18/06/2021
Ultimo appuntamento dell'anno con i seminari SeRiC, con un ospite d'eccezione: non mancate!
Ecco il link per accedere all'aula Teams: https://bit.ly/3x1OyYv
Ed ecco l'abstract:
Tiziano Dorandi (CNRS/Centre Jean Pépin)
Reception and Transformation of the
So-Called Aristotelian Divisiones from Late Antiquity to the Syriac and Arabic World
Various ancient philosophical (e.g. the so-called Aristotelian Divisiones) and scientific (e.g. alchemical, medical and mathematical texts) writings are handed down by Byzantine manuscripts in different recensiones, which often significantly vary either in their structure or in their reading. In many cases, these recensiones do not correspond to the original text composed by a given author, but they are rather the result of a complex historical process: indeed, these original texts have been reshaped and readjusted over centuries by anonymous scholars, who wanted to “update” and adapt ancient texts to new historical settings. Hence the main problem that a critical editor of these texts must face: how to establish a critical text and, at the same time, avoid any form of contamination between the different textual layers of these ancient writings?
The focus of my seminar will be the Aristotelian Divisiones quae dicuntur Aristoteleae (hereafter DA). In their extant recensiones, the DA represent a peculiar text which includes a set of short and schematic classifications of the key-elements into which philosophical concepts can be reduced for dialectical or rhetorical purposes. In all likelihood, this collection in its original form dates back to the 4th century BCE, when this type of exercise was practiced especially in the Platonic school, still attended by Aristotle at that time. The exercise consisted in proposing logical/dialectical ‘divisions’ (diarheseis) on physical, ethical, political or rhetorical questions.The text of the DA is preserved in at least four different recensiones, which are independent, despite the fact that they all depend, through two intermediaries, on a single lost archetype. One of these versions was very successful in the Near-East, where it was soon translated both into Syriac and especially into Arabic. The recent edition (2017) of both the Syriac fragments and the two Arabic translations, which I published in collaboration with an Arabist, will allow us to better understand how this text circulated in the islamicate world. Moreover, this edition represents a useful starting point to further discuss how the DA were reused, significantly rewritten and re-adapted to the ever-changing historical and cultural settings, in which they have been used as a textbook to teach key philosophical concepts in late antique and early medieval schools of philosophy.
