This is a specialized book that, irrespective of the broad scope suggested by its title, focuses on and aims to refute a thesis proposed by Bruno Snell in his 1944 article “Die Nachrichten über die Lehren des Thales und die Anfänge der griechischen Philosophie- und Literaturgeschichte” (published in Philologus). Many scholars of the early history of ancient philosophy have generally accepted Snell’s thesis. In his article, Snell introduces Hippias of Elis as the first historian of philosophy. He argues that we can identify Hippias’ work as the common source from which Aristotle in Metaphysics A 3, 983b20-984a5 and Plato in Cratylus 402b-c drew when commenting on their predecessors. Let’s call this claim of reliance, though not the unverifiable claim about the first historian of philosophy, the “Hippias thesis.” Cătălin Enache seeks to query this thesis.
Before turning to the argument of Enache’s book, I should provide some background about Snell’s article. The core of Snell’s thesis, as I take it, is that Hippias can be identified as Aristotle’s source in Metaphysics A3, 983b20-984a5 of (a) some basic information about Thales and (b) the idea that the first poets agreed with Thales about the primacy of water. Crucially, the identification of Hippias rests on the following four independent pieces of evidence:
- a curious overlap between Aristotle, Metaphysics A 3, 983b20-984a5 and Plato, Cratylus 402b-c which involves differences that suggest Aristotle’s reliance on someone besides or in addition to Plato;
- the fact that Aristotle relies explicitly and consistently on a source other than Thales when reporting Thales’ views and that he mentions “some” (τινές) as a source;
- Diogenes Laertius’ naming of Hippias next to Aristotle as a source for Thales’ view on the soul of the magnet (=B7 DK);
- Clement of Alexandria’s quotation (or close paraphrase) from the beginning of Hippias’ work (=B6 DK), which succinctly presents Hippias’ main thesis according to which early poets and prose authors share similar views on some important issues (which, in turn, neatly captures the overlap between the passages in Aristotle and Plato).
By today’s standard, Snell could have distinguished these pieces more clearly and could have given more detailed attention to some of these points; his article is only about 12 pages long. And still, i-iv can be identified as the core elements on which the Hippias thesis rests.
The expressed purpose of Enache’s book is to question the “connection between Hippias and Aristoteles’ [sic] account of Thales,” by arguing that “there is no evidence whatsoever that Aristoteles, who never mentions Hippias in his extant works, ever used any book by the sophist” (11). Enache’s aspiration to put to the test a view that has been accepted by scholars over many decades is welcome indeed. Enache does not, however, succeed in undermining the Hippias thesis as proposed by Snell. Curiously, he focusses almost exclusively on point (i) above, gives little weight to (ii) and at times denies the relevance or existence of (iii),[1] while downplaying or denying the force of (iv).[2]
Enache’s book has five chapters (of varying length) and an Afterword, followed by an index of Greek terms and a general index. Chapter 1 briefly introduces the problem and the core passage in Aristotle, Metaphysics A 3, 983b20-984a3.
Chapter 2 (15–80) offers a close examination of Snell’s argument to show that it “fails to provide compelling evidence or a convincing demonstration that Aristotle truly referred to Hippias in his account of Thales” (16). The first and longest subsection discusses the evidence in Aristotle (17–49). The core issue in Enache’s critique of Snell’s thesis is whether the τινές (“some”), who regard the earliest theologoi (i.e. poets who make Okeanos and Tethys primordial parents) as agreeing on the primacy of water, had already mentioned Thales or whether it is Aristotle who brings those two together. The decisive factor here is the understanding of the word οὕτως “thus,” “in this way” in b29. Lines 983b27-30 read:
εἰσὶ δέ τινες οἳ καὶ τοὺς παμπαλαίους καὶ πολὺ πρὸ τῆς νῦν γενέσεως καὶ πρώτους θεολογήσαντας οὕτως οἴονται περὶ τῆς φύσεως ὑπολαβεῖν·
“But there are some who think that also the very ancients who lived long before the present generation and for the first time gave an account about divine matters thought in this way about nature.” (my translation)
Snell explicates οὕτως as “i.e. as Thales does” (“d.h. wie Thales”), whose view Aristotle discusses in the preceding lines (b20-25). According to Snell, τινές compared the first theologoi with Thales. Enache calls this understanding of οὕτως “the fundamental error that has been uncritically adopted by all subsequent supporters” (49). Enache argues at length (25–30) that οὕτως instead refers to the (abstract) view that water is the first element but does not imply that Thales holds that view. Since for Enache it is Aristotle and not the τινές who compares Thales with the first theologoi, there is no reason to assume that the τινές include (or are limited to) Hippias.
Enache’s understanding of οὕτως and the passage at large remains, however, unconvincing. What makes his reading not just unnatural but seemingly impossible is the καί, “also” in b28. Enache’s translation ignores the καί’s syntactical position in the Greek in front of τοὺς παμπαλαίους (“also the very ancients”) and imagines it as adjacent to the last word of the sentence, ὑπολαβεῖν (“also held this opinion”).[3] Yet, καί’s position preceding τοὺς παμπαλαίους is crucial for determining its meaning. Aristotle reports (surely, in his own words, as Enache stresses, 25–26) the view of the τινές in a relative clause: τινες οἳ … οἴονται, “there are some who think that…” The content of their view is “that also the very ancients … thought in this way.” This report of the view of the τινές implies that, according to them, both the theologoi and someone else thought in this way. This someone else can, in the given context, only be Thales, whom Aristotle just discussed. The position and meaning of the καί thus rules out Enache’s proposal that it is Aristotle and not the τινές who compared the poets with Thales.
Enache rightly stresses that there is much Aristotelian philosophy and terminology in the “history” sketched in Metaphysics A, reiterating that we should be “cautious about crediting” τινές “with everything Aristotle states,” since “there is no indication that anyone before Aristoteles deliberated, in Aristoteles’ terms, whether it was the oldest philosopher or the oldest poets who first suggested that the entire universe had a single material origin or consisted of a sole substance” (44–5). That is certainly right. But the adherents of the Hippias’ thesis hardly claim that about Hippias or τινές. The claim of the Hippias thesis is much humbler: τινές, i.e., Hippias, collected (in some form or other) various authors (e.g. Homer, Thales etc.) who shared views such as “water came first.” No material monism or metaphysics is implied or presupposed here—all that is needed is the observation of a curious similarity between the way the old poets speak about gods that personify water and the way Thales talked about water. Enache constructs a straw man argument.
In the second subsection, Enache looks at the evidence in Plato. Enache analyzes Snell’s argument against the (earlier scholarly) view that τινές refers to Plato, whose Cratylus overlaps with the Metaphysics passage in interesting ways. In Cratylus 402a–c, Socrates states that poets such as Homer, Hesiod, and Orpheus agree with Heraclitus in that everything is in flux. Enache aims to refute Snell’s position and argues that τινές may well refer to Plato (50). Enache is right to question Snell’s unverifiable assumptions that Plato and/or Socrates jokingly replaced Thales with Heraclitus (59–63) and that Thales fits better with the quoted poets than Heraclitus (63–8). Granted that, however, the core of the Hippias thesis remains unchallenged. One could assume with Mansfeld 1983 (discussed in chapter 4) that Hippias had mentioned both, Thales and Heraclitus, or simply leave the question open whether and how these authors were discussed in Hippias. What matters is that both the Metaphysics passage and Cratylus 402a-c display the same methodology, which, as attested in B6, bears Hippias’ signature: poets and prose authors are said to share a specific view; whether Plato refers to or adopts this methodology jokingly has little bearing on that.
In a final section, Enache briefly mentions the other relevant information available about Hippias. Overall, Enache gives little attention to the evidence outside of Aristotle and Plato (49), although Snell’s identification of τινές with Hippias specifically relies on external evidence. One important piece is B7 in Diogenes Laertius (= iii above), which shows that Hippias did in fact mention Thales in his writings.[4] Somewhat surprisingly, Enache calls it “the weakest link” (74). Similarly with respect to B6 (= iv above): Enache simply denies the curious overlap in methodology between what Clement attests for Hippias and what Aristotle ascribes to τινές: “Aristoteles’ account of Thales and Hippias’ fragment DK 86 B6 have little in common beyond the mention of the epic poets” (73).
The third chapter provides a brief survey of articles and books (from 1950 to the 1980s) that mention Snell’s thesis (e.g., Kirk and Raven, von Kienle, Burkert, West, Pfeiffer, Guthrie, and Kerferd). Enache aims to show that the reception was “quite varied” (82) and included critical voices. Apart from giving an overview of the early reception of Snell’s article, the upshot of this chapter for the thesis of the book is not always apparent (e.g., why are three articles by Martin West – from 1963, 1971, and 1994 – discussed extensively, when Hippias plays only an incidental or no role in them [cf. 103]?).
The fourth chapter turns to Mansfeld’s revision of Snell’s thesis in two papers from 1983 and 1985. Mansfeld accepts Snell’s core insight but diverges in holding that Hippias cites both Thales and Heraclitus in his work and not just Thales, as Snell argued. Enache discusses several detailed points of Mansfeld’s discussion, which pertain to Mansfeld’s own work rather than the Hippias thesis as proposed by Snell.
The fifth chapter consists of three brief paragraphs on Patzer 1983 and Picht 1951. Both took Snell’s thesis about Hippias much further, often not shying away from hypothesizing beyond the available evidence, for instance into the structure and content of Hippias’ Collection.
The book ends with an “Afterword” (163–66) which briefly summarizes Dupréel’s 1922 attempt to rewrite the history of ancient philosophy by making Hippias its pivotal figure—a thesis that, as Enache rightly points out, has not found many followers.
Complete certainty is clearly out of reach when putting together the spare pieces we have about Hippias. Enache rightly points that out, and the aspiration behind his book can serve as a remainder of that fact. Still, regardless of whether one accepts the Hippias thesis, the book’s attempt to demonstrate that it is built on false assumptions remains unsuccessful, because it gives rather uneven attention to the various extant pieces of evidence Snell uses and because its points of critique, where they are valid, do not pertain to and hence do not threaten the basis on which the Hippias thesis rests. All in all, the book’s narrow focus on Snell’s thesis leaves little room for further exploration of the fascinating questions that a figure like Hippias raises about “the beginnings of Greek philosophy,” Plato’s and Aristotle’s use of sources, or the history of philosophy.
Works Cited
Burkert, W. 1984. Die orientalisierende Epoche in der griechischen Religion und Literatur. Carl Winter Universitätsverlag: Heidelberg.
Dupréel, E. 1922. La légende socratique et les sources de Platon. Robert Sand: Bruxelles.
Guthrie, W. K. C. 1957. “Aristotle as a Historian of Philosophy: Some Preliminaries.” Journal of Hellenic Studies 77: 35–41.
Guthrie, W. K. C. 1962. A History of Greek Philosophy. Vol. 1: The Early Presocratics and the Pythagoreans. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Guthrie, W. K. C. 1969. A History of Greek Philosophy. Vol. 3: The Fifth-Century Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kerferd, G. B. 1981. The Sophistic Movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kirk, G. S., and Raven, J. E. 1957. The Presocratic Philosophers. A Critical History of with a Selection of Texts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kienle, W. von, 1961. Die Berichte über die Sukzessionen der Philosophen in der hellenistischen und spätantiken Literatur. Doctoral Thesis. Berlin.
Mansfeld, J. 1983. “Cratylus 402 A–C: Plato or Hippias?” L. Rossetti (ed.), Atti del Symposium Heracliteum 1981. Vol. 1. Rome, 43–55.
Mansfeld, J. 1985. “Aristotle and Others on Thales, or the Beginnings of Natural Philosophy. with Some Remarks on Xenophanes.” Mnemosyne 38: 109–29.
Pfeiffer, R. 1968. History of Classical Scholarship from the Beginnings to the End of the Hellenistic Age. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Snell, B. 1944. “Die Nachrichten über die Lehren des Thales und die Anfänge der griechischen Philosophie- und Literaturgeschichte.” Philologus 96: 170–82.
Patzer, A. 1986. Der Sophist Hippias als Philosophiehistoriker. Karl Alber: Freiburg, München.
Picht, G. [1951] 1996. “Eine Schrift des Hippias von Elis. Die älteste Darstellung der vorsokratischen Philosophie.” In G. Picht, Die Fundamente der griechischen Ontologie, Klett-Cotta: Stuttgart, 235–96.
West, M. L. 1963. “Three Presocratic Cosmologies.” Classical Quarterly 13: 154–76.
West, M. L. 1971. Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
West, M. L. 1994. “Ab ovo: Orpheus, Sanchuniathon, and the Origins of the Ionian World Model.” Classical Quarterly 44: 289–307.
Notes
[1] Relevance: “the transmission of Thales’ opinion on the magnet’s soul – a topic of little bearing on this main argument”, 72; “the weakest link in this chain is undoubtedly the note by Diogenes Laertius, whose only relevance to the argument is that it mentions Aristoteles, Hippias, and Thales in the same sentence,” 74. Existence: “for whom we have no evidence whatsoever that he ever mentioned Thales in his book,” 55; “we have no evidence at all that Hippias ever mentioned Thales in his book,” 136.
[2] Downplaying: Enache translates the crucial term ὁμόφυλα (“of the same kind,” B6 = iv above) as “related” (6), ignoring the aspect of similarity/sameness that is expressed by the ὁμο-prefix.
Denying: “[A]s we know nothing at all about the actual content of Hippias’ book,” 132.
[3] “However, some believe that the authors of old, who lived long before the present generation and first dealt with matters divine, also held this opinion about nature” (2).
[4] Although Diogenes does not state that Hippias was Aristotle’s source for his comment on Thales, a close comparison of B7 with Arist. De an. A 2, 405a19-21 at least suggests that.