[Footnote 34: What Strabo asserts about the Peripatetic Scholarchs
succeeding Theophrastus (viz., [Greek: mêde\n e)/chein philosophei=n
pragmatikô=s, a)lla\ the/seis lêkuthi/zein]: that they could not
handle philosophy in a businesslike way--with those high generalities
and that subtle analysis which was supposed to belong to
philosophy--but gave smooth and ornate discourses on set problems or
theses) is fully borne out by what we read in Cicero about these same
Peripatetics. The Stoics (immediate successors and rivals) accused
their Peripatetic contemporaries even of being ignorant of Dialectic:
which their founder, Aristotle, in his works that we now possess, had
been the first to raise into something like a science. Cicero says
(De Finibus, iii. 12, 41): "His igitur ita positis (inquit Cato)
sequitur magna contentio: quam tractatam à Peripateticis mollius
(_est enim eorum consuetudo dicendi non satis acuta, propter
ignorationem Dialecticæ_), Carneades tuus, egregiâ quâdam
exercitatione in dialecticis summâque eloquentiâ, rem in summum
discrimen adduxit." Also Cicero, in Tuscul. Disput. iv. 5. 9: "Quia
Chrysippus et Stoici, quum de animi perturbationibus disputant,
magnam partem in iis partiendis et definiendis occupati sunt, illa
eorum perexigua oratio est, quâ medeantur animis nec eos turbulentos
esse patiantur. Peripatetici autem _ad placandos animos multa
afferunt, spinas partiendi et definiendi prætermittunt_." This last
sentence is almost an exact equivalent of the words of Strabo:
[Greek: mêde\n e)/chein philosophei=n pragmatikô=s, a)lla\ the/seis
lêkuthi/zein.] Aristotle himself, in the works which we possess,
might pass as father of the Stoics rather than of the Peripatetics;
for he abounds in classification and subdivision (spinas partiendi et
dividendi), and is even derided on this very ground by opponents (see
Atticus ap. Euseb. Præp. Ev. xv. 4); but he has nothing of the
polished amplification ascribed to the later Peripatetics by Strabo
and Cicero. Compare, about the Peripatetics from Lykon to Kritolaus,
Cicero, De Finibus, v. 5: "Lyco, oratione locuples, rebus ipsis
jejunior." Plutarch (Sylla, c. xxvi.) calls these later Peripatetics
[Greek: charie/ntes kai\ philo/logoi], &c.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account