Talk:Works of Aristotle

Comments
To the author of this article: how did you come to the list? can you quote scholars for each spurious and non-spurious book? Josemazcorro (talk) 23:50, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Not knowing the history of Bekker numbers, I can't write that, but I feel that knowledge of them is important for certain texts. I may be wrong in that they only apply to Ancient Greek texts, but that's the only area I've come across them. Please add anything you can, thanks. Tom M 01:15, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

After doing some research, I've found that the numbers were put in place by Immanuel Bekker, a philologist at Berlin university during the 19th century. I've found it hard to find out much about Immanuel Bekker, so anything further would be good. Tom M 12:34, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I put in some stuff I found some info here... which is about Aristotle, The Politics. It looks like the numbers come from his std. greek edition of the complete aristotle. I'm not sure if he compiled any works of Plato or anyone else too. WhiteC 20:52, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, what do the asterisks following some indexed items represent? WhiteC 07:56, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have completed the list, which was lacking many titles. I also introduced the * vs. ** distinction. I corrected a couple of minor errors in the previous list. I itemized the Parva Naturalia. I added the section at the bottom on works outside the Bekker corpus. For the titles of Aristotle's works in English, I used the standard set by the Revised Oxford Translation. Please think twice before altering these; I myself would prefer other English titles in a couple of cases, but the Revised Oxford Translation provides a recognized standard for consultation of the Corpus Aristotelicum in English. Wareh 19:40, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm removing the image Aristotelis_Opera_Omnia_Cover.png and replacing it with a better one. That image was the title page of Bekker's edition as printed in 1837 by Oxford UP (not the original 1831 edition). Since this is an article on the numbers as a system of reference, I have scanned a page of the public-domain 1831 edition that actually shows physically what the Bekker numbers are referring to. Wareh 16:31, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Inclusion of dubious material
Please see discussion at Aristotle as the same material has been inserted there -- Snowded TALK  18:23, 6 May 2010 (UTC)


 * As the non-linear, lecture-note style is an important side note to understanding Aristotle I have added this section in. I have taken several college courses that address Aristotle's works and each time both the text and teacher referred to his writing style. If both teacher and book include this information it is obviously important. I agree with my teachers that it is important. One of the major drivers of higher quality text copying into Arabic was complaints about Aristotle's "poorly-translated" (actually poorly-written) corpus. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TheThomas (talk • contribs) 18:28, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Lets have the discussion in one place please - cutting and pasting the same material to two articles and two talk pages is not the way to go about this. -- Snowded TALK  18:29, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Is there a reason why this article's title is not italicized?
This title is not italicized, even though it is in a foreign language and is the title of a collection of works. Was this a conscious choice due to an established yet modern reason? If so, it should stay as is. If not, then the phrase should be italicized throughout.

My real-life limitations most likely will prevent me from following up on this, so I appreciate others who can follow through. Thank you for your consideration. —Geekdiva (talk) 11:51, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Why is this article even called "Corpus Aristotelicum", since it says nothing about it?
According to Shoja, Tubbs, Loukas, & Ardalan 2008, The Aristotelian account of“heart and veins”, Intl. J Cardiology 125 p. 304-310, the Corpus Aristotelicum was prepared in Rome beginning in around 86 BC. If this is true (and Shoja et al. cite no source), this article doesn't say who made it, when, what was in it, or how it was transmitted to us today. This is a critical point, because accepted dogma is that Aristotle's works were lost, and then recovered in the 12th century from Constantinople. What works of Aristotle were available in Latin, in Rome, before then? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Philgoetz (talk • contribs) 16:49, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Additional Material for This Page
Physics (Aristotle) includes substantial material on the Aristotelian corpus that's not specific to the 'Physics' and should be moved to another article, as the editors have discussed on the talk page. The ideal article for this material would probably be this page, Corpus Aristotelicum. What do you think?

Also: is there a special procedure for moving material from one article to another?

JKeck (talk) 19:26, 26 August 2019 (UTC)


 * If there are no objections here, I'm going to move the sections (The authorship paradox, Research at the Lyceum, The question of the library) from Physics (Aristotle) to this article. JKeck (talk) 23:34, 3 September 2019 (UTC)

Since there were no objections, I went ahead and moved those sections. JKeck (talk) 13:41, 21 October 2019 (UTC)

Quantity of Topic Notes
Why are there so many [ref group="topic note"] entries that are basically parenthetical asides? If they're important, why are they not in the many body of the article? If they are not important, what purpose do they serve? How many footnote-equivalents does one article need? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2607:F2C0:943F:9200:D011:A857:5882:E903 (talk) 01:29, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Removed the long digression
I'm not sure what that "question of the library" section was or where it came from, but it seemed to be working pretty freely without much support from its citation. It's almost certainly not appropriate for a page intended to cover the works of aristotle. &#32;- car chasm (talk) 00:37, 19 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Indeed that digression was dysfunctional. However, the entire problem of how works that were not published during the lifetime of Aristotle came to be known by posterity, now remains untreated. Very famous story. Also, the removal of the lists leaves behind an article about the works of Aristotle that does not indicate what precisely are those works. The average reader might see that as a disappointing omission.--MWAK (talk) 08:41, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I've re-added the bekker number template so that there's a list of the works now. That's a good point.
 * I think the story of Aristotle's work being recovered (the story about the lecture notes all hidden in a basement, I presume?) should probably have some fairly recent reliable sources supporting it if we're going to have anything on the subject. Last I read, more recent scholars were skeptical that the "esoteric" works weren't available the whole time. &#32;- car chasm (talk) 09:02, 23 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you for reinserting Bekker's list. True or not, it is still a famous story :o). But I agree recent sources are needed.--MWAK (talk) 09:37, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Renamed article to Works of Aristotle
I'm open to other suggestions but strongly opposed to "Corpus Aristotelicum" or anything similar. WP:COMMONNAME and WP:ENGLISH at the minimum apply here, that name was horrible. &#32;- car chasm (talk) 01:01, 19 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Apart from aesthetics, it still is rather common. The least we should do, is mentioning it in the first sentence. Of course while avoiding any suggestion it was the original title...--MWAK (talk) 08:17, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, it's also not the same thing. So it's a bad title. &#32;- car chasm (talk) 08:20, 23 January 2023 (UTC)