The Aristotelian 'Problemata Physica': Philosophical and Scientific Investigations

485 Pages·2015·2.34 MB·English

by  Robert Mayhew (ed.)

The Aristotelian Problemata Physica
Philosophia Antiqua
A Series of Studies on Ancient Philosophy
Editorial Board
Ch. Wildberg (Princeton)
K.A. Algra (Utrecht)
F.A.J. de Haas (Leiden)
J. Mansfeld (Utrecht)
C. J. Rowe (Durham)
D.T. Runia (Melbourne)
Previous Editors
J.H. Waszink†
W.J. Verdenius†
J.C.M. van Winden†
VOLUME 139
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/pha
The Aristotelian
Problemata Physica
Philosophical and Scientific Investigations
Edited by
Robert Mayhew
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Aristotelian Problemata physica : philosophical and scientific investigations / edited by Robert
Mayhew.
  pages cm. — (Philosophia antiqua, ISSN 0079-1687 ; volume 139)
 Includes indexes.
 ISBN 978-90-04-28085-4 (hardback : acid-free paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-28087-8 (e-book)
1. Aristotle. Problemata. 2. Science, Ancient. I. Mayhew, Robert, editor.
 B469.7.A73 2014
 185—dc23
2014047437
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering
Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities.
For more information, please see brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 0079-1687
isbn 978-90-04-28085-4 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-28087-8 (e-book)
Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and
Hotei Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without prior written permission from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided
that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive,
Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Contents
Editor’s Preface  vii
Contributors  xi
Abbreviations  xiii
1 The Problemata physica: An Introduction  1
István Bodnár
2 Democritus, Aristotle, and the Problemata  10
Stephen Menn
3 Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics and the Aristotelian Problemata  36
James G. Lennox
4 The Problemata’s Medical Books: Structural and Methodological
Aspects  61
Katerina Oikonomopoulou
5 Creating Problemata with the Hippocratic Corpus  79
Oliver Thomas
6 On Problemata 3: Wine-Drinking and Drunkenness  100
William W. Fortenbaugh
7 Material and Teleological Explanations in Problemata 10  124
Byron J. Stoyles
8 Sound Reasoning in Problemata 11? Disentangling the Components
of Voices  151
Stefan Hagel
9 Understanding Odours in Problemata 12–13: Peripatetic Problems
Concerning the Elusive Sense of Smell  172
Han Baltussen
10 The Ethnography of Problemata 14 in (Its Mostly Aristotelian)
Context  190
Mariska Leunissen
vi contents
11 Problemata 15: Its Title and Agenda  214
Alan C. Bowen
12 Musical Pitch and the Enigmatic Octave in Problemata 19  226
Andrew Barker
13 Food and Health in Problemata 21–22: Cooking (pepsis) in the
Kitchen and “Cooking” (pepsis) in the Body  255
John Wilkins
14 On Problemata 23: Little Problems on the Vast Sea  272
Malcolm Wilson
15 Problemata 26 and Theophrastus’ De ventis: A Preliminary
Comparison  294
Robert Mayhew
16 On Problemata 27: Problems Connected with Fear and Courage  311
William W. Fortenbaugh
17 On Problemata 28: Temperance and Intemperance, Continence
and Incontinence  321
Bruno Centrone
18 Problemata 29 and Athenian Law  337
David C. Mirhady
19 Black Bile as the Cause of Human Accomplishments and Behaviors
in Pr. 30.1: Is the Concept Aristotelian?  357
Eckart Schütrumpf
20 Homo numerans, venerans, or imitans? Human and Animal Cognition
in Problemata 30.6  381
Jason G. Rheins
21 ‘Problematising’ the Problemata: The Problemata in Relation to Other
Question-and-Answer Texts  413
Liba Taub
Index locorum  437
Index nominum  463
Editor’s Preface
The Problemata physica is the third longest work in the corpus Aristotelicum,
but among the least studied. While working on a new Loeb Classical Library
edition of the Problemata, I became more convinced than ever that this long-
neglected work merited further study, as it has much to tell us about the
specific nature of philosophical and scientific inquiry in the Lyceum during
Aristotle’s life and especially in the years following his death.1
The Problemata consists of thirty-eight books, and over nine hundred
chapters. There is a rough order of presentation of these books (more on this
shortly), though the chapters within each book are almost always presented in
no particular order. Nearly all of these chapters begin with a question—and
specifically with the words διὰ τί (‘why?’ or ‘on account of what?’)—followed
by one or more (often provisional) answers and/or follow-up questions. The
range of subjects covered is vast and varied: medicine and music, sex and salt
water, fatigue and fruit, animals and astronomy, moderation and malodorous
things, wind and wine, bruises and barley, voice and virtue, etc. A single vol-
ume collection of essays covering all thirty-eight books and most of the top-
ics explored in them is likely not possible. Most of the major sections of the
Problemata are covered, however, and this collection does a great deal to rem-
edy the general neglect of this work.
Of the twenty-one essays in this collection, the first three provide an intro-
duction to and overview of the Problemata, as well as much of the context
necessary for understanding it (and they obviate the need for me to say more
1  There are important exceptions to this neglect: H. Flashar, Aristoteles: Problemata Physica
(Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1962; 4th ed., 1991); P. Louis, Aristote: Problèmes, 3 vols. (Paris: Les
Belles Lettres, 1991–94); B. Centrone, ed., Studi sui Problemata Physica Aristotelici (Naples:
Bibliopolis, 2011). Still useful is E.S. Forster’s heavily annotated translation of the Problemata
in The Works of Aristotle Translated into English Under the Editorship of W.D. Ross, vol. 7
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1927). G. Marenghi has produced a number of volumes
containing text and translation of parts of the Problemata, based on a careful study of the
manuscripts: Aristotele: Problemi di Musicali (Florence: Fussi, 1957); Aristotele: Problemi di
Fonazione e di Acustica (Naples: Libreria Scientifica, 1962); Aristotele: Problemi di Medicina,
rev. ed. (Milan: Massari, 1999); [Aristotele]: Profumi e Miasmi (Naples: Arte Tipografica, 1991).
Note that the books on music (11 & 19) and the chapter on melancholy (30.1) have not been as
neglected as the rest. (See Flashar’s commentary on these books and this chapter for further
details.)
viii editor’s preface
in this preface about its nature):2 István Bodnár’s “The Problemata physica: An
Introduction”; Stephen Menn’s “Democritus, Aristotle, and the Problemata”;
and, James G. Lennox’s “Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics and the Aristotelian
Problemata.”
With the exception of the last chapter, each of the remaining essays
focuses on some book(s) or chapter of the Problemata, and their appearance
in this volume follows the order of that work. The first nine books (give or
take) are on medicine and human physiology,3 and three essays are devoted
to all or part of this section of the work: Katerina Oikonomopoulou’s “The
Problemata’s Medical Books: Structural and Methodological Aspects”;4 Oliver
Thomas’s “Creating Problemata with the Hippocratic Corpus”; and, William W.
Fortenbaugh’s “On Problemata 3: Wine-Drinking and Drunkenness.”
Books 10–19 deal with miscellaneous subjects, though within this fairly ran-
dom grouping some books have clearly been placed together for a reason. The
subject matter of the longest book (10), despite the absence of any reference
to animals in its title,5 is biology. This material is covered by Byron J. Stoyles’s
“Material and Teleological Explanations in Problemata 10.” Books 11 (on voice)
and 19 (on harmonia) are often treated together, as they both deal with aspects
of music. Each is the subject of an essay in this volume:6 Stefan Hagel’s “Sound
Reasoning in Problemata 11? Disentangling the Components of Voices,” and
Andrew Barker’s “Musical Pitch and the Enigmatic Octave in Problemata
19.” Books 12–13, on good odors and bad odors respectively, are the subject
of Han Baltussen’s “Understanding Odours in Problemata 12–13: Peripatetic
Problems Concerning the Elusive Sense of Smell.” Two other essays each
focus on an individual book from this miscellaneous set: Mariska Leunissen’s
2  But see my introduction to the Problemata in R. Mayhew, Aristotle: Problems, vol. 1: Books 1–19
(Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 2011): xiii–xxiv.
3  Re. “give or take”: This depends on who you ask. Marenghi’s Aristotele: Problemi di Medicina
(see n. 1) contains Books 1, 6–9, 14, 27–28, 31–38. Philip van der Eijk, “Between the Hippocratics
and the Alexandrians: Medicine, Philosophy and Science in the Fourth Century bce,” in
R.W. Sharples, ed., Philosophy and the Sciences in Antiquity (Aldershot, uk: Ashgate, 2005),
includes in his list of medical works Books 1–9 and 31–38. And see the following note.
4  As Katerina Oikonomopoulou’s conception of what counts as a medical book extends well
beyond the first nine (she includes 1–11 and 31–38), her essay is in fact transitional between
those providing an overview of the background, nature, and methodology of the Problemata
as a whole, and those focusing on books 1–9. The same could be said of Oliver Thomas’s essay.
5  Epitome of Natural Problems or Epitome of Natural Things (Ἐπιτομὴ φυσικῶν).
6  I mention them together here, though their appearance in the volume follows the order of
the Problemata.
editor’s preface ix
“The Ethnography of Problemata 14 in (Its Mostly Aristotelian) Context,” and
Alan C. Bowen’s “Problemata 15: Its Title and Agenda.”
Books 20–22 were grouped together because they all deal in some sense with
plants—particularly as sources of nutrition. John Wilkins discusses the con-
tent of two of these books in “Food and Health in Problemata 21–22: Cooking
(pepsis) in the Kitchen and ‘Cooking’ (pepsis) in the Body.” Meteorological
problems are treated in books 23–26, two of which are the subject of the fol-
lowing essays: Malcolm Wilson’s “On Problemata 23: Little Problems on the
Vast Sea,” and my “Problemata 26 and Theophrastus’ De ventis: A Preliminary
Comparison.”
Books 27–30 are devoted to moral philosophy, and particularly to issues
(often physiological) associated with the major virtues and related states of
the soul. They are covered by five essays: William W. Fortenbaugh’s “On
Problemata 27: Problems Connected with Fear and Courage”; Bruno
Centrone’s “On Problemata 28: Temperance and Intemperance, Continence
and Incontinence”; David C. Mirhady’s “Problemata 29 and Athenian Law”;
Eckart Schütrumpf’s “Black Bile as the Cause of Human Accomplishments
and Behaviors in Problemata 30.1: Is the Concept Aristotelian?”; and, Jason G.
Rheins’s “Homo numerans, venerans, or imitans? Human and Animal Cognition
in Problemata 30.6.”
The Problemata physica ends with a set of brief books (31–38) on human
anatomy. None of these is the subject of an individual essay in this collection;
but as they fall under the purview of Katerina Oikonomopoulou’s and Oliver
Thomas’s essays, they receive general coverage there.
Although the focus of this collection was by design on the content of the
Problemata and not on its influence or afterlife,7 I wanted to end the volume
with one essay that locates the Problemata in the context of texts of the same
sort in later antiquity: this aim is served by Liba Taub’s “ ‘Problematising’
the Problemata: The Problemata in Relation to Other Question-and-Answer
Texts.”
Jonathan Barnes ends his study of Aspasius’ commentary on the Nicomachean
Ethics: “Since it is customary to round things off with a final banality, here is
one: Aspasius has baked a dry pie—but a probing thumb will pull out a plum or
7  On the influence and reception of the Problemata, up to and including the Renaissance, see
Peter De Leemans and Michèle Goyens eds., Aristotle’s Problemata in Different Times and
Tongues (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2006).