This collection honours the life and works of Jonathan Barnes, one of the leading scholars of ancient philosophy of our time. It contains papers from his former students and colleagues, many of whom are distinguished scholars or philosophers in their own right. The range of topics more or less reflects Barnes' own philosophical interests. Accordingly, issues in Aristotle and Hellenistic philosophy are explored, but two of the papers also make noteworthy contributions to debates in contemporary philosophical logic. As one would expect given the illustrious line up of contributors, the contributions tend to be extremely well informed, focussed and very stimulating. The volume will be of most interest to scholars of ancient philosophy, but contemporary epistemologists and philosophical logicians will also profit from close engagement with its contents.
The collection is divided into three sections. The first and longest section, ‘Knowledge’, contains six essays, beginning with M. Burnyeat's penetrating analysis of epistemic vocabulary in Plato and Aristotle. Burnyeat argues convincingly that the ‘epistemic troika’ of knowledge that, knowledge how and knowledge by acquaintance is not neatly mapped by the knowledge language used by either of those philosophers. R.J. Hankinson sensibly attempts to bring the puzzling remarks about nous in Eth. Nic. 6.11 into closer contact with the famous conception of it found in An. post. 2.19. Hankinson's discussion lacks engagement with the most recent literature on these issues, but his proposal about the unity of practical and theoretical nous is none the less fresh and worth taking seriously. The third paper is a lucid discussion of the notion of enargeia (‘evidence’ or ‘evidentness’) in Hellenistic epistemology. In the course of revealing how the nuances of the concept differ according to the school in question and its solution to the problem of the criterion I. offers a provocative new interpretation of the Epicurean account of perceptual error.
The last three essays in the section explore epistemological issues in ancient scepticism and Hellenistic medicine. J. Annas endeavours to explain how a Sceptic can observe religious practices consistently with his way of life. Her proposal attractively exploits the autonomy of religious practice from philosophical theology in the ancient Greek world. G. Fine continues the discussion of ancient scepticism with a probing examination of the Epicurean challenge to the possibility of sceptical inquiry and Sextus' response. The last essay is a comparative discussion of Rationalism in Aristotle and three Hellenistic doctors (Diocles, Hierocles and Galen) by the late M. Frede. He argues that Aristotle is a more radical Rationalist than the others, maintaining that all medical principles are derived by reason, whereas the latter permit some principles of medicine to be derived from observation and experience. Although Frede's interpretation of Aristotle is controversial and arguably questionable, his observations of certain key doctrinal differences between the Rationalist doctors are subtle and perceptive.
The second section, ‘Metaphysics and Logic’, contains five essays. G. Striker's brief note on the Categories plausibly suggests that the distinction in the second chapter between the said of and present in relations is motivated by a polemic with Plato. D. Charles offers a close look at Aristotle's view of the relation between a substance and its essence in Metaphysics 7.6. He argues, contrary to a longstanding orthodoxy, that the sort of oneness at stake is not numerical identity but rather oneness in essence/account. M. follows with an admirably clear investigation of whether Aristotle possesses a purely syntactic notion of logical form. He answers in the negative. Following Barnes, M. takes Aristotle to be offering a semantic description of the conditions of the premises and conclusions of valid arguments in An. pr. 1.4–6.
S. Bobzien and I. Rumfitt round off the section with two very stimulating pieces of contemporary philosophy. Bobzien explores the S4 or CC axiom, the claim that if A is clear, then A is clearly clear. She argues forcefully that this axiom is ultimately compatible with higher order vagueness and also shows how it can be accepted or rejected without contradiction by those who reject or accept bivalence respectively. Rumfitt's paper is a valiant attempt to develop the philosophical underpinnings of the lesser known theory of truth with which Ramsey replaced his famous redundancy theory. That theory analyses the truth predicate as a fundamental property of mental states and so cannot depend upon a traditional truth-conditional theory of content. Consequently, Rumfitt investigates a number of pragmatic theories and ultimately offers an exclusionary theory as the most promising.
The third section, ‘Ethics and Politics’, contains five essays. S. Everson offers a sophisticated discussion of Plato's treatments of justice and just action in the Republic. The highlight is his attempt to disarm Sach's famous irrelevance objection by showing that it depends upon an outdated analytic account of definition. Everson's robustly philosophical approach to Sach's problem is novel and welcome – it is about time one examined the philosophical presuppositions driving that famous problem. However, a complete resolution of Sach's problem requires in addition an equally detailed and nuanced account of the moral psychology of the just agent, which is lacking from the paper. In a short essay A. Kenny argues that practical truth differs significantly from theoretical truth for Aristotle and, contrary to Anscombe, is not a property of actions but rather an effect of the proper employment of practical reason. Kenny's paper could have benefited from additional engagement with the recent literature on practical truth, but his proposals are sensible. There follows a rich paper by M. Schofield that examines the influence of democratic ideas and practice on Aristotle's political theory in Politics 3. According to Schofield, the picture of the political sphere that emerges is one where the citizens exhibit power by participating in deliberation in the assembly and law courts and are qualified to do so by means of the modicum of virtue and wisdom they possess.
The last two papers concern the Stoics and Cicero. R. Sorabji offers an analysis of one of the Stoics' favourite locutions for expressing reservation, ‘if God (or Zeus) wills’. His proposal aims at salvaging the remark's status as an expression of a preference without making blasphemous claims about what is or is not appropriate for Zeus. M. Griffin closes with a valuable discussion of Cicero's De officiis. She argues that the restricted focus of the treatise and the work that partly inspires it are of a piece with its main aim, viz. imparting to those who have high political ambitions a code for conduct at the top level of Roman society.
In addition to these well-conceived and high-calibre essays there is a witty introduction by the editors and an extensive bibliography of Barnes' work compiled by M. Bonelli. There is no general bibliography; each paper contains its own list of works cited. However, this does not detract much from the usability of the volume. More problematic is the lack of an index of subjects. Nevertheless, much like Barnes' own work, this volume is an enjoyable, engaging and rewarding read. The editors should be commended for honouring this philosophical giant with a collection of the highest quality.
