Introduction 35
is disagreement about the authenticity of some of them). Yet any general
account of Aristotle’s philosophy is bound to begin with a discussion of the
problems posed by the form and status of his writings. Do they represent the
‘lecture notes’ written by Aristotle himself on the basis of which he presented
his oral teaching? Or are they to be taken as the ‘minutes’ or ‘verbatims’ of his
oral teaching as written down by his pupils? Certainly, some characteristics
of his works may be interpreted as evidence of oral presentation;^44 and with
some (parts) of his works it is not easy to imagine how they might have
been understood without additional oral elucidation – although this may
be a case of our underestimating the abilities of his then audience and an
extrapolation of our own difficulties in understanding his work. However,
other parts of his work are certainly far too elaborate to assume such a
procedure.^45 Some works display a careful structure of argumentation which
may well be understood by reference to an audience which is supposed
to go through a learning process; and certainly the ‘dialectical’ passages
where he deals with the views of his predecessors reflect a very elaborate
composition.^46 All in all, it is clear that not much is gained by premature
generalisations and unreflective categorisations (such as ‘lecture notes’),^47
and that we should allow for considerable variation in forms of expression
and degree of linguistic and structural organisation between the various
works in the Corpus Aristotelicum.
A further point that has attracted considerable attention is the relation
between orality and literacy. Although the details and the precise signifi-
cance of the process are disputed, the importance of the transition from
orality to literacy for Greek culture and intellectual life can hardly be over-
stated. Since the majority of the Hippocratic writings were produced in the
late fifth and early fourth centuriesbce, the Corpus testifies in a variety of
ways to this transition. Thus it can safely be assumed that several treatises,
especially the older gynaecological worksOn Diseases of WomenandOn
the Nature of the Woman, which contain long catalogues of prescriptions
and recipes, preserve traditional knowledge which has been transmitted
orally over a number of generations. Moreover, several treatises explicitly
refer to oral presentations of medical knowledge, such as the author ofOn
(^44) For examples see F ̈ollinger ( 1993 ) and van der Eijk ( 1994 ) 97 ; for direct references to the teaching
situation see Bod ́eus ( ̈ 1993 ) 83 – 96.
(^45) E.g.Metaphysics 1. 1 orNicomachean Ethics(Eth. Nic.) 4. 3 ; for other examples see Schutrumpf ( ̈ 1989 )
and Lengen ( 2002 ).
(^46) E.g.Generation of Animals 1. 17 – 18.
(^47) On the problems inherent in this notion see Sch ̈utrumpf ( 1989 ) 178 – 80 with notes 12 , 13 , 17 , 23 and
26.