Aristotle's Metaphysics

Rating:
Summary: Meticulous translator of Aristotle
Review: I've not read Sachs's translation of the Metaphysics, though I did work through his version of the Physics during a summer at St. John's College (where he teaches). His Metaphysics was circulating as a xerox copy at the college bookstore; I'm glad to see it in print.

Anyone unfortunate enough (as I am) to read Aristotle in English rather than ancient Greek, can benefit from Sachs's translations, though it remains worthwhile to have something like the classic Oxford translation alongside, to compare their senses of the Greek text. Sachs's object is to recover what Aristotle may've been up to, by avoiding the Latinate terminology that haunts Aristotle studies and trying to find more "authentic" meanings for the Greek words. Whatever his ultimate success or failure, it's wonderful to have such a fresh approach to the translation of Aristotle available.

Rating:
Summary: Maybe Aristotle wasn't interested in philosophy
Review: This translation of Aristotle from the Greek directly into modern English makes use of the scholarship surrounding the efforts which have been most successful with Heidegger.

`Thus, the way I understand *to ti en einai* departs from, but is rooted in, Owen's understanding of it. The same is true of my rendering *ousia* as "thinghood," when it is used in a general sense, and as "an independent thing" when it is used of singulars. I have heard two sorts or criticism of my use of the word thinghood in Aristotle's PHYSICS. The one sort, that it occasions laughter or embarrassment, is a general instance of Heidegger's observation in WHAT IS A THING? that philosophy is that at which thoughtless people laugh. Let the laughter or embarrassment subside, and then judge the meaning carried by the word, both on its own and in its context, on its merits. The other sort of criticism regrets the fact that thinghood is not as closely related to being as *ousia* is to *to on.* . . .' (p. xxxvii).

"Lassie is an *ousia,* and the *ousia* of Lassie is dog." (p. xxxviii).

Intellectuals need to pay attention to the concepts that are used in their own fields, if nowhere else, and Aristotle was close to the peak of ancient Greek intellectual attainment.

"Aristotle invents a second word, being-at-work-staying-itself (entelecheia), converging with it in meaning, to sharpen and clarify his use of being-at-work, and he gives an array of examples in which we are meant to `see at a glance by means of analogy,' what it means (1048a 39)." (p. xxxix).

In the beginning of this book, ARISTOTLE'S METAPHYSICS, Translated by Joe Sachs, there is a Greek Glossary with 49 words or phrases on three pages, followed by an English Glossary of 43 words or phrases on eleven pages. "This is a slightly revised version of the glossary that appears with the translation of the PHYSICS, based upon those passages in which Aristotle explains and clarifies his own usage. Bekker page numbers from 184 to 267 refer to the PHYSICS; those from 980 to 1093 are in the METAPHYSICS." (p. xlix).

Chapters are short, especially in Book V (Book Delta), which Joe Sachs calls "Things Meant in More than One Way." This has usually been considered "a dictionary, but Aristotle himself, at the beginnings of Books VII and X, says that it is about the various ways things are meant. The point is not to define words but to collect and organize the distinct senses of important words meant in more than one way. These ambiguities are not verbal but inherent in things, and Aristotle steadfastly preserves them." (p. 77, n. 1).

I am not particularly fond of this book. If undergraduate college courses are meant to provide students with general outlook on likely events, and graduate schools at major universities are intended to select those students who want to qualify for cutting edge work in a highly specialized professional discipline, the works of Aristotle seem to be the high point of a Greek attempt to create an upper level above anything that had previously been considered possible. Alexander the Great, as a student of Aristotle, might be faulted for aspiring to far more than what could be useful, just as Heidegger seemed to be pushing for a German spirit that was sure to damn the rest of the world to misery when he assumed a place in the leadership of a German university backing Hitler and the Nazi party.

I did not find Aristotle's approach to religion in Book VI to be inspiring, though it does seem to be intellectual. "But if there is anything that is everlasting and motionless and separate, . . .

"And while it is necessary that all causes be everlasting, these are so most of all, since they are responsible for what appears to us of the divine. Therefore there would be three sorts of contemplative philosophy, the mathematical, the natural, and the theological; for it is not hard to see that if the divine is present anywhere, it is present in a nature of this kind, and that the most honorable study must be about the most honorable class of things. The contemplative studies, then, are more worthy of choice than are the other kinds of knowledge, and this one is more worthy of choice than are the other contemplative studies." (pp. 110-111).

This is a nice priority for an established church to maintain its dignity, but it is far more ancient than modern. It is not clear how infinite his "triangle containing two right angles" (p. 112) is supposed to be. Even his attempts to tiptoe around the major stereotypes of ancient bookworms seem limp. "For instance, it is neither always nor for the most part that someone pale has a refined education, but since it sometimes happens, it will be incidental (or if not, everything would be by necessity)." (p. 113).

The Index only mentions three pages in Aristotle's text for Socrates, though Aristotle often uses his name as an example: "And since Socrates exerted himself about ethical matters and not at all about the whole of nature," (p. 14) and "so that whether Socrates is or is not, one might become like Socrates, and it is obvious that it would be the same even if Socrates were everlasting." (p. 23). Two generations of seeking lessons from Socrates, ignoring whatever meaning the hemlock had, took place before we find Aristotle finally admitting "For there are two things one might justly credit Socrates with, arguments by example and universal definition," (p. 260). A real philosopher ought to do better than that.