BMCR 2009.04.80: Mayhew on Bos, Aristotle, On the Life-bearing Spirit (De spiritu): A Discussion with Plato and His Predecessors on Pneuma as the Instrumental Body of the Soul

Abraham P. Bos, Rein Ferwerda (ed.), Aristotle, On the Life-bearing
Spirit (De spiritu): A Discussion with Plato and His Predecessors on
Pneuma as the Instrumental Body of the Soul.  Leiden/Boston:  Brill,
2008.  Pp. 209.  ISBN 9789004164581.  $129.00.

Reviewed by Robert Mayhew, Seton Hall University ([email protected])
Word count:  1347 words
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The central topic of my sole conversation of any length with the great
British classicist David Balme (in 1988) was the unusual work,
attributed to Aristotle, called <greek>peri\ pneu/matos</greek> (On
Breath or De spiritu [hereafter DS]). Balme said he thought the nature
and authenticity of the work needed to be reassessed--at the very
least, the idea that its use of <greek>a)rthri/a</greek> proved DS's
spuriousness ought to be rejected,[[1]] as the same usage can be found
in the Historia Animalium. He told me that after he finished his work
on the Historia Animalium, and if he lived long enough, he would like
to produce a fresh edition of the text of DS.

Unfortunately, Balme died the following year.[[2]] Three years later
there appeared a new edition of the Greek text (with Italian
translation and commentary) by Amneris Roselli.[[3]] Roselli, however,
regards the work as spurious (an early Peripatetic work, but not by
Aristotle). As far as I know, the volume under review by Bos and
Ferwerda (hereafter B/F) is the first attempt in English to defend the
Aristotelian authorship of DS.[[4]]

Aristotle, On the life-bearing spirit consists mainly of an
introduction (pp. 1-28), a new English translation of DS (pp. 29-46),
and an extensive commentary (pp. 47-187).

The introduction is virtually identical to an essay by  B/F that
appeared recently in the journal Mnemosyne[[5]]--which should have been
mentioned, and which is somewhat strange, as I think the essay reads
more like an introduction than it does an academic article. (The one
significant difference is that two new sections have been added for
this introduction.) The introduction is divided into thirteen sections;
the first is an introduction to the introduction, and oddly has no
number or heading. I list here the number and heading of each of the
remaining sections: (2) What was known about De spiritu? (3) What has
been said about De spiritu in the modern era? (4) Critical evaluation
of the modern debate; (5) Vital heat as the soul's multifunctional
instrument in chapter 9; (6) Brief outline of the contents of De
spiritu; (7) What positions are held by the author of De spiritu
himself? (8) The position of De spiritu on the soul; (9) What is the
position of 'Aristogenes' that the author of De spiritu contests? (10)
Who are the opponents in De spiritu and who is 'Aristogenes'? (11)
Conclusion; (12) The place of De spiritu in the Aristotelian Corpus;
(13) From life-bearing breath to life-bearing spirit.

A few comments on the introduction: The brief outline (6) is quite
useful. Sections (3) & (4) make clear how iconoclastic  B/F's book is,
demonstrate that the De spiritu is too often dismissed with
insufficient argument, and show the need for a reevaluation of the
nature, authenticity, and purpose of the DS. Section (2) is entirely
insufficient; I quote it in full: "The title of a work 'On pneuma' is
absent in the Greek lists of Aristotle's writings but is mentioned in
the Arabic catalogue of Ptolemy el-Garib. Some modern authors believe
that Galen and Pliny may have referred to De spiritu" (p. 3). In a note
(n. 13)  B/F quote Galen and cite Pliny, but surely more discussion is
called for--especially as this could lend some support (however meager)
to their case for authenticity.  B/F devote a fair amount of time to a
certain Aristogenes (see (9) and (10)), whose views are criticized in
the DS. This is understandable, for if this Aristogenes is the third
century BC medical writer (the view of Jaeger and Roselli[[6]]), the
case for Aristotle as the author of DS is overthrown (as  B/F are
aware, see p. 71).  B/F take a very different view, one that is
consistent with their conviction that the DS is in large part a
response to Plato's Timaeus: the author of DS "seems to identify
'Aristogenes' with Plato. He may have permitted himself a literary joke
here, with 'Aristogenes' as a sly allusion to Plato, whose father was
in fact called 'Ariston'" (p. 23). I don't find this terribly
convincing.[[7]]  Finally, I think  B/F should have reworked the
introduction so that the concluding section--and not the
antepenultimate one--was labeled "Conclusion."

As a prelude to my remarks on the translation, I want to register two
(related) complaints. First, B/F nowhere provide a general discussion
of the Greek text and manuscript tradition of DS, nor do they indicate
which edition they are translating. (I assume Roselli's is their base
text.) The failure to discuss the text is, I think, a mistake,
especially given its poor state.[[8]] Second, and more important, I
think  B/F's translation should have been accompanied by the Greek
text. This would have made both the translation and the commentary more
intelligible, and the whole volume more useful. An accompanying text
(with notes) would also have been the most suitable vehicle for
presenting B/F's own valuable suggested readings.[[9]]

I assume that B/F have, in their translation, favored fidelity to the
Greek over elegant English. This is completely appropriate. Overall,
this translation is superior (with respect to such fidelity) to
Dobson's translation in the Oxford Aristotle and to Hett's in the Loeb
Classical Library. Given B/F's approach, it is no surprise that the
translation is at times awkward. Sometimes, however, it is more awkward
than fidelity to the Greek demands. For example, in the opening line,
I'm not sure "The innate pneuma, how does it maintain itself and grow?"
is the most natural way to render: <greek>ti/s h( tou= e)mfu/tou
pneu/matos diamonh/ kai\ ti/s h( au)/chsis;</greek> I prefer something
like "What is the <mode of> maintenance of the innate [or perhaps
'connate'] pneuma and what is its <mode of> growth?" (Dobson, revised).
But I was pleased here and throughout that B/F transliterated
<greek>pneu=ma</greek>, instead of translating it "life-bearing spirit"
(as they seem to do in the title of their book).

The 140-page commentary (on 18 pages of translation) is the most
valuable part of the book. I found it especially useful in presenting
parallel passages from the Corpus Aristotelicum. Further, B/F are
generally quite effective in defending their translation and
interpretation against those of other scholars. Naturally,  B/F believe
the commentary supports their interpretive aims: to demonstrate or
support their view that the DS is authentic; that it is largely a
response to "Plato and his predecessors" (to borrow from the subtitle);
and that it contains a conception of pneuma that is significant and
employed by Aristotle in his other writings.

Let me elaborate on this last. According to Aristotle, the male seed or
semen (<greek>spe/rma</greek>, <greek>gonh/</greek>) contains water and
pneuma, and this pneuma contains a special kind of heat--namely
"soul-heat" (<greek>qermo/thta yuxikh/n</greek>) (GA 11, 762a20)--which
works on the female contribution to generation (menses,
<greek>katamh/nia</greek>) to give rise to a new living being. (See
esp. GA II 2-3.) "It seems natural," B/F write, "to assume that there
is more pneuma in a fully grown living creature than in the semen
through which the creature was formed" (p. 2). I don't know that we
should make such an assumption; but I do think it is natural to ask: is
there "more pneuma in the fully grown living creature"? Other, related
questions: What role does pneuma play in the fully grown living being?
What is the relationship between pneuma and the soul? These are some of
the questions that one must raise and attempt to answer in considering
the authenticity of DS.[[10]] Unfortunately, B/F's answers to these
questions, and their case for the authenticity of DS generally, seem
intimately (if at times, in the commentary, implicitly) connected to
their (or Bos's) unorthodox (and to my mind implausible) view that
pneuma (and not the body of a living being, as that is normally
understood) is the body Aristotle has in mind in De Anima II 1 when he
defines soul as the entelechy of a natural 'instrumental' body (see,
e.g., p. 26).[[11]]

Nevertheless, this commentary is packed with useful discussions of the
text, and should be of value to all those interested in the DS,
regardless of whether they accept  B/F's interpretation of it and its
place in Peripatetic thought.[[12]]

------------------
Notes:


1.   For example, J.F. Dobson opens the preface to his 1914 translation
of DS (for the Oxford Aristotle edited by W.D. Ross) as follows: "This
treatise has been rejected as spurious by practically all editors, one
of the chief reasons being the confusion of the senses assigned to
<greek>a)rthri/a</greek>." Dobson is referring to the view that
<greek>a)rthri/a</greek> always refers to the windpipe in the genuine
works of Aristotle, but to a kind of vein in DS. This is the view Balme
challenges.

2.   Fortunately for us, he had already completed a great deal of work
on the Historia Animalium: Aristotle's Historia Animalium VII-X, Loeb
Classical Library (1991); Aristotle's Historia Animalium, Cambridge
Classical Texts and Commentaries, vol. I: Text (2002), and vol. II:
Commentary, Books I-VII (forthcoming). These were all prepared for
publication by Allan Gotthelf.

3.   Amneris Roselli, [Aristotele]: De spiritu (Pisa: ETS Editrice,
1992).

4.   One recent exception: Patrick Macfarlane, A Philosophical
Commentary on Aristotle's De Spiritu (Duquesne University PhD
Dissertation, 2007).

5.   A.P. Bos and R. Ferwerda, "Aristotle's De spiritu as a critique of
the doctrine of pneuma in Plato and his predecessors," Mnemosyne 60
(2007) 565-88.

6.   Werner Jaeger, "Das Pneuma im Lykeion," Hermes 48 (1913), pp.
29-74; Roselli, [Aristotele]: De spiritu, pp. 76-79. (See  B/F, p. 8 n.
24.)

7.   This interpretation of the identity of Aristogenes (that he is
Plato) is related to a deeper point, namely, that DS is largely a
response to Plato. This can be contrasted with the view that DS is best
understood against the background of ancient Greek medicine--the
approach of Roselli and Macfarlane.

8.   Which B/F recognize: "The Greek text of the work . . . leaves much
to be desired" (p. 1). "Certainly De spiritu has places where the Greek
text is corrupt" (p. 23).

9.   I noted about a dozen original readings. For example, at 481a8,
where the manuscript tradition gives us <greek>ou)x ou(/tws</greek>
(which is bracketed by Rosseli),  B/F plausibly suggest reading
<greek>e)kei/nws</greek> (see pp. 29 n.1, 54-55).

10.   Other important questions: Is there terminology in DS that
post-dates the genuine works of Aristotle? Are there references or
allusions to people and ideas that post-date the genuine works of
Aristotle?

11.   See A.P. Bos, The Soul and its Instrumental Body: A
Reinterpretation of Aristotle's Philosophy of Living Nature (Leiden:
Brill, 2003).

12.   The book was well-produced. I noticed very few typographical
errors. I'll merely mention one Dutch-ism, from p. 52: "The subject van
<greek>gi/netai</greek> is 'food' (<greek>trofh/</greek>). . . ."