Research: Aristotle's Peri Philosophias: textual and historical-philosophical analysis
Aristotle's Περὶ φιλοσοφίας (De philosophia, On Philosophy) is a work worthy of interest for numerous reasons: it is undoubtedly the Meisterwerk of the "lost" Aristotle, that is, Aristotle's production intended for circulation outside the institution of study and research he founded, the Lyceum. The fragmentary and heterogeneous nature of its relics and the disparity of its witnesses have made its reconstruction somewhat arduous, leading editors to make radically different exegetical choices (think of the inclusiveness of Untersteiner 1963 and the parsimony of Gigon 1987). As the ancient witnesses (Diogenes Laërtius, Syrianus, Cicero) report to us, it consisted of three books, dealing respectively with the σοφία of the ancients (the wisdom of the Magi, the Chaldeans, the Phoenicians, as well as Delphic wisdom itself), the mathematical and geometrical doctrines of the Academics contemporary with him (and among them especially Xenocrates), and the supralunar world, composed of a "nameless" fifth element (vacans nomine), perfect, incorruptible and divine, which makes the stars endowed with intelligence and will. As the title itself suggests, it is an all-encompassing and encyclopedic work, which enjoyed great success in antiquity-as the fair number of fragments that have been preserved testify. As mentioned, therefore, a work worthy of attention for its historical and philosophical relevance: one finds in it an already mature Aristotle, by now external to the Academy and its special interests (yet always in dialogue - albeit critical - with it), curious about the past, critical of the present and determined in proposing his own physical and cosmological doctrines, at times profoundly innovative (as evidenced by the first systematic formulation in the history of philosophy of a bipartite cosmology between the supralunar and sublunar worlds, in which the supralunar world is divine and ethereal). The aim of the research is to revive studies on this crucial text of Aristotelian production, often inappropriately left in the background (the last Italian edition dates back to 1963, more than sixty years ago), by producing a systematic and comprehensive study of it that aims to contextualize it in the Corpus Aristotelicum and - at the same time - to enhance its traits of originality with respect to the "acroamatic" Aristotle, more familiar to us. Contextually, the research will make use of a new systematization of the fragments, accompanied by some additions and a new translation.
Key words
Aristotle, De philosophia, wisdom, ancient academia, ancient mathematics, ancient astronomy