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Abstract
Aristotle (384-322 BC), Plato’s pupil and critic, and the greatest philosopher of Antiquity, left two distinct sets of writings: (i) dialogues and essays for the general public, none of which survive in full, though we have extracts in later writers and they were clearly influential; (ii) technical writings for the school, not only on logic and metaphysics but (e.g.) on poetics and zoology. A whole range of sciences and social sciences owes its basic principles to his pioneering explorations, for these technical writings were preserved and much commented on in Roman and medieval times. In his ‘popular’ works he wrote with elegance and smoothness: aureum flumen orationis is Cicero’s description of his style. Many of the more technical works are crabbed and difficult: this is a scientific tradition, and we are often reminded of the Hippocratic writings (Aristotle’s father was a doctor from Stagira in Macedonia). But these also contain passages of wit and even elegance, like those we give below.
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