Commentators on Aristotle, 2005
By: Falcon, Andrea, Zalta, Edward N. (Ed.)
Title Commentators on Aristotle
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2005
Published in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Categories no categories
Author(s) Falcon, Andrea
Editor(s) Zalta, Edward N.
Translator(s)
There is no philosophy of the commentators in the sense of a definite set of doctrines that all the ancient commentators on Aristotle shared. What they shared was the practice of reading and commenting on the texts of Aristotle on the crucial assumption that Aristotle was a philosophical authority and his works deserved to be studied with great care. Due to the almost complete loss of the relevant literature, we know very little about the first generation of interpreters of Aristotle. No picture of unity emerges from the little that has reached us. The notion that all these interpreters wrote commentaries is not supported by the information in our possession. The commentary eventually became the standard form of exegesis. But even within the commentary tradition, there was room for a plurality of exegetical positions. Different commentators developed different lines of interpretation in the light of the different concerns that motivated their exegesis. The exegetical tradition that finds its culmination in Alexander of Aphrodisias was primarily (but not exclusively) motivated by an attempt to defend the philosophy of Aristotle in the context of the ancient debate between philosophical schools. Alexander of Aphrodisias viewed Aristotle as his master and devoted his exegetical works to explicating and extracting Aristotle’s distinctive philosophical position. While the Platonists of Late Antiquity put themselves in continuity with this tradition, their exegesis was largely an attempt to develop a philosophy that insisted on the continuity between Plato and Aristotle. They wrote their commentaries on the assumption that Aristotle and Plato were in substantial agreement. [conclusion]

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Commentators on Aristotle, 2005
By: Falcon, Andrea, Zalta, Edward N. (Ed.)
Title Commentators on Aristotle
Type Book Section
Language English
Date 2005
Published in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Categories no categories
Author(s) Falcon, Andrea
Editor(s) Zalta, Edward N.
Translator(s)
There is no philosophy of the commentators in the sense of a definite set of doctrines that all the ancient commentators on Aristotle shared. What they shared was the practice of reading and commenting on the texts of Aristotle on the crucial assumption that Aristotle was a philosophical authority and his works deserved to be studied with great care.

Due to the almost complete loss of the relevant literature, we know very little about the first generation of interpreters of Aristotle. No picture of unity emerges from the little that has reached us. The notion that all these interpreters wrote commentaries is not supported by the information in our possession. The commentary eventually became the standard form of exegesis. But even within the commentary tradition, there was room for a plurality of exegetical positions. Different commentators developed different lines of interpretation in the light of the different concerns that motivated their exegesis.

The exegetical tradition that finds its culmination in Alexander of Aphrodisias was primarily (but not exclusively) motivated by an attempt to defend the philosophy of Aristotle in the context of the ancient debate between philosophical schools. Alexander of Aphrodisias viewed Aristotle as his master and devoted his exegetical works to explicating and extracting Aristotle’s distinctive philosophical position. While the Platonists of Late Antiquity put themselves in continuity with this tradition, their exegesis was largely an attempt to develop a philosophy that insisted on the continuity between Plato and Aristotle. They wrote their commentaries on the assumption that Aristotle and Plato were in substantial agreement.
[conclusion]

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