Leonid Zhmud The Origin of the History of Science in Classical Antiquity

op. cit., 373, 376f.
31
Leo, F.
Die griechisch-römische Biographie nach ihrer litterarischen Form, Leipzig
1901, 99f.; Jaeger, W.
Aristotle: Fundamentals of the history of his development
(1923), 2
nd
ed., Oxford 1948, 334ff.

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Chapter 4: The historiographical project of the Lyceum
126
sufficiently clarified. 1) The project as a whole was devoted to the theoretical
kind of sciences. 2) Individual parts of the project correspond to the division of
the theoretical sciences into mathematics, physics, and theology. 3) These three
sciences were distributed in such a way that Eudemus received the first and the
third kind, the histories of mathematics and theology, while Theophrastus dealt
with the second, physical doxography (Meno’s medical doxography belongs to
this kind as well).
32
4) The material of each science was, in turn, arranged in a
way designed to avoid duplication as far as possible, e.g. between physics and
medicine, physics and theology, mathematical and physical astronomy, etc.
All this demonstrates that the historiographical project of the Lyceum was
carefully worked out. Both in its general plan and in the concrete forms and
methods of the Peripatetics’ work, including their choice of problems, the se-
lection and arrangement of the material etc., we see the traces of Aristotle’s in-
fluence. This influence can hardly be accounted for solely by his students’ ex-
cellent knowledge of his writings and theories; rather, it is backed by the pres-
ence of the head of the school himself – the real, not legendary, architect of
sciences. The degree of Aristotle’s involvement in the project is hard to deter-
mine for certain, but equally hard is to believe that he did not participate in any
form in his students’ coordinated efforts to cover the three areas in the history
of knowledge that he related to the theoretical sciences. At the least, he must
have prompted his students to undertake a research in the history of knowl-
edge.
Proceeding from the assumption that Eudemus’ history of the exact sciences
and history of theology, Theophrastus’ physical doxography, and Meno’s medi-
cal doxography were parts of a common project, rather than works written at
different times and with different aims, we can better understand the intercon-
nections, similarities, and distinctions between them. In contrast, the idea that
Meno’s
Medical Collection is not a part of a common project and may even
prove to be Aristotle’s, and not Meno’s, work,
33
appears unconvincing. Still
less grounded seem to me the attempts to isolate Theophrastus’ doxography
32
See below, 127.
33
See e.g.
Aristotelis opera, Vol. 3: Librorum deperditorum fragmenta, ed. by O. Gi-
gon, Berlin 1987, 511ff. (Gigon listed this work among Aristotelian fragments); Ma-
netti, D. ‘Aristotle’ and the role of doxography in the Anonymus Londiniensis,
AHM, 98f, 129. The papyrus’ author, who made excerpts from Meno’s book, be-
lieved it to have been written by Aristotle. It is more natural, however, to ascribe a
book of an obscure Peripatetic to the founder of the Lyceum than vice versa. The
very obscurity of Meno, who is only known as Aristotle’s student, makes the inven-
tion of his authorship highly improbable. According to Galen, ’Iatrik3 sunagwg2,
ascribed to Aristotle, is generally agreed to have been written by his disciple Meno,
and that is why some call it Menøneia (In Hipp. De nat. hom. com. I, 25–26 = fr. 375
Rose). The title Menøneia occurs in Plutarch (Quaest. conv. 733 C), who, never-
theless, attributes this work to Aristotle. See Zhmud, L. Menon,
Die Philosophie der
Antike, Vol. 3, 564f.

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2. Aristotelian theory of science and the Peripatetic historiographical project
127
from other branches of the project (in particular, from the history of science)
and to consider it in the context of a ‘dialectical practice’ of the Lyceum.
34
Aristotle regarded the theoretical sciences as the most important ones and as
the worthiest occupation for a free man. It is not by chance, therefore, that
mathematics, physics, and theology became the subject of a special histori-
ographical project. To judge from the amount of material and, accordingly, the
effort put into it, physical doxography was certainly the central part of the pro-
ject. Theophrastus’ compendium consisted of 16 (or 18) books (D. L. V, 46,
48), whereas none of Eudemus’ histories of the exact sciences exceeded four
books. Such correlation can be largely explained by the amount of material in
each science and by the methods of its selection. At the same time, it reflects
Aristotle’s own interests as a physicist, interests shared by Theophrastus and
Eudemus as well. The subject matter of the
Physiko¯n doxai largely coincided
with that of most, though by no means all, Presocratic writings – if, of course,
we keep in mind what Aristotle himself understood by perì fúsew~ îstoría.
It included fundamental principles, notions, and categories of physics (matter,
causes, space, time, void, etc.), as well as its separate branches: astronomy, me-
teorology, psychology, physiology, and embryology. (This approach, naturally,
left many of Heraclitus’, Parmenides’, and Zeno’s ideas outside the framework
of doxography.) As for the composition of this treatise, the physicists’
doxai
were set forth in accordance with two main principles: systematic (thematic)
and chronological. The first allowed the opinions of different philosophers to
be put together in books and chapters devoted to individual topics and prob-
lems; the second, to place them in chapters according to their historical se-
quence. For example, the first chapter of the
Physiko¯n doxai, which deals with
@rcaí of philosophers, starts with Thales, the first physicist according to Aris-
totle (
Met. 983b 20), and ends with Plato, whose dialogue Timaeus was the
main source of his physical doctrines for the Peripatetics.
Following Plato, Aristotle believed that the subject of theoretical science is
phenomena and processes of a general and regular character (tà kaqólou).
Yet he modified this postulate, extending the province of theoretical science to
what occurs ‘as a general rule’ (!~ ëpì tò polú).
35
This modification not only
strengthened the theoretical status of physics, but allowed Aristotle to consider
the theoretical part of medicine, related to physics, along with physical the-
ories, without changing medicine’s status as a productive science aiming to at-
tain health (
EE 1216b 18). Aristotle notes several times that, in regard to the
causes (aıtíai) of health and disease, physicists and doctors have a common
task, so that the former often complete their works with medical topics, where-
34
See below, 134.
35
APr 43b 30–38, APo. 96a 8–19; Met. 1027a 20–24, 1064b 32–36, 1065a 1–6. See
De Ste. Croix, G. E. M. Aristotle on history and poetry (1975),
Essays on Aristotle’s
Poetics, ed. by A. O. Rorty, Princeton 1992, 23–32; Mignucci, A. !~ ëpì tò polú et
nécessaire dans la conception aristotélicienne de la science,
Aristotle on science. The
Posterior Analytics, ed. by E. Berti, Padua 1981, 173–204.

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Chapter 4: The historiographical project of the Lyceum
128
as the latter start from physical principles.
36
Meno’s medical doxography was
built on the same principles as Theophrastus’ physical doxography, but was li-
mited to a much narrower set of problems, namely to the causes of diseases.
37
This stressed its proximity to the investigation of the physical @rcaí and aıtíai
and fully agreed with Aristotle’s views on this subject. Meno, following Theo-
phrastus, divided doctors into two groups on the basis of similarities in their
theories. Within each group, they seem to be placed in a more or less chro-
nological order.
38
Meno started with the most ancient doctors whose writings
were available at the time, Euryphon and Herodicus of Cnidus,
39
and evidently
finished with Plato.
40
Earlier Crotonian doctors, like Calliphon and Demo-
cedes, either did not leave writings that corresponded to the topic of Meno’s do-
xography, or like Alcmaeon were considered natural philosophers (fusikoí)
and correspondingly figured in Theophrastus’ work.
41