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Place-Names and the date of Aristotle's Biological Works1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

H. D. P. Lee
Affiliation:
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

Extract

I start with two contradictory statements: (1) Jaeger, Aristotle (Eng. trans.), p. 330: ‘Thus all indications point to a late date for the origin of the philosopher's zoological works.’ (2) D'Arcy Thompson, Historia Animalium (Oxford Translation), Prefatory Note: ‘It can be shown that Aristotle's natural history studies were carried on, or mainly carried on, in his middle age, between his two periods of residence at Athens.‘

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1948

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References

page 61 note 2 Op. cit., p. 325.

page 61 note 3 e.g. the list of Pythian victors, the Didascaliae, and the collection of 150 Constitutions: ibid., pp. 325–8.

page 61 note 4 Ibid., p. 308.

page 61 note 5 Ibid., p. 330: contrastZeller, , Aristotle, i. 29 n. 2Google Scholar, who takes the opposite view.

page 62 note 1 Aristotle 3, pp. 4, 19, 113. Stocks, in his article on Σχολή in C.Q. 1936. p. 177, takes a view similar to that of Ross. G. R. G. Mure in the last chapter of his Aristotle is more critical of J.

page 62 note 2 Op cit., p. 325.

page 62 note 3 Hist. An. (Oxf. trans.), loc. cit.

page 62 note 4 Aristotle as a Biologist, p. 12.

page 64 note 1 Aristotle as a Biologist, p. 13.

page 64 note 2 Ross, , op cit., p. 113Google Scholar.

page 64 note 3 Ibid., p. 1.

page 65 note 1 Legacy of Greece, pp. 145, 150; Aristotle as Biologist, pp. 20–1.

page 65 note 2 J., op. cit., p. 308.

page 65 note 3 Cf. Epicrates, fr. 11 (Kock). J. (pp. 18–19) denies that this fragment can be regarded as evidence for an interest in natural philosophy in the Academy, and in this paper I have not contested his view. But to the Epicrates fragment may be added the account of the details of the natural world in the Timaeus and the inclusion of knowledge of sensibles as an ingredient in the good life in the Philebus; and it does not seem impossible that the ‘empirical investigation of details’ was pursued, to some extent, in the Academy before Plato's death (J. himself speaks at one point (p. 21) of Plato's ‘turning his attention to particulars’ in his later years).

page 65 note 4 An. Post. 2. 5; An. Pr. 1. 31.

page 65 note 5 Op. cit., p. 330.

page 66 note 1 Cf. Ross, Aristotle's Physics, Introduction.

page 66 note 2 Cf. Zeller, , op. cit., p. 17Google Scholar: ‘We may safely assume that he did in fact employ his long years of preparation at Athens in busy acquirement of his marvellous learning, and also that he took a keen interest in researches in natural philosophy, though Plato always treated it as of secondary importance.’