[Footnote 43: Ueberweg (Geschichte der Philos. des Alterthums, vol.
i. § 46, p. 127, 2nd ed.) gives a just and accurate view of [Greek:
e)xôterikoi\ lo/goi], as conceived by Aristotle. See also the
dissertation of Buhle, prefixed to his unfinished edition of
Aristotle, De Aristotelis Libris Exotericis et Acroamaticis, pp.
107-152--which discusses this subject copiously, and gives a
collection both of the passages and comments which bear upon it.
It is instructive, though his opinion leans too much towards the
supposition of a double doctrine. Bernays, in his dissertation, Die
Dialoge des Aristoteles, maintains that by _exoteric books_ are
always meant the lost dialogues of Aristotle; and he employs much
reasoning to refute the supposition of Madvig (Excurs. VII. ad
Cicero, de Fin. p. 861), of Torstrick (ad Aristotel. de Animâ, p.
123), and also of Zeller, that by exoteric discourses are not meant
any writings at all, but simply the colloquies and debates of
cultivated men, apart from the philosophical schools. On the other
hand, Forchhammer has espoused this last-mentioned opinion, and has
defended it against the objections of Bernays (Forchhammer,
Aristoteles und die exoterischen Reden, p. 16, seq.). The question is
thus fully argued on both sides. To me it seems that each of these
two opinions is partially right, and neither of them exclusively
right. "Exoteric discourse," as I understand it, might be found both
in the Aristotelian dialogues, and in the debates of cultivated men
out of the schools, and also in parts of the Aristotelian akroamatic
works. The argument of Bernays (p. 36, seq.), that the points which
Aristotle alludes to as having been debated and settled in exoteric
discourses, were too abstruse and subtle to have been much handled by
cultivated men out of the schools, or (as he expresses it) in the
_salons_ or coffee-houses (or what corresponded thereto) at
Athens--this argument seems to me untenable. We know well, from the
Topica of Aristotle, that the most abstruse subjects were handled
dialectically, in a manner which he called extra-philosophical; and
that this was a frequent occupation of active-minded men at Athens.
To discuss these matters in the way which he calls [Greek: pro\s
do/xan], was more frequent than to discuss them [Greek: pro\s
a)lê/theian].
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