Abstract
A common saying of medieval Aristotelianism, both in Arabic and in Latin, labels Aristotle the “First Teacher”. This label implies not only that Aristotle established the system of sciences, but also that he created the demonstrative method. Against the background of the contemporary debates about demonstration and inquiry on natural phenomena in Aristotle, this article contends that the medieval pattern of the “First Teacher” is grounded in late Antiquity, and inherits from the vision of science elaborated first by Alexander of Aphrodisias, and then in the Neoplatonic school of Alexandria.
My most sincere thanks go to Concetta Luna. Her reading of a first draft of this paper saved me from many errors. I am also indebted to the anonymous referees for this volume, whose helpful criticisms are acknoweldged in the footnotes below and to whom I express here my heartfelt thanks. All the remaining shortcomings are mine.
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Notes
- 1.
Lloyd (1990), 371: “The question of the relationship between Aristotle’s theory of science set out in the Posterior Analytics and his actual practice in the physical treatises is, you will feel, a hoary old chestnut indeed. Faced with a series of apparent discrepancies between the two, starting with the notorious mismatch between the attention devoted to the theory of the syllogism in the Organon and evident lack of good-looking actual examples of syllogisms in the physical works, what are we to say?” I owe to one of the referees of this article the remark that Lloyd’s tenet is best accounted for against the background of his more general refusal to see Aristotle as engaged with the question of how to reach a systematic vision covering all the scientific fields. The same referee also points to Gotthelf’s reply to Lloyd in Gotthelf (2012), 185: both remarsk shed light on the issue at hand.
- 2.
E.g. in Part. An. I 1, 639 b 8–10. See also An. Post. I 13, 78 b 39—79 a 5; De Cael. II 13, 293 a 23–30; III 7, 306 a 5–17; Metaph. XII 8, 1073 b 32–38.
- 3.
Owen (1961).
- 4.
- 5.
A further question that cannot be dealt with here is the relationship this debate has with that on the status of demonstrative science versus dialectic: cf. for instance Hamlyn (1990).
- 6.
Barnes (1969, 1975), 77 and 85 (of the 1975 revised version): “The theory of demonstrative science was never meant to guide or formalise scientific research (…) it does not describe how scientists do, or ought to, acquire knowledge. (…) In developing the theory of demonstration and in constructing his notion of demonstrative science, Aristotle was not telling the scientist how to conduct his research: he was giving the pedagogue advice on the most efficient and economic method of bettering his charges. The theory of demonstration offers a formal account of how an achieved body of knowledge should be presented and taught”. As the earliest advocate of this solution, Barnes (fn. 70) quotes Grote (1880). Barnes’ interpretation is labelled “Teaching Thesis” by Wians (1989).
- 7.
Burnyeat (1981) raises doubts about the existence of a ‘pedagogic’ approach in the Posterior Analytics, whose aim is rather to generate complete understanding of demonstrative truths about nature: only such a complete understanding meets the criteria to be a science, and complete understanding is not within the reach of a disciple. Barnes (1981) partly reformulates his position, and other critical remarks are advanced by Wians (1989), also against the revised version. One of the referees of this paper remarks that contemporary Aristotelian scholarship the “Teaching Thesis” is not seen as a viable solution to the “classical problem” mentioned above.
- 8.
- 9.
Hadot (1987a, b), 14: “A partir du 1er siècle av. J.C., avec la ruine de la plupart des institutions philosophiques d’Athènes, provoquée par les dévastations de Sylla, avec la formation de nombreuses institutions philosophiques dans l’ensemble du Bassin méditerranéen, une seconde phase de l’histoire de la philosophie postsocratique se développe. Les quatre tendances doctrinales fondamentales subsistent, mais elles ne sont plus supportées par l’institution athénienne créée par les fondateurs. Pour affirmer leur fidélité au fondateur, le quatre écoles philosophiques, répandues dans différentes villes d’Orient et d’Occident, ne peuvent plus s’appuyer sur l’institution qu’il a créée, ni sur la tradition orale intérieure à l’école, mais uniquement sur les textes du fondateur. Les cours de philosophie consisteront donc avant tout dans des commentaires de ce texte”. Cf. also Donini (1994) and Sedley (1996). The Lyceum ceased to exist as an institution after Sulla’s conquest of Athens: cf. Lynch (1972), 192–207; as for the Platonic school, it is well known that the Platonists disagreed on the question whether or not with Arcesilaus of Pytane (d. 241 b.C.) the Academy continued to be the same school that had been founded by Plato; one thing however is sure, it ceased to exist as an institution after Sulla’s conquest.
- 10.
- 11.
Sandbach (1985) argued that Aristotle was little known during the Hellenistic age; critical remarks on this position were advanced by Hahm (1991); see now Falcon (2016), and Bénatouïl (2016). On the rediscovery of the corpus, the sources that record the facts, and the many problems related to this, cf. above n. 10.
- 12.
The role of Andronicus’ edition in the rebirth of Aristotelianism has been challenged by Barnes (1996), 66, as follows: “Nothing suggests that the ‘Roman edition’, done by Andronicus of Rhodes, revolutionized Aristotelian studies. His text of Aristotle left little mark on posterity. His work as orderer and arranger of the treatises was not epoch-making. (…) There is no reason to think that the Peripatetic renascence was any more dependent on books; and there is no reason to think that Andronicus played midwife at the rebirth”.
- 13.
Hadot (1979).
- 14.
I owe to one of the referees of this article the remark that we should be wary of speaking of subalternatio: subordination as discussed in the Posterior Analytics does not apply primarily to the relationship of a science to higher or lower ones; rather, it applies to the relationship between a science and its subfields. This is surely true, especially in consideration of Aristotle’s rejection of a unique overarching science, that results from the prohibition of kind-crossing explanations; however, there is a tension (not to be explored here) between this tenet and the theory of the “most architectonic science” of Metaphysics A 2 (see below note 15, and cf. McKirahan 1978).
- 15.
An. Po. I 13, 78 b 35–39. For first philosophy, or metaphysics, as the overarching science that encompasses every other one because it investigates the first causes of the whole reality, see Metaph. A 2, 982 a 14—b 12.
- 16.
R. Chiaradonna offered a useful discussion of this question and the various responses to it at the meeting of the Centre “Greco, arabo, latino” of the universities of Pisa—Padua—EPHE Paris held in Pisa, November 26–28, 2019, devoted to the tradition of Aristotle’s Meteorologica in late Antiquity and in the Arab and Latin worlds. On the issue of the biological works cf. Gotthelf and Lennox (1987) Devereux—Pellegrin (1990); on the Meteorology, see Wilson (2013), Scharle (2015).
- 17.
Needless to say that the passage of the Meteorologica does not imply an order of composition, as if Aristotle had written first the Physics, then the De Caelo, then again the De Gen. Corr., and finally the Meteorologica: the point is discussed by Burnyeat (2004). On the relationship between the Parva naturalia and the De Anima cf. Sassi (2014), with discussion of previous literature; cf. also Bydén and Radovic (2018).
- 18.
- 19.
- 20.
Hein (1985).
- 21.
Hein (1985), 86–130.
- 22.
On the so-called “enlarged Organon” of late Antiquity and its Syriac and Arabic fortune cf. Hugonnard-Roche (2007).
- 23.
This commentary is lost in Arabic and has come down to us in Latin and Hebrew translations. The passage above is translated from the Latin version. We owe to Harvey (1985) an English translation of the Hebrew version of the Prologue.
- 24.
Lack of space forbids the treatment of the connected topic of the so-called “enumeration of the sciences” in al-Fārābī, his predecessors, and the philosophers inspired by him—chiefly Avicenna. This “enumeration of the sciences” was one of the main conduits of the late Antique curriculum to the Latin Middle Ages, via Dominicus Gundissalinus.
- 25.
On the rise and increasing importance of the demonstrative method as the distinctive feature of philosophy and in particular of the works of the “First Teacher” from al-Fārābī onwards see Endress (1990, 1997, 2002); a survey of the Posterior Analytics in Arabic philosophy is offered by Marmura (1990).
- 26.
Once again, lack of space forbids to go further into details: the primacy of the most remote cause alluded to above is stated in the first proposition of the Liber de causis, a syllabus of 31 propositions allegedly by Aristotle, but in reality extracted from Proclus’ Elements of theology, which was translated into Arabic in the so-called “circle of al-Kindī” (Endress 1973). Basic information in D’Ancona and Taylor (2003).
- 27.
For the sake of space I will omit here to discuss the question of the alternate translation that Averroes mentions here and there in his commentary.
- 28.
- 29.
- 30.
Albert the Great, De Quindecim problematibus, VI. Note however that Albert, in his commentary on the Physics, criticizes Averroes’ ‘divinization’ of Aristotle’s mind: if one believes that Aristotle was a god, one ought also believe that he never erred; if, on the contrary, one acknowledges he was but a man, one must also think that sometimes he was wrong (VIII, tract. 1, 14), a clear response to Averroes.
- 31.
Lack of space forbids even to try to make good for the loss of a discussion of Albert the Great’s and Thomas Aquinas’ position, as remarked with good reason by one of the referees. Recent scholarship, taking into account previous contributions on the broad topic of the scholastic attitude towards Aristotle’s criteria for scientific knowledge, include Resnick (2013), Amerini and Galluzzo (2014), and Bydén and Thomsen-Thörnqvist (2017).
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D’Ancona, C. (2020). From Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Philosophy, Truth, and Demonstration. In: Fabris, A. (eds) Trust. Trust 2020. Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics, vol 54. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44018-3_2
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