schönbeck, c. l. j._sunbowl or symbol. models for the intepretation of heraclitus' sun notion_1998...
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8/9/2019 Schönbeck, C. L. J._sunbowl or Symbol. Models for the Intepretation of Heraclitus' Sun Notion_1998 [Schofield, Malc…
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The Sun of HeraclitusSunbowl or Symbol. Models for the Interpretation of Heraclitus' Sun Notion by C. L. J.SchönbeckReview by: Malcolm SchofieldThe Classical Review, New Series, Vol. 50, No. 1 (2000), pp. 142-143Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3065344 .
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8/9/2019 Schönbeck, C. L. J._sunbowl or Symbol. Models for the Intepretation of Heraclitus' Sun Notion_1998 [Schofield, Malc…
2/3
THE
CLASSICAL
REVIEW
HE
CLASSICAL
REVIEW
except
that,
when an
individual
was
regarded
by
the
ancients as
the
founder of a
school,
the
chapter
includes
the
later members of the
school,
e.g.
Aristippus
and the
Cyrenaics,
Antisthenes
and the
Cynics.
There is a
one-page concluding
section on
anonymous
Socratic
dialogues, including
papyrus
fragments,
and another
magnificent
bibliography.
As in the section on the
sophists,
the
aim is
primarily
expository;
different
interpretations
are
mentioned,
but
in
general
critical discussion
muss
dahingestellt
werden .
It
goes
beyond
my
competence
to
discuss
the
content of the
sections on
mathemat-
ical and
medical writers.
I
must be content to note
that
they
are
very
different in
scope.
The
section
on mathematics contains an
essay
on sources and
substantial
discussions
of the work of
Euclid,
Archimedes,
Apollonius
of
Perga,
Pappus,
and
Diophantus.
Running
to over
fifty
double-columned
pages, plus twenty-seven
of
bibliography,
it is a substantial
piece
of
work.
The
medical
section,
by
contrast,
consists
(after
the briefest of introductions
to the
Hippocratic Corpus
and to
Hippocratic ethics) of
short
descriptions
of
eight Hippocratic
works,
some
less than
a
page
long
and
none
longer
than three
and
a
half.
It
amounts
to no
more
than a
collection
of
encyclopedia
articles,
plus
a
five-page
bibliography.
Overall,
this is
an
extremely
useful handbook.
Though
one
should not look to
it
for
in-depth
discussion,
it
contains
a vast amount of information
presented
in
a clear
and
extremely
accessible
form.
It
would
be worth
having
for the sake of the
bibliographies
alone.
Corpus
Christi
College,
Oxford
C. C. W.
TAYLOR
THE
SUN OF HERACLITUS
C.
L.
J. Sc
H N BECK:
Sunbowl
or
Symbol.
Modelsfor
the
Interpreta-
tion
of
Heraclitus
Sun Notion.
Pp.
xlvi
+
439,
ills. Amsterdam:
Elixir
Press,
1998.
Cased,
Hfl. 275. ISBN:
90-71409-03-1.
This
big,
strange,
and beautiful
book is
in
origin
a
doctoral
thesis,
which after
many
years
labours
in
the
composition
was
approved
by
the
University
of
Amsterdam
in
the
summer of 1998.
It is a
kind
of monument not
only
to a certain
conception
of
scholarship,
but
also to the book as
the
physical
object
we
used
to know.
Sunbowl or
Symbol, though
in the end
the outcome
mostly
of electronic
processes,
looks and feels
like the
product
of
one
of the
fine
art
presses
which
flourished
in
Britain
during
the inter-war
period.
It
is
printed
in a limited
edition
(each
copy
with
its own handwritten
number)
on 80
g
Caxton,
with
huge margins,
book
markers,
hand-pasted
ornamented
initials,
and
illustrations,
and
such a combination of
elegance
and
intricate
complexity
in
the
typography
that the author
was
awarded
the
Max
Reneman
Prize for
this
aspect
of the
book.
As
well
as a
general
introduction,
there
is
a
separate
prefatory
section on notations and
typography .
S. uses a
great
variety of typographical conventions, including various symbols in the margins to
indicate items
in
the
text
corresponding
to an
inventory
of
key
topics
(almost
all
wholly
neglected
in
previous scholarship,
in
his
opinion) presented
as one
of
six
appendices.
All
this
is in service
of his
conviction that
explicitness
and
ways
of
exhibiting explicitness
are
prime
desiderata
in
Heraclitus
scholarship,
once
again
barely appreciated by previous
workers
in
the field. Needless to
say,
there are excellent
tables
of
contents,
and the book is
superbly
indexed.
S. s
project
is
indicated
in his
subtitle: this is not a
study
of
Heraclitus
in
general,
but
?
Oxford
University
Press,
2000
except
that,
when an
individual
was
regarded
by
the
ancients as
the
founder of a
school,
the
chapter
includes
the
later members of the
school,
e.g.
Aristippus
and the
Cyrenaics,
Antisthenes
and the
Cynics.
There is a
one-page concluding
section on
anonymous
Socratic
dialogues, including
papyrus
fragments,
and another
magnificent
bibliography.
As in the section on the
sophists,
the
aim is
primarily
expository;
different
interpretations
are
mentioned,
but
in
general
critical discussion
muss
dahingestellt
werden .
It
goes
beyond
my
competence
to
discuss
the
content of the
sections on
mathemat-
ical and
medical writers.
I
must be content to note
that
they
are
very
different in
scope.
The
section
on mathematics contains an
essay
on sources and
substantial
discussions
of the work of
Euclid,
Archimedes,
Apollonius
of
Perga,
Pappus,
and
Diophantus.
Running
to over
fifty
double-columned
pages, plus twenty-seven
of
bibliography,
it is a substantial
piece
of
work.
The
medical
section,
by
contrast,
consists
(after
the briefest of introductions
to the
Hippocratic Corpus
and to
Hippocratic ethics) of
short
descriptions
of
eight Hippocratic
works,
some
less than
a
page
long
and
none
longer
than three
and
a
half.
It
amounts
to no
more
than a
collection
of
encyclopedia
articles,
plus
a
five-page
bibliography.
Overall,
this is
an
extremely
useful handbook.
Though
one
should not look to
it
for
in-depth
discussion,
it
contains
a vast amount of information
presented
in
a clear
and
extremely
accessible
form.
It
would
be worth
having
for the sake of the
bibliographies
alone.
Corpus
Christi
College,
Oxford
C. C. W.
TAYLOR
THE
SUN OF HERACLITUS
C.
L.
J. Sc
H N BECK:
Sunbowl
or
Symbol.
Modelsfor
the
Interpreta-
tion
of
Heraclitus
Sun Notion.
Pp.
xlvi
+
439,
ills. Amsterdam:
Elixir
Press,
1998.
Cased,
Hfl. 275. ISBN:
90-71409-03-1.
This
big,
strange,
and beautiful
book is
in
origin
a
doctoral
thesis,
which after
many
years
labours
in
the
composition
was
approved
by
the
University
of
Amsterdam
in
the
summer of 1998.
It is a
kind
of monument not
only
to a certain
conception
of
scholarship,
but
also to the book as
the
physical
object
we
used
to know.
Sunbowl or
Symbol, though
in the end
the outcome
mostly
of electronic
processes,
looks and feels
like the
product
of
one
of the
fine
art
presses
which
flourished
in
Britain
during
the inter-war
period.
It
is
printed
in a limited
edition
(each
copy
with
its own handwritten
number)
on 80
g
Caxton,
with
huge margins,
book
markers,
hand-pasted
ornamented
initials,
and
illustrations,
and
such a combination of
elegance
and
intricate
complexity
in
the
typography
that the author
was
awarded
the
Max
Reneman
Prize for
this
aspect
of the
book.
As
well
as a
general
introduction,
there
is
a
separate
prefatory
section on notations and
typography .
S. uses a
great
variety of typographical conventions, including various symbols in the margins to
indicate items
in
the
text
corresponding
to an
inventory
of
key
topics
(almost
all
wholly
neglected
in
previous scholarship,
in
his
opinion) presented
as one
of
six
appendices.
All
this
is in service
of his
conviction that
explicitness
and
ways
of
exhibiting explicitness
are
prime
desiderata
in
Heraclitus
scholarship,
once
again
barely appreciated by previous
workers
in
the field. Needless to
say,
there are excellent
tables
of
contents,
and the book is
superbly
indexed.
S. s
project
is
indicated
in his
subtitle: this is not a
study
of
Heraclitus
in
general,
but
?
Oxford
University
Press,
2000
14242
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http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
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8/9/2019 Schönbeck, C. L. J._sunbowl or Symbol. Models for the Intepretation of Heraclitus' Sun Notion_1998 [Schofield, Malc…
3/3
THE
CLASSICAL
REVIEW
of one
particular
theme in his
philosophy.
There
are
among
the
generally
acknow-
ledged fragments
of
Heraclitus
a handful about the
sun,
e.g.
(to
list
those
which
most
preoccupy
S.)
The sun is new
every day (fr.
6
DK);
it has the
breadth of a
human s
foot
(fr.
3
DK);
The
sun will not
overstep
its
measures;
otherwise
the
Erinyes,
helpers
of
justice,
will
find it out
(fr.
94
DK).
In recent
years
we have
become aware that in
the
Derveni
Papyrus
the last
two are recalled
together,
which has
prompted
further
debate
on their
original
form.
In the
gappy
text of col.
IV,
as restored
by
K.
Tsantsanoglou
(see
Studies
on the Derveni
Papyrus,
edd. A. Laks and
G.
W.
Most
[Oxford,
1997],
Chapter
VI),
the
Derveni writer
says
that Heraclitus
says:
The
sun
according
to
its
own nature
is a human foot
in
width,
not
exceeding
its boundaries.
For
if
it
goes
outside
its
width,
the
Erinyes,
helpers
of
justice,
will
find it out. But
S.
investigates
not
just
the
bearing
of
the
Derveni evidence on the
question.
Not
the least of
his
contributions
to the
study
of Heraclitus
is
another
appendix
in
which he
gathers
together
a
larger
collection of testimonia on the entire
body
of
sun
fragments
than we
have ever had before.
S.
evidently
thinks that
in
order to come to
terms with these
sayings
we
need at least
three
attributes.
First,
we need classical
scholarship,
i.e. the
panoply
of
knowledge
of
Greek
literature,
philosophy, philology,
history,
art,
and
archaeology, especially
in
the
archaic
period
but
ranging
well
beyond
that. But
reconstructing
an
archaic
Heraclitus,
even if
feasible,
would not be
enough.
Second,
we
approach
the material
seriously
underequipped
if
we do so without a
knowledge
of
science and the
history
of
science,
especially astronomy
and
psychology-for
how
big
the sun
appears,e.g.
at
the
horizon
vs.
in
the
meridian,
is
a
question
pre-eminently
for
psychology.
Third,
and
above all
else, we need to be awarethat nothing about these sayings of Heraclitusis self-evident.
In
fact
in
every
dimension
each
is
multiply problematical.
And
for
every
question
we can think
to
ask
there are a host of
prior methodological
issues to be
raised and
explored.
Few
earlier
writers,
in
S. s
view,
have
begun
to
see
the
necessity
for
doing
so.
One
exception
to which he
frequently
recurs is
Karl
Popper,
in
Back
to the
Presocratics ,
and
subsequently
in
his debate with
G. S.
Kirk. But he
thinks
Popper s
work succeeds
only
in
alerting
us
to the
need to
take
questions
of
methodology
seriously.
S. s
enquiry
is
really
a
meta-enquiry.
It
is
divided into three
parts,
devoted
to
a
characterization of the
material,
its
problems,
and
the
possibility
of
solutions. The
division makes it sound as though there might have been progress:as though by the
end one
might
perhaps
have
got
a
bit
closer than at
the
outset to
understanding
how
one
might
go
about
making
sense of
Heraclitus
remarks
about the sun.
In the
event,
this
expectation
is not
fulfilled. The
fundamental
reason
for its
non-fulfilment is
that
S.
is
a
sceptic.
He
is driven
not
by
a
sense of
how
despite
all
the
difficulties an
under-
standing
of what
Heraclitus
meant
might
be
achieved,
but
by
a
deep
and
apparently
irrefragable
conviction
that
there are
always
more
difficulties to be
negotiated
than one
is
yet
in
a
position
to
see one s
way
through,
and
that there is
always
more
ground-
clearing
work to
be done
before
building
can
begin.
S. s book
contains
immense and
varied
learning,
and
his
ingenuity
and
perspicacity
in
formulating problematics
is
boundless:
anybody
thinking
of
thinking
about Heraclitus on the
sun
will
want to
consult him.
But
in
the
end the
experience
of
reading
Sunbowl
or
Symbol
was
for me
dispiriting:
sustained and
inconclusive
meta-enquiry
leaves
one
weary
as well
as
hungry.
St
John s
College,
Cambridge
MALCOLM
SCHOFIELD
143
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http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp