It is generally agreed that the Topics is one of Aristotle's earliest works. But after saying this most writers are unwilling to commit themselves any further and discuss the work, if they discuss it at all, with a vagueness about dating that leads them to do it less than justice. Part of the difficulty, no doubt, lies in the fact that the Topics consists of a central, early, core, surrounded by later additions, and cannot therefore be dealt with as a (...) whole. The suggestions about its date that I wish to make now are concerned solely with what I take to be the original Topics—or such part of it as remains—which I believe can be delimited almost exactly. (shrink)