The Categories has long been considered an important introduction not only to the works of Aristotle, but to logic and philosophy generally. This was not always the case. G. traces the history of the earliest commentators on the Categories (Κατηγορίαι) to bring this vexing text to the fore. This book is an abridged version of G.'s 2009 dissertation, which emerged from a problem raised by H. Gottschalk: ‘It would be interesting to know why the Categories came to exercise so much fascination [in the first century b.c.e.], but there is no evidence’ (p. 7). G. challenges the idea that there is no evidence by marshalling support for Andronicus of Rhodes as the spark that ignited the earliest interest in the Categories.
G. begins his analysis with an introduction to the Categories itself, its general structure, scope, the philosophical problems it raises and its subsequent influence on the history of philosophy. According to G., the early Roman Empire is a special period in the history of the Categories. Prior to this age, the Categories was an obscure text that one read as a primer to the Topics – hence its prior name, Before the Topics (Πρὸ τῶν τόπων, or Πρὸ τῶν τοπικῶν). G.'s thesis is that Andronicus was the first to conceive of the Categories as an introductory text to the science of demonstration (ἀπόδειξις).
Chapter 2 begins with a sketch of the life of Andronicus, a widely respected Peripatetic philosopher and editor of the Aristotelian corpus. Andronicus was known to argue that Aristotle's writings about logic are the proper starting point to Aristotle's philosophy. G. maintains that Andronicus understood the Categories to be a work of demonstration, not dialectic. Furthermore, the Categories teach what Andronicus considered to be a non-philosophical method of division, which would have been accessible to new students, necessary for constructing demonstrative syllogisms, and so crucial for understanding the Analytics (pp. 43, 68). G. reasons that these considerations motivated Andronicus to relocate the Categories at the beginning of the works of Aristotle.
G. next addresses the impact that the Categories had among the Pythagoreans, Platonists and Stoics. As in his discussion of Andronicus, G. first provides a brief biographical, bibliographical and philosophical sketch of each of the figures within these schools. This background is helpful in understanding the specific concerns each figure, and school, had when discussing the Categories.
The Pythagorean critique is discussed in the third chapter, with a focus on Eudorus of Alexandria. G. highlights the question of whether, as Andronicus also suggests, Aristotle's ten categories can be reduced to two major classes, the Absolute (καθ' αὑτὸ) and the Relative (πρός τι) (p. 84). Eudorus and other Pythagoreans consider the metaphysical question of whether the categories pertain to the sensible or intelligible. G. concludes that Eudorus, and other Pythagoreans, such as Pseudo-Archytas, aimed to integrate Aristotle with Pythagorean thought and even viewed Aristotle as a kind of Pythagorean who had a deficient list of the highest predicates of being.
In the fourth chapter G. discusses the enigmatic Platonist Lucius and his associate Nicostratus. Relying on Simplicius, Prophyry and Iamblichus, G. recounts that those who follow Lucius are eager to raise metaphysical issues of substance. Just as with the Pythagoreans, the Platonists fit Aristotle's Categories within their own metaphysical paradigm. The criticisms of earlier Platonists are eventually taken up by Plotinus as well. Those criticisms echo the concerns of the Pythagoreans, i.e. whether the Categories is dealing with the sensible or intelligible.
In the fifth chapter, the Stoic critique is examined, mainly through the figures of Athenodorus and Cornutus. Like the Pythagoreans and Platonists, Athenodorus also thought the Categories was a deficient text on ontology, and was critical of the ten-fold division of the categories. In addition, he was critical of it as a grammar text, which he thought leaves out critical parts of speech from its categories. Cornutus contends that the Categories concerned itself with the grammatical aspects of dialectic (p. 142). This section also features discussions of Porphyry, Simplicius and Dexippus as they consider whether the Aristotle text properly dealt with linguistic expressions. Though it may be odd to categorise all of these figures as Stoics, G. makes the point that they take on the Stoic problematic in their linguistic approach to the text. G. connects the Stoic critique ultimately to a fundamental dispute between Stoics and Peripatetics with respect to the distinction between Aristotle's term logic, and Stoic propositional logic (p. 173).
The final section deals with the Peripatetic response to the Categories, with emphasis on Boethus of Sidon. Citing Simplicius, G. notes that Boethus took the position that the Categories is a work about sensible beings alone. A major philosophical contribution of Boethus highlighted by this book is his consideration of the different accounts of substance found in the Categories and the Metaphysics (p. 190). G. shows Boethus not merely to be an apologist for the Categories, but a commentator who has raised enduring metaphysical questions that are still debated about the Categories. The seventh chapter is a brief section on the second century, and some of the figures who continued to develop interpretations about the Categories. G. concludes the history he has traced by re-emphasising that it is Andronicus who has granted the Categories the ‘pole position’ it enjoys in the Aristotelian corpus (p. 208).
While G. argues convincingly that Andronicus believed that the Categories should not be thought of as a preamble to the dialectical work, the Topics, his insistence that Andronicus thought the Categories was only a work of demonstration is strained. G. shows that Andronicus thought that the third section of the Categories, which discusses opposites, priority, simultaneity, change and the meaning of the verb ‘to have’, was against the purpose of the earlier sections of the treatise. However, it is not made clear that the third section, or post-praedicamenta, is particularly dialectical in nature. Moreover, while a study of division is necessary for constructing definitions, and so useful in demonstration, this does not mean that division is not useful in dialect, a point which G. admits (p. 42). In making the case that the Categories is not a work of dialectic, G. writes, ‘I think … [Porphyry] expresses what Andronicus had in mind’ and quotes a passage where Porphyry says that the Categories is not an introduction to any one logical text, but being the most elementary, ‘… serves as an introduction to all the parts of philosophy’ (p. 37). Unfortunately, this does not support the hypothesis that Andronicus thinks the Categories are specifically a work of demonstration rather than dialectic, but that it is a work fundamental to both divisions of logic. It would strengthen G.'s thesis to follow Porphyry in saying that the Categories is fundamental because it is necessary for all logic, and not just demonstration in particular.
The volume concludes with three appendices, the first of which recounts the primary sources used for G.'s study, the second delves into the details of Andronicus' other works and the last provides a detailed outline of the Categories. The monograph is well produced with few typographical errors. Aside from an error on page 36, none stand out. Any historian of philosophy who is piqued by H. Gottschalk's question will want to learn of G.'s answer. A careful reading of sources combined with engaging contextual narratives elucidate the exegetical history of the Categories during the Roman Imperial period and indicate that it is Andronicus who rescued this text from being an under-appreciated preamble to the Topics to being one of the hotly debated texts of the period.
