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

Prep. evan.
XV, 340.23). Meanwhile,
fusikaì dóxai is attested neither in the tradition of the Lyceum, nor in Aristotle’s
commentators (cf. fusik3 dóxa in Olymp.
In Mete.
, 138.29). Mansfeld, J. Decon-
structing doxography,
 Philologus
146 (2002) 279f., does not adduce any indisput-
able example of fusikaì dóxai (in plural), whereas fusik3 dóxa in some of his
examples means ‘natural’, and not ‘physical opinion’.
66
By historiography I mean a general field including not only history in the proper

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Chapter 4: The historiographical project of the Lyceum
134
ings has been questioned or disputed. For example, in their works on do-
xography, J. Mansfeld, D. Runia, and H. Baltussen clearly tend to reduce the
historical orientation of Theophrastus’ work to a minimum or even to deny it in
favor of a systematic one.
67
According to them, the doxography is a systemati-
cally organized collection of ‘physical opinions’, born out of Aristotelian dia-
lectic and designed for dialectical discussions held in the Lyceum;
68
thus, it
would be an obvious anachronism to call it ‘the history of philosophy’. From
this viewpoint, Peripatetic doxography can be compared to a contemporary da-
tabase, to be mined as needed in the course of theoretical discussion or re-
search. C. Eggers Lan insisted that Eudemus did not write a history of the exact
sciences, but “classified authors according to geometric topics”.
69
Earlier,
Wehrli had related Eudemus’ fragment on the principles of the theologians not
to the
History of Theology, but to a systematic treatise.
70
To find a similar goal
for Meno’s
Medical Collection is even easier.
71
As a result, the historiographi-
cal project becomes systematic or simply disintegrates into separate works
hardly connected with each other.
The attempts to separate Theophrastus’ doxography from Eudemus’ history
of exact sciences, to deprive it of its historical sense, and to consider it only as
an application of Aristotle’s dialectic do not seem to me convincing,
72
nor do
recent works questioning the historical character of Eudemus’ writings.
73
In
spite of the significant differences in the methods the individual Peripatetics
employed, it is precisely a historical – and not dialectical or systematic ap-
proach – that unites various parts of the project into one meaningful whole.
74
sense, but also genres that cannot always be
directly related to it, such as ancient
Greek biography and doxography.
67
Mansfeld, Runia.
Aëtiana; Mansfeld, J. Sources, The Cambridge companion to
early Greek philosophy, ed. by A.A. Long, Cambridge 1999, 22–44; Runia, D. What
is doxography?,
AHM, 33–55; Baltussen. Theophrastus.
68
Mansfeld. Doxography and dialectic, 3063; idem. Doxographical studies, Quellen-
forschung, tabular presentation and other varieties of comparativism,
Fragment-
sammlungen, 22.
69
Eggers Lan, C. Eudemo y el ‘catálogo de geómetras’ de Proclo,
Emerita 53 (1985)
130.
70
See Wehrli’s commentary to Eud. fr. 150. Cf. above, 130 n. 51.
71
E.g. it could be related to Aristotle’s work perì nósou kaì ûgieía~ (Manetti, op. cit.,
129).
72
Zhmud, L. Revising doxography: Hermann Diels and his critics,
Philologus 145
(2001) 219–243.
73
Mejer, J. Eudemus and the history of science,
Eudemus of Rhodes, 243–261; Bowen,
A. C. Eudemus’ history of early Greek astronomy, ibid., 307–322.
74
“Aristotle’s own great achievement in the field of history during his later years and
the parallel works of his disciples organized by him show that the investigation of the
detail occupied his mind on a large scale … This sort of historical interest cannot be
explained any longer as an outgrowth of his dialectical method … We must not sep-
arate Aristotle’s interest in the history of philosophy from his historical research in

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3. History in the Lyceum
135
This conclusion will appear even more obvious if we consider this project
against the background of other historiographical genres practiced in the Ly-
ceum. Therefore, we will venture into a more detailed analysis of Aristotle’s at-
titude toward history in general and toward the history of knowledge in particu-
lar, as well as the goals he tried to achieve by directing his students to the his-
tory of the theoretical sciences.
In contrast to his approach to mathematics, which attracted Aristotle as a
philosopher but never became an object of his independent research,
75
when
dealing with history and natural sciences he revealed a keen interest in the em-
pirical investigation of particular facts, without, however, forgetting his theor-
etical tasks: to explain the ‘causes’ of things. Being fully aware of the historical
character of such human accomplishments as the state, art, philosophy, and
science, Aristotle endeavored to reveal the inner logic of their development.
Even if he does not entirely meet the modern requirements of history, Aristotle
did much more for its development than any other ancient philosopher,
76
both
through his own studies and through the historiographical works of his stu-
dents.
Certainly, Aristotle was hardly a “historian in the modern sense of this
word”.
77
The question, however, is whether “a historian in the modern sense of
the word” is the only type of historian possible. What will remain of Jacoby’s