HALPER, Edward C.

One and Many in Aristotle's Metaphysics:
Books Alpha-Delta

Las Vegas:
Parmenides Publishing, 2009.
xli + 524 pp. Cloth, $48.00

—The heart of this book (and fully one-third of its bulk) advances a detailed interpretation of Aristotle's Metaphysics book Gamma. Halper treats the other books more selectively, focusing on the theme of the one and the many. In conjunction with his One and Many in Aristotle's Metaphysics: The Central Books(1989, 2005) and a third volume treating books Iota through Nu (forthcoming), this volume brings forward a new synthesis of Aristotle's thought in studied opposition to dominant contemporary tendencies toward emphasis on linguistic concerns, fragmentation of Aristotle's text, and "deflationary" interpretations. On Halper's reading, the first five books argue for the existence of metaphysics as a unified—though peculiar—Aristotelian science; the central books articulate the primacy of categorial ousia and of form; the five remaining books identify primary ousiai and the highest causes. Halper's Aristotle unfolds his doctrine through progressive stages in a text that is "carefully, accurately, and—dare I say it—beautifully laid out."

Halper argues that the problem of the one and the many is "inherently bound up with the existence and nature of metaphysics" and that Aristotle uses it to structure the argument for his own metaphysical doctrine, which resolves the problem and allows it to fade from view. Books Alpha and Little Alpha establish that metaphysics exists; showing how metaphysics can be one science requires solving the aporiai in Beta, which are one/many problems. The source of all or nearly all the aporiai is the assumption that a cause (or form or principle) is one. This assumption—the focal point of the commentary on the first two books—is not only common to Aristotle and his predecessors, but also "intrinsically tied to metaphysics." He aims to show that Aristotle's distinctive doctrines (such as that being ispros hen equivocal) are supported to the extent that they uniquely resolve the aporiai. Halper reads Gamma's arguments as inverted such that the apparent conclusions (for example, the principle of non-contradiction is true) are actually premises in arguments supporting Aristotle's doctrines (such as that each being has an essence). He regards Delta as integral to Aristotle's argument, but he treats in detail only the chapters on being and one, which he uses to combat the contemporary assumptions that the one/many problematic is merely a Platonic concern and that one and being are "virtually equivalent."

This book deserves to become a kind of reference point interpretation for contemporary scholarship precisely because it is a comprehensive reading that reasserts the integrity of Aristotle's Metaphysics. Halper attends meticulously but not tediously to Aristotle's text, and he defends a plausible reading that remains philosophically rich while preserving Aristotle from confusion and contradiction. Indeed, Halper's lone substantive criticism is that Aristotle has not adequately shown that only his doctrines solve the aporiai. Halper displays a familiar ease with the style of Aristotelian thinking and elliptical argumentation. Perhaps no book is uniformly persuasive, but the careful attention Halper gives to Aristotle merits scholarly engagement. He is generous with clear expressions of his plan and with frequent summaries of sections of argument.

In conclusion, I would like to draw attention to some features or tensions that deserve further examination. First, Halper presents his approach to Aristotle's text (based on the one and the many problematic) both as one "interpretive structure" imposed on a "radically underdetermined" text that admits "multiple reconstructions" and as Aristotle's own problematic for organizing his text, which is intrinsic to any metaphysics. Second, Halper traces the aporiai not to competing assumptions, but to one primary assumption—a cause is one—that admits multiple interpretations. He could have strengthened his treatment of this thesis by juxtaposing it with Aristotle's account of chance as a non unified quasi cause. Additionally, if Halper is correct that Aristotle crafts the aporiai to lead us to discover and modify this uncritically accepted assumption, this strategy seems notably defective since it is and has been consistently overlooked. Third, Halper resists reading the refined doctrines of the central books into the opening books. Thus, he takes pains to regard locutions like "being qua being" and "ousia" as initially mere "placeholders" whose senses and referents are determined only subsequently. As attractive as this approach is, Halper does not adhere to it unqualifiedly. He repeatedly invokes his own distinctive interpretation of Iota to make sense of Gamma, even as he denies Gamma presupposes the doctrine of Iota. Moreover, because he prepares us to examine Alpha through his interpretation of Delta (which also draws on Iota), we see Aristotle's text from the beginning through a sophisticated metaphysical lens borrowed from subsequent stages of inquiry. Fourth, Halper attacks the widespread assumption of the "virtual identity" of one and being "that would, unchecked, undermine the rest of my analysis." He claims instead that one is subordinate to being, but he does not express with his usual clarity how this is to be understood and how various senses of one and being are dependent on various senses of nature, essence, or ousia. Indeed, Halper claims, "It is not inconsistent to say that they are virtually the same and also to say that one is subordinate to being."

—Daniel P. Maher, Assumption College.

Title: [One and Many in Aristotle's Metaphysics]
Source: Rev Metaphys 63 no3 Mr 2010 p. 699-701
ISSN: 0034-6632
Publisher: Philosophy Education Society, Inc
Catholic University of America, Washington, DC 20064