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Video: Who is Pseudo-Aristotle and did his writings really enrich science?
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
A peculiar phenomenon once arose in literature: works appeared, the author of which was pointed out to Aristotle, the ancient Greek thinker. Sometimes there was even confusion - did he really create the works that are so popular with numerous readers? As a rule, such authorship was later refuted, but the works of Pseudo-Aristotle remained in plain sight. Who spoke under the name of Aristotle and why?
Why Aristotle's name had such a powerful effect
Aristotle lived more than twenty-three centuries ago, but still, apparently, no one succeeded in surpassing his contribution to science. Generally speaking, he created this science as a way to cognize objective reality and man himself. On the basis of the teachings of Aristotle, the "theoretical" sciences are built - mathematics, physics, metaphysics, and "practical" - politics, ethics, and "poetic" - that is, creative. Aristotle described the causes of all things, developed a system of philosophical categories, dealt with the relationship between space and time, and generally created the basis for the development of scientific knowledge.
Therefore, it is not difficult to assume that everything written by this thinker will have special value by default. It is almost impossible to determine it, this value, in quantitative terms, it is so high - it's like talking about the significance of the suddenly found third poem of Homer. Who first thought of perpetuating his work by writing the name of Aristotle on it as an author is difficult to say. The fame of the scientist was already very great during his lifetime, and, apparently, his disciples and followers published the works under his name - that is, it happened in the fourth century BC.
Aristotle was born in 384 BC. in the city of Stagira in Thrace. He lost his parents early, but managed to take over the basic knowledge and interest in learning from his father, and at the age of seventeen he came to Athens, where he became a student of Plato.
The time was not the most calm, the ancient world was shaken by military conflicts; during the same period there were the conquests of Philip the Great, who learned about the sage Aristotle and invited him to teach his son Alexander. At that time, the future great commander was about thirteen years old. After the death of King Philip, when power passed to the new ruler of Macedonia, Aristotle left his student and went back to Athens, where he founded his school - Lyceum. The disciples of Lycea were also called peripatetics, that is, "walking", because this is how the followers of Aristotle preferred to master wisdom - on the go, walking.
A Greek from Stagira, during his rather long life, at 62, created a large number of works. They concerned ontology, the doctrine of being, its principles and main categories. Aristotle is considered the founder of logic as a science, he ordered all the knowledge then at the disposal of man.
Aristotle explained the relationship between soul and body, theoretical knowledge and practical experience, laid the foundations of ethics, created the doctrine of the state, devoted attention to cosmology and the Earth as a planet, created a number of works on rhetoric, wrote about the natural sciences, including giving descriptions of nature and different species animals. The science of psychology is also largely based on the teachings of Aristotle.
Author - Pseudo-Aristotle
Aristotle wrote a lot - and some of these works did not become widespread during his lifetime. It is believed that he bequeathed all his works to the disciple and philosopher Theophrastus, and then they passed on to a certain Nelius from Skepsis. The manuscripts were not kept in the best conditions, in dampness, which is why they were partially damaged. Aristotelian works were restored already in the 1st century AD, and even in ancient Rome they were all published in the form in which they are known now.
What does Pseudo-Aristotle have to do with it? This is the collective name of all those who made public the results of their reflections under the name of a great scientist. This was done by the students of Aristotle themselves, perhaps, by the way, among the works they published were the true works of the philosopher. Pseudo-Aristotle, a collective image, used the name of the philosopher throughout the time that Aristotle is known as a thinker. Writings in Latin, Greek and Arabic, works on alchemy, astrology, palmistry - that which the sage from Stagira might not even have thought of - spread throughout the world. The true authors of these works are, of course, unknown.
Pseudo-Aristotle Books
The most popular of the pseudo-Aristotelian works was the Secretum Secretorum, which was translated, including in Ancient Russia, under the title "The Secret Book of Secrets." In medieval Europe, this work was more popular than the real works of Aristotle. The "Book of Secrets" included a collection of instructions that Aristotle allegedly gave to his student Alexander the Great. It dealt with knowledge from ethics, physiognomy, alchemy, medicine and various types of arts. The Arabic original of the book dates back to the 8th-9th centuries, in Russian it was created not earlier than the 16th century. By the way, in this case, they did not doubt the authorship of Aristotle - and they gladly adopted the secret wisdom of the great teacher, which was passed on to the great student.
If "Secretum" became the most replicated work of the Middle Ages, then new times brought their own interests. Aristotle's Masterpiece was a 17th-century work on obstetrics and intimate practices. Of course, it was also a bestseller. In England, "Masterpiece" broke all records for circulation and sales. The works of the Pseudo-Aristotle, with all their differences, were usually distinguished by the presence of contradictions in the text, independent insertions by the translators, which caused repetitions and generally lost the already not very high quality of the text. But labor was gaining fame and, to some extent, immortality.
And for a long time there were disputes about another ancient Greek philosopher: who Diogenes really was - a crook or a philosopher and whether he lived in a barrel.
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