Aristotelianism in the First Century BC

CHAPTER 5 Aristotelianism in the First Century BC

Andrea Falcon

1 A New Generation of Peripatetic Philosophers

The division of the Peripatetic tradition into a Hellenistic and a post-Hellenistic period is not a modern invention. It is already accepted in antiquity. Aspasius speaks of an old and a new generation of Peripatetic philosophers. Among the philosophers who belong to the new generation, he singles out Andronicus of Rhodes and Boethus of Sidon.1 Strabo adopts a similar division. He too distinguishes between the older Peripatetics, who came immediately after Theophrastus, and their successors.2 He collectively describes the latter as better able to do philosophy in the manner of Aristotle (φιλοσοφεῖν καὶ ἀριστοτελίζειν). It remains unclear what Strabo means by doing philosophy in the manner of Aristotle.3 But he certainly thinks that the philosophers who belong to the new generation, and not those who belong to the old one, deserve the title of true Aristotelians. For Strabo, the event separating the old from the new Peripatos is the rediscovery and publication of Aristotle’s writings. We may want to resist Strabo’s negative characterization of the earlier Peripatetics. For Strabo, they were not able to engage in philosophy in any serious way but were content to declaim general theses.4 This may be an unfair judgment, ultimately based on the anachronistic assumption that any serious philosophy requires engagement with an authoritative text.5 Still, the empha- sis that Strabo places on the rediscovery of Aristotle’s writings suggests that the latter were at the center of the critical engagement with Aristotle in the

1 Aspasius, On Aristotle’s Ethics 44.20–45.16. 2 Strabo, Geography 13.1.54. Cf. Plutarch, Life of Sulla 26.1–2. He too speaks of older Peripatetics (πρεσβύτεροι Περιπατετικοί), making the same distinction as Strabo. 3 Elsewhere Strabo tells us that Posidonius, the leading Stoic philosopher of the first century BC, was criticized for his ἀριστοτελίζειν. In this case, ἀριστοτελίζειν is used to empha- size what is perceived as an excessive concern with the search for the causes (πολύ . . . τὸ αἰτιολογικὸν . . . καὶ τὸ ἀριστοτελίζον). 4 I am adopting the translation offered by Sharples (2010: 24). Hahm (2008: 98) renders the Greek as follows: “[the older Peripatetics] were unable to philosophize in a systematic [or substantive] way but merely prattled on about philosophical propositions.” 5 Cf. Hahm 2007 (especially 98–101).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��6 | doi ��.��63/9789004315402_007 102 Falcon first century BC. The extant evidence is scarce but there is no doubt that, at least for some of the noted Peripatetics of the century, a critical engagement with Aristotle was at the very heart of their philosophical activity. For this reason, we often refer to these philosophers collectively as “early commentators.” But we must be careful not to generalize from the little we know about some of them or, worse, to project back to first century literary conventions that make full sense only in the subsequent tradition. There is no compelling reason to think that critical engagement with Aristotle had to be codified in the specific form of the philosophical commentary. When we consider the extant evidence for the critical engagement with Aristotle of the first century BC, we immediately realize that this engagement was not merely explanatory and philological but informed by a strong philosophical agenda. Moreover, it did not result in the adoption of a single interpretation of Aristotle. Quite the opposite. What is especially interesting about the Peripatetic tradition in the first century BC is that it broke down into a number of different, and often competing, interpretations of Aristotle. Some of them appear to have been creative interpretations based on a selec- tive reading of his writings and responding to essentially post-Aristotelian concerns. This is hardly surprising, as the Peripatetic philosophers of the first century BC were not doing philosophy in a vacuum. Rather, they were taking part in a larger philosophical debate, to which they consciously contributed from an Aristotelian point of view.

2 The Starting Point and Parts of Philosophy

For a first impression of the way the Peripatetic engagement with Aristotle in the first century BC may have resulted in the creative use of his philosophy, we may look at how the Peripatetics contributed to the debate on the starting point and parts of philosophy. That philosophy is a whole that consists of three parts—logic, physics, and ethics—is a Stoic thesis.6 The Stoics developed a number of analogies designed to illuminate their distinctive understanding of the unity and nature of philosophy. They also discussed the order in which the three parts are to be

6 While there is some evidence that this tripartition goes back to the old Academy, and in par- ticular to Xenocrates (Sextus Empiricus, Against the Professors 7.16), there is no doubt that it was a staple of Stoic philosophy.