Aristotle - Aristotles Theology: The Primary Texts

Aristotles Theology

The Primary Texts

Aristotles Theology

The Primary Texts

Translated

With Introduction and Notes

By

C. D. C. Reeve

Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
Indianapolis/Cambridge

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Library of Congress Control Number: 20229334

ISBN-13: 978-1-64792-092-0 (cloth)

ISBN-13: 978-1-64792-081-4 (pbk.)

ISBN-13: 978-1-64792-093-7 (PDF ebook)

ePub3 ISBN: 978-1-64792-114-9

Aristotle, De Anima . Translated, with Introduction and Notes, by C. D. C. Reeve.

Aristotle, De Caelo . Translated, with Introduction and Notes, by C. D. C. Reeve.

Aristotle, Eudemian Ethics . Translated, with Introduction and Notes, by C. D. C. Reeve.

Aristotle, Generation of Animals & History of Animals 1, Parts of Animals 1 . Translated, with Introduction and Notes, by C. D. C. Reeve.

Aristotle, Metaphysics . Translated, with Introduction and Notes, by C. D. C. Reeve.

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics . Translated, with Introduction and Notes, by C. D. C. Reeve.

Aristotle, Politics: A New Translation . Translated, with Introduction and Notes, by C. D. C. Reeve.

Aristotle, Physics . Translated, with Introduction and Notes, by C. D. C. Reeve.

Aristotle, Rhetoric . Translated, with Introduction and Notes, by C. D. C. Reeve.

Contents

The page numbers in curly braces {} correspond to the print edition of this title.

I have long wanted to write a book on Aristotles theology, and on those gods of his, whom we do not fully meet until Metaphysics 12.710. To that end I began to assemble the scattered texts that I thought would prove most relevant to my endeavor. I arranged these in the canonical order in which one encounters them in Immanuel Bekkers Aristotelis Opera (Berlin, 1831 [1970]), or, in English, in Jonathan Barnes Revised Oxford Translation (Princeton, 1984)though omitting the dubious or spurious works. Two things soon became apparent: first, that this was the right and natural order in which to present them and, second, that no book existed that presented them in itor indeed in any other order. The second surprised me, but so too did the first. For what I saw was that Aristotles gods reveal themselves by slow degrees, and only when fully revealed are we in a position to see their role in our lives.

At that point, as it seemed to me, all I needed to do was collect the most authoritative editions of the Greek texts, translate them as accurately and uniformly as possible into readable English, divide them under informative heads, and try to make sense of them. What sense I have made the reader will find in the Introduction, the notes that accompany the texts, and the Glossary, which explains key repeated terms and notions and identifies people referred to. As far as possible I let Aristotle explain himself by incorporating translations of other texts of his. For ease of location, all of these are listed in the Index of Quoted Passages. Material in brackets in the translated texts is added for clarification.

The Introduction, for its part, provides a brief biography of Aristotle and a way into his theology, which explains how and why it turns out to be identical to the science of being qua being, which Aristotle calls primary science, or primary philosophy, and which we call metaphysics, after the Greek title of the work in which it is developed: Ta Meta ta Phusika . It also briefly compares Aristotles god and God as we and some more familiar religions conceive of him. All discussion of traditional ancient Greek religion and its gods, however, is left to the pertinent notes.

I have drawn on, and sometimes silently revised, translations first published in the New Hackett Aristotle Series, and I renew my thanks to all who helped with these. I also extend them to Justin Vlasits for allowing me to use his translation of the F fragments (forthcoming in the New Hackett Aristotle series). And I renew them, yet again, to KE, the first fraternity in the United States to endow a professorial chair, and to the University of North Carolina for awarding it to me. The generous research funds that the endowment makes available each year have allowed me to travel to conferences and to acquire books, computers, and other research materials and assistance, most notably that of the eagle-eyed Sean Neagle, without which my work would have been much more difficult. Lastly, and very warmly, I thank my dear friend Pavlos Kontos for his generous assistance.

Citations of Aristotles works are standardly made, as they are in this book, to I. Bekker, Aristotelis Opera (Berlin: 1831 [1970]), in the canonical form of abbreviated title, book number (when the work is divided into books), chapter number, page number, column letter, and line number. A indicates a work whose authenticity has been seriously questioned; indicates a work attributed to Aristotle but generally agreed not to be by him. The abbreviations used are as follows: