeley,HumeBy InteLex Corporation,Rt.2 Box383, Pittsboro,N. Carolina.The great classicistRichardBentley was able to say definitivelythat a certainword did not occur in the corpus of Greek literature;his biographerproperlycommented hata lifetimeof learningwentintothe negation.The comingdecadeis likely to see many of us able to imitate him. InteLex's release of the mainphilosophicalworksof the empiricists n electronicform is a useful foretasteofthingsto come. It is inexpensive,occupiesonlya reasonable mountof diskspace,andgivestheordinary eadera powerto search he works hatwould otherwisebeimpossible.In moredetail,it consists of a searchpackage Folio Views)and the followingtexts: Hobbes, The Elementsof Law, De Cive, Leviathan;Locke, An EssayConcerning umanUnderstanding, woTreatises f Government;erkeley,Of thePrinciples fHumanKnowledge,ThreeDialogues,An EssayTowards New Theoryof Vision,Alciphron; nd Hume Treatiseof HumanNature,both Enquiries,TheNaturalHistoryofReligion,DialoguesConcerning aturalReligionMyOwnLife',and a selection of the philosophicalEssays. Perhapsthe only text one regrets