Volume 46, Issue 2

Aristotle is aware of the mathematical treatment of natural phenomena constitutive of Greek astronomy, optics, harmonics, and mechanics. Here I provide an account of Aristotle’s understanding of these ‘subordinate sciences’, drawing on both his methodological discussions and his optical treatment of the rainbow in Meteorology III 5. This account sheds light on the de Caelo, in which Aristotle undertakes a natural investigation of the heavens distinct from, but closely related to, astronomical (thus mathematical) investigations. Although Aristotle insists that such subordinate sciences belong to mathematical and not natural science, he sees them as essential to complete scientific knowledge of the sensible world.

The project of this paper is to look at problēmata in the Organon, how the Mēchanika employs problēmata, what these texts can teach us about each other, and the significance of all these things for the difficulties that Aristotelian natural philosophy encounters in explaining projectile motion. My treatment of the last item will highlight a pun used in the Mēchanika and argue that it makes a serious point. The paper proceeds as follows: first I will briefly present a reading of how problēmata are understood by Aristotle in the Organon. Next I will examine how problēmata are treated in the Mēchanika. Then I will put these two views of problēmata in dialogue with each other. Lastly I will utilize this discussion to address some of the well-known difficulties associated with Aristotle’s account of projectiles, and what this might mean for Aristotelian natural philosophy as a whole.

In a short passage in Generation of Animals iii 11, 761b16-24, Aristotle appears to argue for the existence of life on the moon, or what commentators call ‘fire animals’. Just what this passage is supposed to mean is far from clear. This paper provides the background for Aristotle’s notion of fire animals in his predecessors, including Plato and the Presocratics, and then traces the theme into late antiquity. The paper also integrates the topic of fire animals into Aristotle’s natural philosophy. Finally, the paper demonstrates that Aristotle’s remarks on fire animals provide a unique window into his natural philosophy, particularly his cosmology.

The division of Ancient Platonism into Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism is a fairly new one. The conceptual foundation of this division was cemented in Jacob Brucker’s pioneering Historia critica philosophiae (1742-67). In the 1770s and 1780s, the term ‘Neoplatonism’ was coined on the basis of Brucker’s analysis. Three historiographical concepts were decisive to Brucker: ‘system of philosophy’, ‘eclecticism’ and ‘syncretism’. By means of these concepts, he characterized Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism as opposing philosophical movements, the former being a genuine form of Platonism, the latter a false form. However, the division is untenable and we ought to abandon it.