Abstract

Pierre Hadot's analysis of the role of ancient philosophical discourse in the formation of a philosophical self allows us to extend to the interpretation of Aristotle the counter-Heideggerian Platonic hermeneutics of Gadamer, Strauss and Klein. Central to Plato's and Aristotle's rhetorical/pedagogical strategy is the development of the language of theoria to formulate the goal of philosophical formation. ;Traditional meanings of theoria refer to attendance at public festivals and consultation of oracles. Plato first extends its meaning to express the vision of timeless truths. However, he does not give theoria a single meaning intended to express the philosophical experience, but has Socrates employ it dialectically according to the characters and aspirations of diverse interlocutors. ;Aristotle gives the language of theoria a twofold development, systematically forging a language for acts of cognition while also reshaping the objects of his students' aspirations. In the Nicomachean Ethics , he exploits the aristocratic aspiration to preeminence that aims at rule, replacing the statesman with the philosopher as object of emulation. The language of theoria in the final chapters borrows grandeur from the objects that at this point wisdom is said to pursue, the stars and cosmos; as in the Republic, the human mind is said to enjoy godlike theoria. In his natural philosophy, Aristotle shifts the focus from stars to animals; theoria loses the grandeur it had in the Ethics and comes to express the thoughtful observation of the causes of natural phenomena. ;In the Metaphysics, Aristotle makes more explicit the ethics proper to the life of inquiry, based on the radical experience of aporia about the most fundamental questions of being and the shared attempt to formulate these questions and pursue answers within the Lyceum culture. It involves liberation from the admiration accorded the transcendently wise man and delivering oneself to wonder at the most puzzling questions. This dissolution of the emulous relationship between teacher and student entails the creation of a greater distance between human and diving thought; in the theology of Book Lambda, theoria refers only to human thought, which cannot attain the same perfection as divine noesis