The Doctrine of the Indefinite Terms in the Ancient Commentators of Aristotle :: Philosophy Philosophical Essays

The Doctrine of the Indefinite Terms in the Ancient Commentators of Aristotle filch The old-fashioned commentaries on Aristotles Peri Hermeneias (De Interpretatione) give us important elements to understand much clearly some difficult passages of this treatise. In the case of the one(prenominal) label and verbs (i.e. not-man, and does not recover, respectively), these commentaries reveal a doctrine which explains not only the constitution of the noncommittals, but also wherefore Aristotle introduces these kinds of term in Peri Hermeneias. The coherence and instructive capacity of this doctrine is entirely absent in modern exegesis of Peri Hermeneias. This item has important implications it can make us to think whether there result be another topics in which the ancient commentators are even-tempered critical to understand Aristotle. It can also make us to think to what consummation a profounder reflection of the ancient commentators can modify our idea of Aristotle and t he ancient world.I.The labour of translation of and comment on the ancient interpreters of Aristotle, which in our age ingest been edited by Professor R. Sorabji,(1) has put modern readers in contact with new dimensions of Aristotles thought. In these ancient commentaries, many of the traditional and long-familiar doctrines of Aristotle find not only theoretical basis, but also a number of obscure and condensed texts reach an important and valuable elucidation and explanation.The subject-matter that I would like to discuss today is a sample of how these commentators can still contribute to understand Aristotle. I would like to warn, however, that the theme of the indefinite basis is especially illustrative of what I indicate, for the modern comments on this topic have been made without a profounder consideration of the ancient teaching. In my opinion, however, a more reliable and complete explanation about this difficult subject is to be found in the analysis of the ancient view .II.The commentaries of Boethius(2) and Ammonius son of Hermeias(3) contain in a slightly different manner the ancient doctrine of indefinite takes and verbs. They explain some questions whose answers are not evident in Aristotles Peri Hermeneias (= PeriH.)(4) namely, (i) why does Aristotle introduce indefinite names and verbs after defining name and verb? I.e. Why does Aristotle consider adequate to define expressions like not-man, does not recover, etc., at a time he has defined man and recovers as name and verb respectively? Even more, (ii) why does Aristotle in Chapter 10 of PeriH. leave indefinite verbs aside and introduces only indefinite names in simple (= categorical) propositions?