BMCR 2009.05.16: Byden on Sedley, Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity. Sather Classical Lectures, 66

David Sedley, Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity. Sather
Classical Lectures, 66.  Berkeley:  University of California Press,
2007.  Pp. xvii, 269.  ISBN 978-0-520-25364-3.  $29.95.

Reviewed by Boerje Byde/n, Stockholm University
([email protected])
Word count:  4931 words
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Table of Contents
(http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/toc/ecip0719/2007021528.html)

In case you haven't noticed: 2009 is Darwin Year. On 24 November, 150
years will have passed since the theory of evolution by natural
selection was first fully presented and defended, in the first edition
of the Origin of Species. Darwin's theory dealt the coup de gra^ce to
the teleological way of thinking about nature which had dominated the
minds of both the learned and the lay for more than two millennia,
before it was gradually undermined by the rise of modern science
(though, typically, perhaps, it spawned more arguments in its last
phase than it ever did before). At least that is what people used to
think where I come from. But then they had not yet been confronted with
American Creationism.

'Creationism' in the contemporary everyday sense of the word is the
view that the account of creation in Genesis is literally true and can
be supported by science. According to recent polls, up to 66 percent of
Americans share this view.[[1]] Historically, this sense of the word
seems to have developed from the more precisely defined (though
extensionally wider) notion that the biological species inhabiting the
earth have not evolved gradually from variants of other species but
were created the way they are from the outset. Creationism in the
everyday sense emerged in opposition to Darwinism. It invariably (I
think) comes in a package with the belief that the biological species
were created the way they are so as to be well adapted for a purpose.
That is to say, it is closely related to a teleological way of thinking
about nature.

When did the teleological era begin? It is perfectly clear that the
orderliness and purposiveness of the natural world were matters of
paramount concern to Aristotle and Plato (and to Socrates, if we can
trust certain passages in Xenophon and Plato). But what about the
Presocratics? The traditional view, which is very much indebted to
Aristotle and Plato, is that some Presocratics, notably Anaxagoras, did
introduce cosmological principles with a potential to explain natural
phenomena in terms of their purposiveness, but failed to make
consistent use of these principles, presumably because the
purposiveness of natural phenomena was not really a crucial issue for
them. In the twentieth century, scholars have been tempted to consider
Diogenes of Apollonia, a contemporary of Socrates, as the first clear
exponent of a teleological outlook on natural philosophy.

In the book under review, based on his 2004 Sather lectures, David
Sedley traces the career of the teleological way of thinking from its
beginnings throughout the Hellenistic period. He deals with what we may
call 'external' and 'internal' teleology alike (these terms will be
explained below), as well as with anti-teleology, devoting a chapter
each to Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Socrates, Plato, the Atomists,
Aristotle, and the Stoics, with a short epilogue on Galen.

This is an extraordinarily engaging book, even though I am not
convinced that all of its theses will stand the test of time. Bold in
its suggestions, ingenious in its argumentation, it is written in a
style that is clear and comprehensible, even for the non-philosopher
or, I think, the non-classicist. It is hardly an exaggeration to say
that it defies summary, because it brings into its compass such a wide
range of related subjects, as witnessed by the hundreds of footnotes
and the five appendices, but especially by numerous shorter or longer
digressions, carefully woven into the main argument in such a way that
readers will rarely lose their sense of direction.

The book endeavours to show, in Sedley's own words, 'how the major
thinkers of antiquity developed their ideas on our world's origins and
causal structure in a context of open-ended debate' (p. 243). It sets
out to 'illustrate how the discrete episodes that constitute the whole
[sc. of ancient philosophy] come adequately into focus only when we
arrange them into a continuous history' (p. 244). This is a highly
laudable aim, and Sedley's book succeeds admirably in achieving it.

That is not to say that it contains no imperfections. My most serious
complaint with Creationism and Its Critics In Antiquity concerns the
title, which can hardly fail to be misleading. In his preface, Sedley
immediately draws a parallel between the teleological way of thinking
about nature in classical antiquity and the contemporary American
debate about creationism. His aim is, he says, 'to use history in order
to shed new light on the debate' (p. xvi). On that account, Sedley
might be expected to talk in this book about 'creationism' in the
anti-Darwinist sense mentioned above. He does not. Which is only
reasonable, after all, since American Creationism is dependent on two
historical phenomena, both of which were unknown to classical
antiquity: the theory of evolution by natural selection, to which it
reacts; and the Judaeo-Christian revelation, which it defends. But nor
does Sedley seem to talk about 'creationism' in the sense in which the
word is mostly used in contemporary discussions of ancient philosophy.
This is a sense which seems to derive from the history of mediaeval
thought, where 'creationism' usually denotes the belief that God has
created everything in time, as opposed to various forms of
'eternalism', notably that standardly attributed to Aristotle. In the
context of ancient philosophy, the sense is extended to cover any
doctrine that affirms the divine creation in time of the present world,
even if it is from pre-existing material, such as the cosmogony in
Plato's Timaeus (on a literal interpretation).[[2]]

In Sedley's book, however, 'creationism' is stipulated to be 'the
thesis that the world's structure and contents can be adequately
explained only by postulating at least one intelligent designer, a
creator god' (p. xvii). If I understand correctly, this thesis can be
analysed as the conjunction of the following two propositions: (1) if
the world as a whole is purposively organized we must postulate an
external creator; (2) the world as a whole is purposively organized.
These two propositions form the premises of a teleological argument for
the existence of God. A more traditional term for the position that
affirms both of these premises I think would be 'cosmic external
teleology'. It does not seem to entail the doctrine that the world has
been created in time (which is no doubt why many later Platonists could
adhere to it without affirming this controversial doctrine). Since it
does not, it is not so easy to see what reason there is for calling it
'creationism'.

Timaeus in the eponymous Platonic dialogue does (on a literal
interpretation) affirm the doctrine that the world has been created in
time (but not on the basis of the teleological argument). He certainly
subscribes to premise (2) of the teleological argument, and arguably he
is committed also to premise (1). He is thus a 'cosmic external
teleologist', but also a 'creationist' in the standard sense that he
posits a creation of the world in time (if one from pre-existent
matter). And so it is hardly a coincidence that a literal
interpretation of the Timaeus plays a pivotal part in Sedley's
narrative, inasmuch as Plato's 'likely account', on the one hand,
represents a conscious effort to draw out the implications of earlier
teleologically oriented natural philosophy; and, on the other hand,
provides a point of reference for all later developments, which are
understood by Sedley (if I am not mistaken) as being either attacks on
it or attempts to defend it.

But the two propositions that together make up 'cosmic external
teleology' are mutually independent: you can affirm one and deny the
other; and, if you do, you are free to deny or affirm the conclusion at
will. In which case, of course, you are not a cosmic external
teleologist. And the doctrine of the world's creation in time is a
separate thesis from these, as is that of the creation of the
biological species. In sum: if 'creationism' according to Sedley is
'cosmic external teleology' supplemented by the doctrine of the world's
creation in time, then it is not clear to me that the majority of
thinkers discussed in this book could be said to take a clear position
either for or against it.

But if the ancient philosophers did not take a clear position on
creationism as defined by Sedley, then it seems questionable whether
there ever was such a thing in antiquity as a debate about it. I for
one am not convinced. What emerges from the pages of Creationism and
Its Critics in Antiquity is, in my view, rather a series of partly
overlapping debates about questions pertaining to teleology, the
beginning of the world, the nature of the divine, and indeed, the
origin of species, among other things. One especially salient (and
rewarding) theme is the role of the metaphor of craft in ancient
teleology, external as well as internal. Another is the variable
element of religious motivation in introducing teleological
considerations in natural philosophy. And there are others. In the
following, I shall try to recapitulate some of the more important or
intriguing points in each chapter, with some critical remarks.

I. Anaxagoras

According to Sedley, there was no debate amongst the earlier
Presocratics (the 'monists') about divine creation, since the world was
assumed by them to be alive and full of gods. The first thinker clearly
to distinguish mind (or intelligence, nous) and matter was  Anaxagoras.
Anaxagoras' nous, Sedley argues, is not a divine power, but is
introduced 'as supreme cause of matter's organization' (p. 25) on
purely scientific grounds. His matter is characterized by the
co-presence of an indefinite number of opposite sensible qualities,
none of which nous shares (it is 'unmixed'). Nous creates the world
(and others just like this one) by causing and maintaining the famous
vortex, which separates and stratifies things in such a way as to set
up 'environments which will enable seeds to germinate, with plant and
animal life the outcome' (p. 23). While later divine craftsmen are
artisans, Anaxagoras' nous is a farmer. Obviously, it is the fact that
nous plans that qualifies this cosmogony as an example of
'creationism'. To say that it is intelligence and not some blind
natural force that causes and maintains the vortex is tantamount to
saying that there is a conscious purpose behind it all. What purpose?
Sedley speculates that nous is breeding human beings in order to take
its abode in them. In doing this it perhaps acts out of self interest;
if so, Empedocles' divinely beneficent Love provides a contrast (p.
62).

As Sedley admits (p. 21), quite a bit of reading between the lines is
required to arrive at this interpretation. It might also be objected
that it failed to recommend itself to Anaxagoras' most competent and
sympathetic readers in his own lifetime, e.g. Plato's Socrates, who
read his book in extenso, had an excellent grasp of the Greek and a
good head on his shoulders, and who--most importantly--was looking
especially for teleology. Yet perhaps it is not necessarily at odds
with Socrates' view in the Phaedo, where what he complains about is,
after all, not Anaxagoras' failure to recognize that the world must be
purposely created and ordered, but his failure to show exactly how
purpose played a role in its actual workings. On the other hand, it is
clear that Sedley is generally very sceptical of both Plato's and
Aristotle's readings of the Presocratics. If it is true, for instance,
as he argues, that '[t]he joint project of Plato and Aristotle is to
resist Presocratic causal presuppositions, viewed as wrongly
emphasizing material necessitation at the cost of teleological
explanation' (p. 184), but also the case that 'the idea of an
intelligently structured world was pervasive in Presocratic thought'
(p. 182 n. 25), it seems to follow that both Plato and Aristotle
fundamentally misunderstood Presocratic thought.

Sedley is not very explicit about precisely what scientific motives he
considers Anaxagoras to have had for introducing nous, but presumably
he has in mind those mentioned by Aristotle in Metaphysics 1.3: (1) the
fact that things change cannot be explained by reference to their
matter but implies an efficient cause; and (2) the fact that things are
well- or ill-ordered should not be attributed to chance. It is not
clear why these motives must exclude religious ones, or why Sedley
thinks nous 'is not overtly a divinity' (p. 25). I must say I find it
hard to understand how an intelligent--indeed,
omniscient--self-governing and infinite (B12) as well as eternally
existing (B14) creator and designer of the world could be anything but
divine. Sedley seems to agree implicitly in his definition of
'creationism' (given above), where the expression 'a creator god',
tacked on as a non-restrictive appositive, appears to be simply
synonymous with 'intelligent designer [sc. of the world's structure and
contents]'.

II. Empedocles

According to Aristotle in Metaphysics 1.4, Empedocles added Love and
Strife to his four material causes in order to account for the fact
that nature exhibits both order and beauty and their opposites. This
seems to ascribe a fair degree of teleological thinking to the
Agrigentine philosopher. If anything, however, Aristotle's puzzle in
Physics 2.8 (which is generally taken to reflect Empedoclean teaching),
about whether the bodily parts may not be 'produced by necessity, and
their fitness for their functions be an undesigned result',[[3]] has
rather contributed to place Empedocles in the anti-teleological camp.
While not denying this aspect of Empedocles' cosmogonical and
zoogonical teaching, Sedley wants to reclaim for him also a 'vital role
in the history of creationist thought' (p. 52). As far as I have been
able to make out, this role consists in, on the one hand, developing
the model of divine craftsmanship in much greater technological detail
than is found in Hesiod and other precursors, and in this way
'inaugurating the long history of creationist explanation in terms of
divine technology' (p. 57), and, on the other hand, attributing the
creation of the world to the beneficence of Love, thus preparing the
ground for later, 'more articulated theories of divine beneficence' (p.
62).

The prospects for a re-evaluation of Empedoclean doctrines may appear
to look unusually good after the new fragments recovered from the
Strasbourg papyrus (as well as the Aristotelian scholia recently
discovered by Marwan Rashed) have opened up new avenues of inquiry.
Sedley takes us some distance down a few of these, especially in three
of the four appendices to the chapter. (The remaining one argues that
Lucretius, De rerum natura 5.864-70 is a translation of a passage from
Empedocles' poem(s).

I cannot here enter into an extended discussion of this fascinating
account, but let me at least point out one problem of some importance
for the evaluation of Empedocles' position vis-a\-vis teleology. Most
life forms are attributed by Empedocles to the influence of Love. Now,
Love is, as Sedley emphasizes, sometimes described by Empedocles as a
craftswoman. According to Sedley, her creative activities take place in
two stages: in the first, 'organic materials and ... single organs and
limbs' are intelligently and purposively designed (p. 60); but in the
second, the single organs and limbs are randomly combined into a
plethora of life forms, some of which, notoriously, have proved less
than viable (B61), others of which, however, are the animals and human
beings that we have around us today.

If this is true, how are we to explain the fact that Love in the second
stage abandons the method of intelligent and purposive design in favour
of the random combination of limbs? Doesn't this conspire to cast doubt
on her will or ability to conceive and implement a grand plan for the
cosmos? Sedley's reply is that a process of random combination may have
been suggested to Empedocles by the sheer manifoldness of the evidence,
consisting not only of the countless races of existing mortal creatures
(B35.16), but also of mythical minotaurs and chimaeras as well as
contemporary freaks of nature, interpreted as hybrid forms, and that
the assumption of such a process may not be inconsistent with the
principle of intelligent creation--something which, he claims, is
illustrated by present-day convergentist evolutionism. I do not think
this is a very convincing reply, and it makes me wonder whether it
would not be easier to resolve the tension between intelligent design
and accident in Empedocles' zoogony by taking the analogy between
Aphrodite's creation of the eye and the preparation of a lantern in B84
as nothing more than a poetical simile, the point of which seems to be
to illustrate the fact that the eye's internal fire, but not its
external water, can pass through the eye membranes. Apart from this
analogy there seems to be little evidence in favour of intelligent
design on the part of Love, whereas Aristotle, Phys. 2.4, 196a23-24 and
Simplicius, In Phys. 371.33-35, testify against it. It may be noted
that the verb used in B84.8 for Aphrodite's creative act is
<greek>loxeu/sato</greek>, 'she gave birth to (or brought to birth)',
which obviously has nothing to do with the craftswoman metaphor.

III. Socrates

If Sedley is able to find more teleology than has usually been detected
in Empedocles, he gives short shrift to those interpretations of the
fragments of Diogenes of Apollonia which make their author a central
figure in the history of this style of thought. Instead, he puts
forward Socrates as the instigator of a radical break, who allegedly
'develops a teleology that is far more overtly and explicitly
anthropocentric than anything we have met in his predecessors' (p. 80).

Sedley's case is largely based on Xenophon's accounts of Socrates'
conversations with Aristodemus in Memorabilia 1.4, where the natural
endowments of humankind are praised for their purposiveness, and with
Euthydemus ibid. 4.3, where a number of natural phenomena, and indeed
other animals, are declared to exist for the convenience of humankind.
It presupposes that Xenophon's accounts represent Socrates' ideas more
or less accurately. If they do, this is an admirable feat on Xenophon's
part, who may have composed the Memorabilia more than 40 years after he
last saw Socrates; all the more so, if, as Sedley claims, (1) these
ideas were so original that they represented 'radical innovation, owing
little if anything to Presocratic cosmology' (pp. 81-82), and (2) these
ideas, significant though they were, were not attributed to Socrates by
Plato, except in the late Philebus, which Sedley says (p. 82) probably
draws on Xenophon. Unless we are willing to ascribe a better
understanding of Socrates to Xenophon than to Plato we may thus be
reluctant to agree with Sedley that the 'originality and significance
[of the material] make it a natural assumption that its authorship
really does in essence belong to Socrates' (p. 82). (One may note in
this connection that the early Stoic source assumed by Sedley for
Sextus Empiricus, M. 9.92 is careful to describe the passage as
'attributed to Socrates by Xenophon'.)

Alternatively we may doubt whether it was really that original and
significant. The purity of Diogenes' teleology may have been
exaggerated by Walter Theiler and others, but Sedley himself has done
much to bring out the teleological features in Anaxagoras and
Empedocles in the preceding chapters; and other extant texts from the
mid-fifth century expressing related ideas are mentioned in Sedley's
footnotes (esp. p. 80 n. 12; cf. p. 54 n. 73), but never taken up for
serious discussion. In a different context Sedley also mentions the
fact that Socrates in Plato's Philebus (28d) attributes the view that
'the universe and this whole word order ... are ... governed by reason
and by the order of a wonderful intelligence' (trans. D. Frede) to his
predecessors as 'a useful antidote' to the 'widespread perception that
the Presocratics ... did not think teleologically' (p. 1 and n. 2).
Moreover, it should be kept in mind that what Xenophon is trying to
show in these chapters is that Socrates was not only a critic of other
people's vices, but himself a model of virtue, especially of piety and
temperance. It seems to me that it would have been counterproductive
for him to depict his hero as a spiritual revolutionary. At any rate,
Sedley's claim that the 'link of intelligence to goodness ... had to
await the arrival of Socrates for its full articulation' (p. 90) is
gainsaid not only by Diogenes of Apollonia B3 and Heraclitus B102 but
also by Aristotle, Metaph. 1.3, 984b8-22, who clearly thinks that
Anaxagoras (and perhaps even Hermotimus before him) introduced his nous
in order to explain why things are well-ordered.

As Plato reports in the Phaedo (97b-99c), Socrates in his youth was
kindled with enthusiasm for Anaxagoras' project, but soon became
disappointed with the results. He had expected to learn not only that
the world was created and governed by intelligence--this he took for
granted--but how this actually worked. At 99d he claims to have given
up on natural philosophy, but Sedley sees in the Phaedo's final myth a
prefiguration of the 'likely story' of the Timaeus. Instead of taking
the claim at 99d (and the denial of knowledge at 99c) as a case of
Socratic irony, Sedley prefers to think that Socrates 'does not fully
see the theological subtext of the myth', which means, I suppose, that
he takes it as a case of Platonic irony. In his old age, Sedley
suggests, Socrates had encountered anti-teleology in the form of
atomism, and so felt compelled to argue positively for teleology: this
is the phase reflected in Xenophon's Memorabilia. One may object here
that the arguments adduced by Sedley (pp. 134-35) against a Socratic
influence on Democritus seem to work at least as well in the other
direction. Indeed, Democritus' famous remark that nobody knew him in
Athens (B116) seems more relevant as evidence of Socrates' ignorance of
Democritus than of the converse.

IV. Plato

While Xenophon drew the inference that Socrates had advocated the
complete eschewal of natural philosophy, Plato set out to fulfil his
teacher's youthful expectations. The Timaeus tells the 'likely story'
of the making of a likeness (a likeness, namely, of the realm of
Forms). It is, of course, the paradigm case of cosmic external
teleology (or, as Sedley puts it, 'the ultimate creationist manifesto',
p. 133). But ever since the first generation after Plato exegetes have
been divided over the question just how literally this 'likely story'
was intended. To start from the beginning, is Timaeus' assertion (28b)
that the world has come into being to be taken at face value, or is it
a pedagogical device designed to express the fact that the world is
eternally dependent on a divine cause? Sedley argues carefully for a
literal interpretation, pointing especially to the reference to the
'ancient coming-to-be' of the world in Timaeus' final prayer in Critias
106a (pp. 98-107). At the same time, he fails to see any compelling
philosophical reasons for Plato to insist on a 'genetic' account of the
world's causation rather than the 'static' reinterpretation that most
later Platonists favoured. The fact that Plato did so, he concludes, is
rather due to 'the seductive explanatory power of his craft analogy'
(pp. 106-7).

In order to elucidate the craft analogy, Sedley refers to a passage in
the Gorgias (500e-504a) in which three 'hallmarks' of craft are
formulated. These are (1) that the craftsman 'looks to an ideal model';
(2) that he knows the causes that will bring about the desired product;
and (3) that he aims for the best possible result. The craft of the
demiurge is analysed in terms of these three hallmarks on pp. 107-27.
Notably, this analysis features a brave attempt to explain the apparent
imperfections of the world without recourse to the inherent
recalcitrance of matter. According to Sedley, the demiurge is--and
must, for Plato, be--in absolute command of his material (p. 116).
Since the demiurge is also superlatively good, the resulting theodicy
is to be solved, if I understand Sedley correctly, by elevating the
apparent imperfections to necessary conditions for perfection: justice
presupposes the punishment of evil souls, and without justice the world
would be an immeasurably less than perfect place. Thus the existence of
evil souls is something good. Regardless of the intrinsic merits or
demerits of this exegesis, I was a bit surprised to see that Sedley on
p. 210 invokes the support of the Stoics for it, since it is clear that
their appropriation of the Timaean material involves, as Sedley says,
the stripping away of '[v]arious non-Socratic features' (p. 209), inter
alia the transcendent Demiurge and the whole realm of Forms.
Consequently, even if the Stoic notion of prime matter owed much to
Plato's discussion of 'auxiliary causes' (46c-e), it can hardly be
excluded that Zeno and his followers simply chose to stop short of
importing any absolute necessity resistant to reason into their system.

VI. Aristotle

Partly as a result of the recent interest in the Late Antique
commentators, many scholars today tend to emphasize the common ground
between Plato and Aristotle rather than the points of conflict. Sedley
is no exception. Obviously, Aristotle is no 'creationist' even
according to Sedley: faced with the alternative of conceiving the world
to be either both intelligently created and intelligently administered
or neither, he opts for the latter, like the atomists. But he is
nonetheless 'the greatest teleological thinker of antiquity, probably
of all time' (p. 167); and his most brilliant move was to separate the
notion of purposiveness from the notion of a purposing mind, thus
giving rise to what is sometimes called (though not by Sedley)
'internal teleology'. What drove him to this move, according to Sedley,
was a theological consideration: God's activity is superlatively good;
thus it must be pure contemplation; thus it precludes any active
involvement in the world. So God must be delivered from the duties of
creating and administering the world, with which he was charged in the
Timaeus. Nevertheless, some of the 'explanatory power' of the craft
analogy was saved, as Sedley points out, through Aristotle's insistence
on the similarity of the causal processes of nature to those of craft.
And, of course, even if nature takes over the function of efficient
cause, God is still for Aristotle the ultimate final cause. The
internal teleology of Aristotle's natural world is 'ultimately to be
understood as a shared striving towards godlike actuality' (p. 171).

This invites the question whether even for Aristotle the world as a
whole has a purpose, and '[l]ower species exist for the sake of higher
ones' (p. 201), as seems to be suggested by a vexed passage in Politics
1.8. If so, how could he avoid the absurd conclusion that Carneades
later drew from Stoic premises, that it is in the interest of the pig
to be slaughtered and eaten by human beings? The Stoics, Sedley
suggests, would have been hard pressed to find an answer, since they
granted that Porky's mission in life was to end up as ham and sausages
(rather than to enter into a relationship of mutual advantage with some
human beings). But Aristotle would be able to point out that there is
no inconsistency in assuming the existence of final causes both on a
special (or 'local') and on an absolutely general (or 'global') level
(pp. 198-203; 236-38).

In Physics 2.4-9 (which forms the focal text of Sedley's whole
discussion of Aristotle), Aristotle tries to undo the attempts of
atomists and other materialists to explain natural phenomena solely in
terms of necessity and chance. This he does partly by following Plato's
lead in treating simple material necessity as subsumed by conditional
necessity. He does not, however, deny, as Sedley claims that Plato
does, that simple material necessity can be a source of imperfection:
for, whereas in Plato's case this would have implied that the demiurge
is weak, in Aristotle's case it simply amounts to the concession that
nature makes mistakes (cf. Phys. 2.8, 199a33-b4).
V. The Atomists
VII. The Stoics
Epilogue: A Galenic Perspective

This review is already much too long, and I shall only repeat, with
regard to Sedley's treatment of the Hellenistic schools
(pre-Hellenistic atomism is dealt with in the first section of chapter
V), that it emphasizes the influence of the Timaeus as well as that of
Socrates, as portrayed by Plato and especially Xenophon. The epilogue
on Galen is added in order to provide a Late Antique commentary on the
debate of the preceding centuries, but it is a mere five pages long and
does not leave me with a very clear idea of what the 'Galenic
perspective' was. Galen was, of course, an arch-teleologist; yet, as
Sedley shows, he somewhat unexpectedly comes down on the side of
Xenophon's Socrates, condemning as useless abstract
natural-philosophical speculation on such questions as 'whether...some
god acted as [the world's] craftsman, or no god did, but some
irrational and unskilled cause by luck made it as beautiful as if a
supremely wise and capable god had supervised its construction' (Plac.
Hipp. et Plat. 9.7.9.8-12, quoted p. 242).

Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity organizes a double debate. It
reconstructs a past debate (or series of debates, if what I've said
above holds water) with as much openness, fairness and honesty as
ingenuity and boldness; in so doing it irresistibly provokes an ongoing
debate with the reader. For the seasoned and critically minded (but not
necessarily specialist) reader, this is likely to be a most
enlightening and entertaining experience. For the green and gullible, I
think some guidance is probably required.

There is a Bibliography, an Index Locorum, and a (rudimentary) General
Index. The book is excellently produced. I found no misprints, not even
in the Greek.


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


1.[http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2007-06-07-evolution-poll-results_n.htm].

2.   The first occurrence of the anti-Darwinist sense of 'creationism'
recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary dates from 1880. Before
Darwin, the word was employed to render German 'Creatianismus' (sic),
i.e. the belief in God's creation in time of every individual soul, as
opposed primarily to the minority Christian view known as
'traducianism' (according to which all souls except Adam's have been
transmitted to the individuals from their parents). This was by far the
most common use of the term throughout the nineteenth century. Thus,
when Franz Brentano in 1882 published a paper entitled 'Ueber den
Creatianismus des Aristoteles', what he wished to discuss was the
Stagirite's view on the origin of the human soul.

3.   W. D. Ross, Aristotle's Physics (Oxford 1936), 356.