The Peripatetics

Aristotle's Heirs 322 BCE - 200 CE

Han Baltussen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317514954
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

The Peripatetics explores the development of Peripatetic thought from Theophrastus and Strato to the work of the commentator Alexander of Aphrodisias. The book examines whether the internal dynamics of this philosophical school allowed for a unity of Peripatetic thought, or whether there was a fundamental tension between philosophical creativity and the notions of core teachings and canonisation. The book discusses the major philosophical preoccupations of the Peripatetics, interactions with Hellenistic schools of thought, and the shift in focus among Greek philosophers in a changing political landscape. It is the first book of its kind to provide a survey of this important philosophical tradition.

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1 Aristotle’s Heirs¹

Those associated with the Peripatetic school do not seem to have enjoyed the same appeal as their ‘founder’. Despite a lengthy existence, the school faded from the historical record for considerable periods of time, and while it experienced a brief revival during the late Roman republic and early empire, as an active school it vanished soon after 200 CE, ousted by Platonism (and Christianity). Committed followers and occasional devotees of Aristotle can be described, respectively, as those who either were a member of the core group from which a leader was picked, or those who took a serious interest in his works. The distinction is a useful one, since the two groups display various degrees of faithfulness to the Aristotelian doctrines. It should be pointed out, however, that both groups also express disagreement with the great founder and his successors: apparently neither membership nor enthusiasm precluded anyone from expressing dissent. How this affected the school’s nature will become clear in the course of the chapters that follow.

While Aristotle’s imposing oeuvre stood the test of time, the works of his followers survive mostly in fragments only—apart from a few works by Theophrastus (‘scholarch’ or head of the school, 322–278 BCE) and the two commentators Aspasius (ca. 150 CE) and Alexander of Aphrodisias (ca. 200 CE). Evidence for Aristotelian writings in learned circles (where their complete books were read) is found among the Platonists of late antiquity, but Christian authors often had merely indirect access to their works.²

This book tries to present a new synthesis of our current knowledge about the Peripatos, as the school became known, from the death of Aristotle (322 BCE) up to Alexander (ca. 200 CE), his most famous exegete. The key challenge is to reconstruct some of the ideas of individuals who studied and responded to the founder’s philosophy, yet are now little more than names in a list or shadowy figures. Their ideas have become selectively quoted, rephrased, and summarised, and are therefore no longer fully retrievable. Earlier attempts to recover the school’s development (Zeller in the 1880s, Wehrli in the 1950s and 60s, Moraux 1973, Lynch 1983, and Sharples 2010³) have contributed to the background knowledge, but new details and additional materials are also available thanks to the efforts of the international working group ‘Project Theophrastus’. This collaborative team has led the way to consolidating the findings of the past decades in the Rutgers series (RUSCH, see Appendix B), led by W.W. Fortenbaugh, R.W. Sharples, P. Huby, and D. Gutas. The first publication, a new collection of the fragments of Theophrastus (FHSG 1992, 2 vols.), inaugurated an ongoing effort to collect, translate, and comment on all Peripatetics down to 100 BCE. A recent contribution to filling the gaps of our knowledge between 200 BCE and 200 CE is Robert Sharples’ sourcebook (SHARPLES).

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One further significant advance that allows for a new account of the school is that the important philosophical commentaries of the late Platonists (300–700 CE) have been translated and studied more intensely in the past three decades. This trend has contributed to our knowledge of the school, because a better understanding of these commentaries, which preserve important Peripatetic fragments, allows us to contextualise the fragments better and glean ancient insights into the texts for our own benefit. Thus both the materials and their sources have come into sharper focus.

Those associating themselves with Aristotle and his work were referred to as the men ‘from the Lykeion’,⁴ those ‘from the peripatos’,⁵ or just simply ‘Peripatetics’ (Peripatêtikoi). The derivations of the name labels are not as certain as one might expect: they could be the men from the ‘shaded walkway’ (peripatos in Greek); or the origin of the name could be the verb peripateo (‘to walk around’), originally describing how Plato and Aristotle were in the habit of walking while teaching. Typically, Greek philosophical schools received their names either from the school leader (scholarchos) or the location of their activity. Early on the phrase ‘those from the peripatos’ was also used to refer to Plato’s students (e.g. to describe Xenocrates and Aristotle, see Philodemus, History of the Academy (Acad. Ind.) = PHerc 1021; Ammonius, Commentary on Aristotle’s Categories 3.8), but it is likely that, once Aristotle left Plato to start his own teaching activity (scholê), Platonists became more closely associated with the Akadêmeion, a park where a statue of the hero Akadêmos was found (hence ‘academics’). The second derivation for Aristotle and his students is thus not that far removed from the first; still, both remain somewhat uncertain. The habit of ‘walking and talking’ may also have given rise to the name Peripatêtikoi—although strikingly the term peripatêtikos is only found in sources of later centuries (Strabo 13. 608; Plutarch Sulla 26. 2. 2; Diogenes Laertius [= DL] 1. 17).⁶ Once they established a domicile at the Lykeion, a park dedicated to the Apollo Lykeios (the Wolfgod), this gave rise to the name ‘the men from the Lykeion’ (Lyceum). The Lykeion was located outside the city walls, because as a metic (non-Athenian, ‘immigrant’), Aristotle was not allowed to own property in the city of Athens.⁷

The vagaries of the term ‘Peripatetics’ illustrate well how the nomenclature of philosophical groups was not particularly transparent. And neither was the concept of a ‘school’. In fifth and fourth century Athens, a philosophical ‘school’ often consisted of a group of men congregating around an original and pioneering thinker, who led discussion into questions of life, nature, and morality. ‘School’ therefore does not necessarily mean a building, but a gathering of people, although, as Karamanolis reminds us, Theophrastus did buy the land to provide the school with a location.⁸ This fact justifies the paradoxical conclusion that Aristotle himself was strictly speaking not a Peripatetic because the school was given its official status only after his death. The naming of a school could then happen by its habitual association with a particular place. What’s more, the men from the Lykeion can also be described as those associating with a non-citizen (Theophrastus) outside the city walls.⁹ Lastly, that Aristotle set up his own ‘school’ is another marker for the way in which these groups arose: apparently fundamental disagreement over method or doctrine could lead to a change of teacher or to the decision to become independent.

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Aristotle and his successors

The importance of Aristotle in the history of philosophy is undisputed. His name is still uttered with respect and his works are discussed in- and outside modern universities. His vast learning and deep thought influenced Hellenistic thinkers, medieval philosophy in the Western and Arabic traditions. He has been labelled the ‘first scientist’ and the ‘greatest philosopher’. What is not always given due consideration is that Aristotle’s range of intellectual pursuits came to overshadow the successors of his own school. Often their efforts to preserve and continue his work became conflated in the later tradition, and the mechanisms of historical record-keeping also interfered with the ways in which their works were treated.¹⁰ But his influence was not always present in all historical periods and in recent decades the transmission of Aristotelian ideas outside of Aristotle’s works has become an important element in the study of his lasting legacy.

This book wants to approach the school afresh by giving the successors the attention they deserve and by foregrounding two broader themes usually not given a prominent place: doctrinal continuity and interactions with contemporary philosophers. An important part of the narrative will focus on the reception of Aristotle’s ideas among his early successors and on how historical circumstances and intellectual interactions contributed to the philosophical continuity of Aristotelian thought. But it will also be necessary to look beyond the first few generations after Aristotle’s death in order to understand how the loss of direct contact with the founder would change the transmission and reinterpretation of his ideas. In all chapters a brief précis of Aristotle’s main views will introduce specific areas in which his successors made contributions.

The ‘school’ of Aristotle is a convenient term for a tradition of philosophical thought which is rather more diverse than is sometimes acknowledged in standard accounts of the school. The picture that has been emerging in recent decades shows that the label ‘Peripatetic’ can refer to different styles of engagement with his ideas and works: committed followers, sympathetic readers, admirers, and critics all have chosen the name themselves or have been given the label by others. The story of the Peripatos and its supposed demise has for a long time been dominated by Cicero’s account and reinforced by nineteenth-century scholarship of a particular kind. A narrative of a rise and fall was famously popularised by Gibbon’s A History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776–1788). As a model it became convenient to characterise the fate of a philosophical school, a culture, or a whole civilisation. That there should be a natural waxing and waning of cultures or intellectual movements is of course a widely accepted idea, but the stronger version of such a pessimistic perspective was perhaps r...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• The Peripatetics Aristotle’S Heirs, 322 BCE–200 CE
• Ancient Philosophies
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Sources and Abbreviations
• Preface
• 1 Aristotle’s Heirs
• 2 The Natural World and Its (Hidden) Foundations
• 3 Things and Words: Language, Logic, and Reasoning
• 4 Ethics and Politics: On Morality and Citizenship
• 5 Continuity and Criticism in the Peripatos
• 6 Intellectual Context: Rivals and Devotees
• 7 Epilogue: From Theophrastus to Alexander of Aphrodisias
• Appendix A: Known Peripatetics 322 Bce–250 Ce
• Appendix B: Modern Editions and Commentaries on the Peripatetics
• Index