Aetiana

Ancient doxography, particularly as distilled in the work on problems of physics by Aetius, is a vital source for our knowledge of early Greek philosophy up to the first century BCE. But its purpose and method, and also its wider intellectual context, are by no means easy to understand. The present volume contains 19 essays written between 1989 and 2009 in which the authors grapple with various aspects of the doxographical tradition and its main representatives. The essays examine the origins of the doxographical method in the work of Aristotle and Theophrastus and also provide valuable insights into the works of other authors such as Epicurus, Chrysippus, Lucretius, Cicero, Philo of Alexandria and Seneca. The collection can be read as a companion collection to the two earlier volumes of Aetiana published by the two authors in this series (1997, 2009).

Review:

We tend to think of doxography as a naive form of history of philosophy. Mansfeld and Runia succeed in showing us that the Aetian compendium of physical doctrines is anything but a naive collection of physical opinions. Andrea Falcon in BMCR 2010.04.30 Il s'agit d'un travail monumental et absolument remarquable, non seulement parce qu'on a la un texte et une colonne [...] qui a retrouve une coherence propre, mais aussi parce que les auteurs donnent au lecteur tous les elements et tous les outils pour apprecier la pertinence de la reconstruction qu'ils proposent. C'est un progres scientifique considerable, et nous ne pouvons que souhaiter que ces resultats soient systematiquement pris en compte desormais dans toute etude utilisant Aetius , fut-ce comme entreprise titanesque [...] Claire Louget in Revue philosophique de Louvain 1/2012