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

Physiko¯n doxai. The
latter clearly indicates that the Peripatetics viewed the configuration of the
sciences formed by the middle of the fourth century in the light of the Aristote-
lian classification, which we, therefore, now ought to consider.
2. Aristotelian theory of science
and the Peripatetic historiographical project
Strictly speaking, what we find in Aristotle does not constitute a unified and
elaborated system.
14
Rather, it represents attempts to classify various kinds of
knowledge undertaken at different times and from different points of view. His
separate observations about the interrelations between particular disciplines
and about their epistemological status quite often contradict each other. This is
largely explained by Aristotle’s well-known tendency, when examining a ques-
tion, to draft a classification or to give an occasional definition that, due to its
ad
hoc character, does not always agree with classifications and definitions he
gives on different occasions in other writings. We will attempt, nonetheless, to
give a general outline of Aristotle’s classification of knowledge in its corre-
lation with the forms in which the historiographical project was realized, with-
out aiming to reconcile
more scholastico all the small- and large-scale contra-
dictions.
In its most general form, Aristotle’s classification of the sciences is pre-
sented in book E of the
Metaphysics, which may go back to his lost work Perì
ëpisthmõn.
15
All sciences (ëpist4mai) and all mental activities (diánoiai) are
divided into three kinds: praktik2, poihtik2, and qewrhtik2. Praktik3
ëpist2mh includes practically-oriented sciences that regulate nonproductive
human activity (prãxi~), like ethics and politics; poihtik2 includes productive
sciences, or arts (técnai); and qewrhtik2 embraces theoretical sciences.
16
Ar-
14
On this class of problems, see McKirahan, R. Aristotle’s subordinate sciences,
BJHS
11 (1978) 197–220; Owens, J. The Aristotelian conception of the sciences,
Collected
papers, ed. by J. R. Catan, Albany 1981, 23–34; Taylor, C. C.W. Aristotle’s episte-
mology,
A companion to ancient thought. Epistemology, ed. by S. Everson, Cam-
bridge 1990, 116–165.
15
D. L. V, 26; Moraux,
Listes, 46. The same classification is repeated in Metaphysics
K.
16
Met. 1025b–1026a, 1063b 36–1064b 6. Along with the tripartite, Aristotle often
uses the bipartite division, in which practical and productive sciences are brought to-

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2. Aristotelian theory of science and the Peripatetic historiographical project
123
istotle produced this classification comparatively early; it was already men-
tioned in his
Topics.
17
Further, qewrhtikaì ëpist4mai are divided into maqh-
matik2, fusik2 and qeologik2.
18
The latter subdivision occurs only in the
Metaphysics E and K and comes, ac-
cording to all evidence, from a later date. Stemming from the tripartite division
of being into Forms and mathematical and corporeal objects (tà eÍdh, tà
maqhmatiká and tà aısqhtá), which Aristotle attributes to Plato,
19
it has,
nevertheless, an obviously different character. 1) The object of metaphysics
that Aristotle several times calls qeologik3 ëpist2mh (filosofía) was not
Forms, but the fundamental principles and causes, or being
qua being, or sep-
arate, unmoved and eternal entities.
20
2) In contrast to the Platonists’ views, Ar-
gether in one category of poihtikaì ëpist4mai (Met. 982a 1, b 9–12, 1075a 1–3; EE
1216b 10–19, 1221b 5–7, etc.).
17