NOTES
117 NOTES Preface 1. Ross 1966 (originally published 1924); Kassel 1965; Lucas 1968; Halliwell 1987. Janko 1987, xxii, also bases his translation on Kassel’s text “which is the standard one in use.” But he records more disagreements, mostly because he believes that Kassel has not given enough weight to MS B and the Arabic “whose importance has only been demonstrated relatively recently.” He also uses Hellenistic sources, but given their general rhetorical bias, they may not be of much help in understanding the Poetics. I have found no textual disagreements that impact the argument. Heath 1996, LXV: “The edition I have worked from is R. Kassel’s Oxford Classical Text . . . I have frequently departed from the readings printed by Kassel.” But I have found no crucial departures. Introduction 1. There is an interesting parallel to my project. Much of a recent volume on Aristotle’s Ethics (Sim, ed. 1995) is devoted to exploring whether and in what sense the Ethics should be read in light of the Metaphysics. Different contributors reach different conclusions. Chapter 1. Approach to the Corpus as a Whole 1. For some discussion of approaches, see Düring and Owen, eds. 1960, particularly the essays by Ross, Owen, and de Vogel. I am in agreement with Gill 1989, 9: “First, I assume that Aristotle’s treatises can be read as a coherent whole. Thus I differ from many interpreters who think that Aristotle’s writings reflect his intellectual development.” Reeve 2000, xv, puts it picturesquely: “[D]evelopmental hypotheses largely piggyback on interpretive ones.” 118 NOTES 2. Scholars differ concerning the features of Aristotelian method. Cleary 1988, 74f., denies that an Aristotelian episteme has a distinctive method at all: “Aristotle’s tendency to differentiate the sciences according to their characteristic objects rather than by their respective methods.” But this position is not widely shared. McKeon (Olson 1965, 208), traces differences in method to differences in the different aspects of things: “As applied to the arts, the accomplishment of Aristotle’s philosophic method was the separation of problems involved in the mode of existence of an object produced or of a productive power (which might properly be treated in physics and metaphysics) as well as problems involved in the effects of artificial objects or artistic efforts (as treated in psychology, morals, and politics) or in doctrinal cogency and emotional persuasiveness (as treated in logic and rhetoric) from problems which bear on the traits of an artistic construction consequent simply on its being a work of art.” See Owens (Catan 1981, 1–13) and Gilson 1965, 123, on the ontological and cognitive priority of the object to the subject. This is applied to the Poetics by Else 1957, 403 f. For a dissenting view, see Nussbaum 1986. But against this see Wians (Preus and Anton 1992). See also Aristotle’s Categories VII.7b23–24 and XII.14b10–24. 3. The Metaphysics is more general and foundational than the Posterior Analytics, because it lays down the basic philosophical conceptualization of all things, while the latter is more particularly concerned with the foundations of demonstrative science. I use the term categories, based on the Metaphysics’ kategoriai tou ontos, rather than the term predicates. For the distinction between them in Aristotle’s Categories, see Anton 1993. 4. Düring and Owen 1960, 163–190. Owen coined the phrase “focal meaning ” to indicate that the meaning of attributes in the secondary categories derives from the primary substance whose attributes they are. 5. One notable exception was discovered by Owen 1960, see chapter 3, Note 1. 6. I have argued for the nonreductive nature of the pros hen. Husain 1981, 208–218. The Oxford translation does not take sufficient account of this and links the two questions by a misleadingly reductive “just.” For this there is no textual basis, since the touto that links them in the text only supplies a grammatical reference without reductive import. And the proliferation of modifying expressions , “chiefly” (malista), “primarily” (proton), and “so to say exclusively” (monon hos eipein), emphasizes the nonreductive nature of the reformulation. For malista as a superlative implies a relation to a comparative and positive; proton implies a contrast with something secondary (proteron in contrast to hysteron, haplos in contrast to pos, proton in contrast to eita); and the hos eipein, which modifies monon, takes any reductive sting out of it. 7. Code 1984, has convincingly argued for the largely aporetic nature of much of Met. VII. But I see no reason not to accept...
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