Excertos de Philip J. Van der Eijk, Medicine and Philosophy in Classical Antiquity. Doctors and Philosophers on Nature, Soul, Health and Disease.Cambridge University Press, 2005
The Corpus Aristotelicum presents different problems. Here we do have a large body of texts generally agreed to be by one author (although there [35] is disagreement about the authenticity of some of them). Yet any general account of Aristotle’s philosophy is bound to begin with a discussion of the problems posed by the form and status of his writings. Do they represent the ‘lecture notes’ written by Aristotle himself on the basis of which he presented his oral teaching? Or are they to be taken as the ‘minutes’ or ‘verbatims’ of his oral teaching as written down by his pupils? Certainly, some characteristics of his works may be interpreted as evidence of oral presentation;1 and with some (parts) of his works it is not easy to imagine how they might have been understood without additional oral elucidation — although this may be a case of our underestimating the abilities of his then audience and an extrapolation of our own difficulties in understanding his work. However, other parts of his work are certainly far too elaborate to assume such a procedure.2 Some works display a careful structure of argumentation which may well be understood by reference to an audience which is supposed to go through a learning process; and certainly the ‘dialectical’ passages where he deals with the views of his predecessors reflect a very elaborate composition.3 All in all, it is clear that not much is gained by premature generalisations and unreflective categorisations (such as ‘lecture notes’),4 and that we should allow for considerable variation in forms of expression and degree of linguistic and structural organisation between the various works in the Corpus Aristotelicum.
For examples see Follinger (1993) and van der Eijk (1994) 97; for direct references to the teaching situation see Bodéüs (1993) 83-96. ↩
E.g. Metaphysics i.i or Nicomachean Ethics (Eth. Nie.) 4.3; for other examples see Schutrumpf (1989) and Lengen (2002). ↩
E.g. Generation of Animals 1.17-18. ↩
On the problems inherent in this notion see Schutrumpf (1989) 178-80 with notes 12,13,17, 23 and 26. ↩