[...]... Philoxenus of Eritrea Toward the end of his “years of travel,” Aristotle accepted a commission for Delphi to compile a list of victors of the Pythian Games The fact that he was given this honorable commission demonstrates his scientific renown—and his acceptance of it documents once again his far-reaching intellectual curiosity in adding historiography to his other lines of research He was awarded a decree of. .. them from the points of view of the theory of science, natural science, and theory of literature, however, while there is no theory or philosophy of medicine It would seem that two factors are partly responsible On the one hand, there is no medical research being done in Aristotle s intellectual surroundings, that is, in Plato’s Academy On the other, Aristotle only opens up new areas of research where... genre consists of collections of research material—about the tenets of earlier philosophers, research into nature (in particular zoology), about politics, proverbs, Homeric questions, etc The collection of performance dates of the “tragedy competitions,” the so-called Didaskalia, is lost, and of the most famous collection, that of 158 Greek constitutions, we have only the Constitution of Athens When... we find ti/“what,” poson/“how big,” poion/ of what kind,” or pou/“where”; among the principles of motion, he mentions “made from what,” “what,” “whence,”and “for the sake of what.” In any case, Aristotle does not aim at an artificial language of philosophy, but at the specification, differentiation, and occasionally the development of expressions familiar 12 ARISTOTLE from everyday language That way... historiographer of the Pythian Games, or the representative of a scientific Homeric philology He even makes important contributions to mathematics, albeit only to its method and the theory of the reality of its objects In today’s debates some of these topics seem like poor relations: which philosopher would still venture into rhetoric or a theory of modern theatre? In Aristotle we can see that—independent of the... that—independent of the question whether there are central and marginal topics—at the best, it is the quality of philosophizing that is of a higher or lower rank 15 16 ARISTOTLE One area is conspicuously absent As a physician’s son, Aristotle is familiar with the practical skills of a doctor as well as the physiological and anatomical theories of his times (cf the remarks in the Ethics; also Metaph I 1, 981a15–24;... ILLUSTRATIONS 1 Plato Roman copy (from the reign of Tiberius) of a portrait statue made in the middle of the fourth century B.C.E (Munich, Glyptothek) 4 Detail (Alexander) of a battle between Alexander the Great and Darius Pompei, House of the Faun; probably based on an original by Philoxenus of Eritrea 7 3 Socrates Copy of a Hellenistic bust (Rome, Villa Albani) 8 4 Aristotle Roman copy based on a fourth-century... Detail (Plato and Aristotle) from Raphael, The School of Athens (Rome, Vatican, Stanza della Segnatura) 120 6 Aristotle (Portal Royal of Chartres Cathedral, twelfth century) 194 7 Aristotle at his lectern; MS of the writings on natural sciences, Rome 1457 (Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod phil gr 64) 197 xi This page intentionally left blank ABBREVIATIONS AND METHOD OF CITATION Ath APo... intellectual life is concerned Aristotle brought his library, which was of extraordinary size for his times, to the Lyceum, as well as a considerable amount of scientific instruments In the course of public lectures— the philosopher kept up the unity of teaching and research familiar from the Academy—he revised earlier drafts of his thoughts and elaborated a mature version of his didactic writings He... servants We have portrait busts of Aristotle made at the time of the Roman Empire but based on a Greek original, presumably one made by Lysippus, court sculptor to Alexander the Great, at his master’s command They show Aristotle, aged about sixty, with a beard, wide mouth, strong lower lip and—as the iconographic expression of his outstanding intelligence and powers of concentration—a conspicuously . PRESS ARISTOTLE Published by STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS ALBANY © 2003 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced. alt="" ARISTOTLE SUNY series in ANCIENT GREEK PHILOSOPHY Anthony Preus, editor OTFRIED HÖFFE Translated by Christine Salazar STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS ARISTOTLE Published by STATE UNIVERSITY. writing of the publisher. For information, address State University of New York Press 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207 Production, Laurie Searl Marketing, Anne M. Valentine Library of