The Philosophical Review/Volume 1/Review: Burnett - Early Greek Philosophy

by William Alexander Hammond

Early Greek Philosophy. By John Burnet, M.A., Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. London and Edinburgh, Adam & Charles Black, 1892. — pp. viii, 378.

The results of philological and historical studies in pre-Sokratic philosophy during the last twenty years have been carefully brought together by Burnet, and presented to English readers in a form that leaves little to be desired. These studies have appeared in the philological and philosophical journals, dissertations, proceedings of societies, editions, etc., etc., and the collection and editing of them represents a great deal of painstaking work. But this is not all. Burnet has done students of the history of philosophy invaluable service by his suggestions and expositions, and there is not a chapter in his book which is not light-giving and fresh in treatment. Almost simultaneously (a little earlier) with Burnet's book the fifth edition (Erster Theil, erste Hälfte) of Zeller's Philosophie der Griechen appeared. This also takes note of the progress made in investigation during the fifteen years since the fourth edition. The views of this revered Nestor in the history of philosophy do not, however, detract from our interest in the English publication. It is interesting to get the views of a member of a younger generation of scholars, the more so when he comes from a different nation from the Berlin savant. Burnet is quite independent in his treatment of the period, and we find him all the while going counter to Zeller, though not always happily. In fact, he seems frequently to join issue with the younger investigators against Zeller, where the weight of evidence is overwhelmingly with the senior.

Burnet's book covers the period generally called the pre-Sokratic, or the period prior to the "rise of epistemological and ethical speculation"; from this he excludes Demokritos as presupposing the epistemological problem and following Protagoras. In the introduction he takes a brief glance at the mythology of Greece prior to the rise of philosophy, and makes some interesting suggestions of an anthropological nature. The step which placed the "Ionian cosmologists once for all above the level of the Maoris" is not the "substitution of impersonal causes acting according to law for personal causes acting arbitrarily," as Grote and Zeller say, but simply that the Milesian philosophers "left off telling tales. They gave up the hopeless task of describing what was when as yet there was nothing, and asked instead what all things really are now." The underlying principle of all the philosophy of the Ionian cosmologists, says our author, was ex nihilo nihil fit. This was explicitly formulated, he takes pains to say, not until Parmenides (cf. Zeller, 5^te Aufl. p. 207). The word which was used for "primary substance" was, as Burnet points out, φύσις, so that περὶ φύσεως does not mean "On the Nature of Things," but "Concerning the Primary Substance." In this new interpretation of the word φύσις I think Burnet is right.

In his discussion of Anaximander our author gives a very clear résumé of the several views of the ἄπειρον, and this he follows by a lucid criticism of them all, in which he finds it impossible to accept any of them, chiefly on chronological grounds. He holds that they all distort the theory of Anaximander by interpreting it through the "categories of a later age." This result, however, brings us orally no further than Zeller left the matter when he said that Anaximander probably ascribed to the ἄπειρον no definite quality at all. For his grounds, vid. 5^te Aufl. p. 216. That ἀήρ, as used by Anaximenes, does not mean air, but vapor or mist (p. 78), is a departure from the usual interpretation of the word, for which Burnet, I think, does not bring sufficient support. It is not satisfactory in the light of fragments 18 and 21 (Ritter & Preller). The very broad statement that "in all the earlier cosmologists ἀήρ means water in a vaporous state, more or less condensed," is simply made, not substantiated (cf. also p. 200, and the citation from Schmidt's Griechische Synonymik in note 37; further, p. 240 seq.). The a priori plausibility of this meaning which is brought forward in the following paragraph is not convincing. Zeller has, I think, shown satisfactorily that the ἀήρ of Anaximenes is simply our atmospheric air (p. 240 seqq. 5^te Aufl.).

Under the head of "Science and Religion" Burnet gives us a very interesting chapter on "Pythagoras and Xenophanes." Contemporary with the first the conflict between the beliefs of the philosophers and the beliefs of the people arose what our author calls the "religious revival" of the sixth century B.C. The breaking up through colonization "of the old kindreds with which the primitive cults were inseparably entwined," and the substitution of an unsatisfactory "anthropomorphic and more or less Panhellenic polytheism," had an important effect on philosophy. The process by which "religion influenced Greek thought through such men as Pythagoras, was by introducing the idea that philosophy was above all things a way of life," and this remained in the whole course of Greek philosophy a dominating idea. This is the idea on which the Pythagorean order is based, which was, according to Burnet, a "religious fraternity," and not a political organization, as Krische supposes. Further, Pythagoras was Ionian, not Dorian. In all this Burnet is certainly right; he is also probably correct, in the main, in his idea of the Pythagorean rules of life being merely "taboos" of a primitive type. In separating the chapter on the Pythagoreans from that on Pythagoras, I do not see that anything is gained by making the subject-matter subservient to chronology. On the subject of the theistic teaching of Xenophanes, about which Freudenthal's book (Die Theologie des Xenophanes) has brought out considerable discussion, Burnet tries to effect a compromise (p. 119) between the polytheistic view (held by Freudenthal) and the view that his teaching was monotheistic (held by Zeller and Diels). Burnet agrees with Zeller in his interpretation of Ps. Plut. in Eus. pr. evang. I, 84, Dox. p. 580(5te Aufl. p. 526), saying at the same time that "it is another question whether it is not merely part of the polemic against anthropomorphic gods, that is, according to Greek ideas, against gods in any real sense whatever." The author supposes Xenophanes to be chiefly interested in overthrowing anthropomorphic religion and that he sought the weapons for this in a modification of Anaximander's theory of the divinity of the innumerable worlds. Xenophanes, however, regards the universe as a unit and if "the universe is really a god, there can be nothing more primary than itself." In this way, Burnet supposes, Xenophanes arrived at his theistic doctrine. Within the universe, interpreted as a unity, there is room for other gods which are "reduced to material phenomena." The conception of a personal god is unknown to Xenophanes, as is also the distinction between matter and spirit. Burnet paraphrases frequently: "There is one (so-called) god, who is the greatest amongst (so-called) gods," and says apropos to the contradiction that "there is no greater difficulty in this juxtaposition of God and gods than there is in the similar juxtaposition of 'the all' and 'all things.'" These two hypotheses, which Burnet tries to harmonize, are, in the main, simply a restatement of what Zeller (5te Aufl. p. 533) had already said, the latter of which he (Z.) shows in his discussion of Freudenthal to be untenable. The author identifies the "dark" vapors of Herakleitos," which increase the moist element" (p. 157), with darkness itself, and this seems to me a plausible explanation. When, however, he applies his theory to the extinction of the sun he says, "it" (i.e. the "dark" vapor) "could no longer rise upwards unless the sun gave it motion, and so it becomes possible for a fresh sun (fr. 32) to be kindled." What is meant by this is not clear. Burnet is doubtless right in saying that the Stoical doctrine of Ekpyrosis was not held by Herakleitos. The theory of a general conflagration is, as he says, not only irrreconcilable with the other views of Herakleitos, but "is denied by him in so many words." This position, which is opposed to that of Zeller, Burnet supports skilfully and, as I think, successfully. He holds that the conflagration was not general, but only an "oscillation in the 'measures' like that which produces, day and night, summer and winter, only on a larger scale." He finds evidence for this in fr. 20, 22, 23, 29, 43, and in Lassalle's argument from the conclusion of Περὶ διαίτης. This seems to me adequate support of his view. To this our author adds a brief, but very acute criticism of the fragments which appear to favor the theory of a general conflagration. In criticising the view of Zeller that the system of Empedokles was an attempt to mediate between Parmenides and Herakleitos, Burnet says that it is "very difficult to find any trace of specially Herakleitean doctrine in it" (p. 238), and yet he observes (p. 285) that "the system of Anaxagoras, like that of Empedokles, aimed at reconciling the Eleatic doctrine that corporeal substance is unchangeable with the existence of a world which everywhere presents the appearance of coming into being and passing away." The description of the latter view is certainly Herakleitean and is apparently a contradiction of his own statement and an admission of Zeller's position. Burnet gives us an acute and scholarly piece of criticism in his chapter on the Pythagoreans,—mainly on sources and the doctrine of numbers. A helpful appendix of notes on sources for the period which the volume treats, concludes this admirable production of English scholarship.

William Hammond.