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The Articulation and Hierarchy of Knowledge in Aristotle's Thought
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
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Aristotle's endeavor, at least insofar as we can judge from the way it has been transmitted to us and from the titles of the lost works, is often presented as the first work of an encyclopedic nature, as it seems to embrace and order all of the elements of knowledge. Does Aristotle not advance a classification of sciences, in Metaphysics, E, 1, as well as a systematic outline of the “sciences of nature” in his Meteorologica, I, 1? And again, although logic is often presented as not belonging to the system of sciences since it is not counted as a science in Metaphysics, E, 1, is Aristotle not generally considered the inventor of this discipline? The impression is all the stronger in that Andronicus of Rhodes, in the first century b.c., edited Aristotle's works by roughly adopting the threefold division of philosophy into Logic-Physics-Ethics, a division that had become common during the Hellenistic period though more particularly proper to the Stoic system. Since then, all the editions of Aristotle, in every language, have been made to serve the order in which Aristotle's treatises were thus edited.
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- Copyright © 1997 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)
References
Notes
1. In the modern sense of the term this goes without saying. For the appropriate meaning of the term "encyclopedia" in the ancient world, see I. Hadot's study herein and her master work. Arts libéraux et philosophie dans la pensée antique, Paris, 1984.
2. On this point the reader is referred to J. Bertier, "De l'éducation," in Aristote. Cinq œuvres perdues, Paris, 1968.
3. See R. Bodéüs, "L'influence historique du stoïcisme sur l'interprétation de l'œuvre philosophique d'Aristote," Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques, 79 (1995), pp. 553-586, where the author shows admirably that, for this part of his account, Diogenes Laertius used a doxographer who was steeped in Stoicism, probably slightly after Posidonius, and thus well before Andronicus of Rhodes.
4. Regarding the organon, see J. Brunschwig's erudite study, "L'Organon. Tradi tion grecque," in R. Goulet (ed.), Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques, I, CNTRS, Paris, pp. 482-502.
5. See Adversus Mathematicos, VII, 16-19.
6. See J. Brunschwig, "Qu'est-ce que la Physique d'Aristote?" in F. de Gandt & P. Souffrin (eds.), La Physique d'Aristote et les conditions d'une science de la nature, Paris, 1991, pp. 11-40.
7. See Aristotle: A Chapter from the History of Science, including Analyses of Aris totle's Scientific Writings, London, 1864, pp. 244-245.
8. See Werner Jaeger's master work on this point, Aristotle: Fundamentals of the History of his Development, trans. R. Robinson (Oxford, 1934, 1948). More than seventy years after its first publication in German, his work can finally be read in French, Aristote. Fondements pour une histoire de son évolution, Paris, 1997.
9. See Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, IV, 6; V, 2.
10. See Parts of Animals, I, 5, 644 b 2-645 a 23.
11. In French, "la nature ‘machine,"' Ibid., III, 14, 675 b 12. It should be noted that this term is used to describe nature's strategems for the evacuation of excre ment. Perhaps the authentic version of Heraclitus' words is that the gods are also in the latrines!
12. Pascal's words. In French, "superbe diabolique."