Aristotle of Stagira

Reading notes

• Ad Atticum 4.16 §2 the way Aristotle does in the works he calls exoteric

  Aristotle's 'exoteric' (popular, published) works, as opposed to his esoteric school treatises, were prized in antiquity for their literary prefaces; Cicero models his own book-proems on them.

• Ad Atticum 13.19 §4 follows the Aristotelian manner

  The dialogue form in which the author himself leads the conversation rather than effacing himself, as Aristotle was thought to have done in his (now lost) dialogues.

• On the Ends of Good and Evil §5.10 the exercise of speaking on both sides of single questions

  The dialectical practice (in utramque partem dicere) of arguing for and against a thesis, which Aristotle systematized. Cicero distinguishes it from the wholesale negative method of the sceptic Arcesilas.

• On Invention §1.7 the epideictic, the deliberative, and the judicial

  The three genera causarum (kinds of oratory) that Cicero takes from Aristotle: epideictic (display oratory of praise or blame), deliberative (political debate advising a course of action), and judicial (forensic accusation and defence in court). They organize the whole of classical rhetorical theory.

• On the Nature of the Gods §2.42 it seems to Aristotle absurd

  Aristotle (384-322 BC), cited for the view that the aether is the natural home of the heavenly bodies and that, being the region most apt for life, it must produce living, intelligent beings: the divine stars.

• On the Nature of the Gods §2.95 Splendidly, then, says Aristotle

  A celebrated lost passage of Aristotle's dialogue On Philosophy: men who had always lived underground, suddenly seeing the sky, would at once believe in gods. Balbus quotes it for the argument from cosmic beauty to design.

• On Duties §2.56 Aristotle

  The founder of the Peripatetic school (384-322 BC). Cicero invokes his sharper judgement that limitless show-spending, unlike a real necessity, deserves no admiration.

• Tusculan Disputations §1.22 holds that there is a certain fifth nature, from which mind comes

  The 'fifth nature' (later quinta essentia, quintessence) Aristotle added to the four elements; Cicero reports that Aristotle made mind out of it and called the soul endelecheia, a continuous motion. The doctrine grounds Cicero's own argument for the soul's divine, eternal character.

• Tusculan Disputations §1.80 Aristotle, indeed, says that all men of genius are melancholic

  The doctrine (Problemata 30.1) that exceptional ability is linked to a melancholic temperament, i.e. an excess of black bile. Cicero cites it wryly to illustrate how bodily constitution shapes the mind.

• Tusculan Disputations §3.69 Aristotle, accusing the old philosophers

  Aristotle of Stagira (384-322 BC), here cited (from his lost Protrepticus) deriding earlier thinkers who supposed philosophy already perfected, and predicting its swift completion. The point is that even the greatest minds confess incompleteness without grieving.