# The Philosophical Review/Volume 1/Review: Marshall - A Short History of Greek Philosophy

The author's purpose in the volume before us was, as he explains in the preface, to give, "within strict limits of brevity," an "authentic" and "interesting" account of Greek Philosophy. Both of these purposes have been fairly realized. The book is intended for University students, and is drawn chiefly from Ritter and Preller's Historia Philosophiæ Græcæ. The general plan of the book is excellent, and students will find in it, as the author intends, a serviceable commentary to R. and P.'s work. All readers of the book will agree that this account of Greek Philosophy from Thales to Stoicism is clear and vigorous, the use of sources discriminating, and that the various schools of doctrine are handled with excellent critical judgment.
In speaking of the book more in detail, we should like to call attention to certain minor defects. The characterization of the periods of Greek Philosophy by political parallels (p. 82 seq.) is not felicitous. To call the Ionic philosophy "kingly" and that of Pythagoras "aristocratic," does not tend to elucidate the character of the two philosophies, although the philosophical order or school of Pythagoras may well be characterized as aristocratic; nor can we see what force the author means to give to "domination in the theory of Nature" (p. 83) in application to the Eleatic school. There is, indeed, ground for associating democracy with the Individualism of the Sophists, though to attempt to carry out such analogy in the development of philosophy is quite as futile as Hegel's application to it of the categories of pure thought or Boeck's employment of Plato's theories in Epistemology for the same purpose. The space alloted to Empedokles seems unduly large in proportion to that given to Anaxagoras, even though Ritter and Preller have done the same thing. The proportion is not good from the standpoint of the relative importance of the two philosophers. Elsewhere in the work proportions appear to have been carefully regarded. The date 479 (p. 34) is of course a misprint (vide p. 103). On page 136 the author, who regards Euthyphron as a transition dialogue, includes it in ​the first series rather than the second. It seems, however, from the nature of the subject-matter, much better to include it amongst the Dialogues on the trial and death of Sokrates, as in the first tetralogy of Thrasyllos. This chapter xiv as a whole appears the least satisfactory part of the book. The dialogues are not classified on any satisfactory principle, and the student gets very little instruction on the important question of the chronology, though, to be sure, a detailed discussion of this difficulty would not be in place in a work of this compass. Most students, we venture to think, will find the account of the Republic (pp. 146-150) rather meagre and not very clear. A good deal of space is taken up with the myth of the cave, which of course is very beautiful, but it does not give the student the salient features of the Republic. One expects rather some account of Plato's ideal state, which is given somewhat inadequately on page 169 seq. The sentence (p. 147): "Sokrates therefore will have justice 'writ large'" is unintelligible except in the light of page 169 seq. or to one otherwise familiar with Plato's doctrine of the state as an analogue of the individual. The Republic, Timaios, and Kritias fragment are classed together on some unexplained principle in what appears to be a fourth or fifth series (pp. 146-153). "Modern," in application to the philosophical system of Hegel (p. 159), would seem to be understood without additional specification. The author will not find many sympathizers with his view of placing the Philebos before Parmenides, though chronological considerations do not appear to have determined his classification. But if the character of contents was the basis of classification, why not treat the Politikos in the same series with the Republic? The reference to philosophers as "Kings" (p. 160) in the ideal state of Plato is misleading. Philosophers are, to be sure, the rulers, the guardian, or reigning class, but not "Kings" in his state; the employment of this word conveys the notion that Plato's ideal state was a monarchy, not an aristocracy.
We further take exception to the statement in reference to the Organon of Aristotle (p. 159), that it is "little more than an abstract or digest of the logical theses of these [i.e. psychological] dialogues." This does not agree with Aristotle's own statement as to the doctrine of the Syllogism (cf. Sophist. Elen., c. 34. 183, b; 34. 184, b. 1); neither do we find in these dialogues the doctrine of Aristotle's categories (if they be Aristotle's), nor the doctrine of propositions developed in the περὶ ἑρμηυείας. What then is there left of the Organon to find in these psychological dialogues? It is true that in these dialogues definition, the concept, etc., are noticed, but is this not much like saying that the doctrine of evolution is only Anaximander's "slime" done over again? The attempts to identify the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle from Ammonios Sakkas on, have never met with much success, in the ​face of which the statement that the very Organon is "little more than an abstract," etc., is rather strong.
In speaking of the Platonic classification of the faculties of the soul, the author says that to Desire, Passion, and Reason the virtues Temperance, Courage, and Wisdom correspond. But Plato's σωφροσύνη is not referable, like ἀνδρεία, to a single faculty, but belongs to both the ἐπιθυμητικόν and θυμοειδές, as well as indirectly to λογιστικόν (Cf. Plat. Rep., 429 seq. and 443 C-E). The faculties and virtues can only in a loose way be called parallel.
The paragraph (p. 172) on the Academy belongs properly to the last chapter on Plato, though through Speusippos and Xenokrates as academical scholarchs the paragraph is brought into a sort of connection with Aristotle. A more considerable defect in this chapter is the seeming credence given to Strabo's and Plutarch's account of the loss of the writings of Aristotle. The cellar-of-Skepsis episode is referred to by the author as actually accounting for the eclipse of Aristotle during the period from Theophrastos to Andronikos of Rhodes, though no one supposes nowadays that the Skepsis copy was the only transcript of the Aristotelian writings in existence during these two hundred years. This, however, is the impression that page 176 leaves on the reader.
The work is, in the main, a good and reliable handbook to this important period in the history of philosophy, although it would be improved, in our estimation, by the addition of a short chapter on Neoplatonism.
Wm. A. Hammond.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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