A history of technology. Volume VII: The twentieth century c. 1900 to c. 1950

MARTHA CRAVEN NUSSBAUM (editor), Aristotle's De motu animalium, Princeton University Press, 1978, 8vo, pp. xxiii, 430, £18.90. The title ofDr. Nussbaum's excellent book disguises its riches. She presents us with a new text and English translation of this little tract, defends its authenticity, assigns it to a place among Aristotle's last works, and rescues it from undeserved neglect. This would be service enough, yet her discussions of the philosophical problems therein raised make this essential reading for anyone interested in Aristotelian science and especially psychology. Her comments are divided between the commentary proper (dealing with individual passages and preceded by section summaries of the argument) and five long interpretative general essays on teleology (stressing Aristotle's limitation of teleological explanation to living things), on scientific method, on the elusive sumphuton pneuma and its place in Aristotle's theory of animal action, on the "practical syllogism" and its relationship to ethics and human behaviour, and on phantasia as an essential element in decision-making and action (in which she emphasizes the idea of "appearances" in general rather than the more usual interpretation of concrete images). Although at times the use of philosophical jargon and academic shorthand makes this book more forbidding to the less expert reader than it need have been, the importance of Dr. Nussbaum's investigations more than repays the efforts required to assimilate them.