1G0xxeB

Book Review: Political Philosophy Cross-Examined1 7 3show us that prudence can establish” (19). In other words, Aristotle’s case forprudence will not persuade all men, but only those already habituated to theright opinions about the just and the noble. Bruell closes with four points thatmerit further consideration. First, is an argument establishing the primacy ofone way of life not ultimately a practical argument? Second, the critique ofprudence and prudent men began with a “recognition of the precision withwhich they accomplish their task,” which is good reason to leave them be (27).Third, the capacity of the prudent to act well “presupposes an adequate graspon their part of a broad range of human ends, in their proper ordering”; correctingand enlarging that grasp through theory might play a role in “tamingthe savagery of political life” (27). Finally, the end of the Ethics intends topresent theory as parallel to and higher than practical life, but ultimatelyembedded in it: “practice” comes to light as “the matrix of theory” (28).In the next chapter, Thomas Pangle addresses the question, raised inPolitics 7, of which is better, the political or the philosophic life, both for individualsand for cities. This dense essay begins with Aristotle’s presentationof the case against virtue from the crudely hedonistic position, and moves toAristotle’s response (which, Pangle points out, fails as a refutation). Nor doesAristotle offer a response to the thoughtful hedonist, who recognizes the utilityof virtue for both the apolitical life and the life devoted to acquisition (30).Instead, Aristotle turns to divine self-sufficiency as a way of understandinghappiness or blessedness, which consists in “a higher, self-sufficient virtue.”Perhaps there is a way of life that can approximate such divine happiness onearth—“an earthly life engrossed in either blissful or sternly self-transcendingmental activities akin to God’s…which depends on other human beingsas little as possible within mortal limits, and is either purged of or enabled torepress immoral temptations.” Pangle proceeds to highlight an ambiguity inthe mind of the morally serious man: does virtuous activity constitute one’sown greatest good, or does it merely render one deserving of “an otherwiseunattainable divine happiness” (31)? Would such happiness be appropriatefor a city or for an individual? Pangle’s essay compels a confrontation with anumber of hesitations and ambiguities in Aristotle’s presentation, and thereforea deeper confrontation with Aristotle himself.In “Inexhaustible Riches: Mining the Bible,” J. Harvey Lomax discussesthe challenge of revelation. Christianity, of course, has long had a cozierrelationship with philosophy than Judaism, as evinced by the accord reachedbetween the two camps in the Middle Ages. In an outstanding collection,Lomax’s essay particularly shines in the way it presents the challenge of the