Table Of ContentChapter Title: Front Matter
Book Title: Aristotle's System of the Physical World
Book Subtitle: A Comparison with His Predecessors
Book Author(s): Friedrich Solmsen
Published by: Cornell University Press. (1960)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.cttq4427.1
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CORNELL STUDIES IN
CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
VOLUME XXXIII
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CORNELL STUDIES IN CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY
EDITED BY
HARRY CAPLAN * JAMES HUTTON
G. M. KIRKWOOD * FRIEDRICH SOLMSEN
VOLUME XXXIII
Aristotle's of the World
System Physical
A COMPARISON WITH HIS PREDECESSORS
BY FRIEDRICH SOLMSEN
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Aristotle's of
System
the World
Physical
A COMPARISON WITH
HIS PREDECESSORS
Friedrich Solmsen
By
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS
ITHACA, NEW YORK
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© i960 by Cornell University
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS
First published i960
This work has been brought to publication
with the assistance of grants from the Ford
Foundation and the Hull Memorial Publication
Fund of Cornell University.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC.
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To WERNER JAEGER
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Chapter Title: Preface
Chapter Author(s): F. S.
Book Title: Aristotle's System of the Physical World
Book Subtitle: A Comparison with His Predecessors
Book Author(s): Friedrich Solmsen
Published by: Cornell University Press. (1960)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.cttq4427.2
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
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digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Cornell University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Aristotle's
System of the Physical World
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Preface
THE title and subtitle of this book will go far to explain its purpose. It
may be described as a study in continuity and transformation. My
original intention was to trace the fate of Presocratic topics, ideas, and
motifs in Aristotle's scientific treatises. And as the convictions which
prompted my research seem now to be borne out, a frank statement of
them not be out of
may place.
The scientific endeavors of the Presocratics have a even if
sequel,
the books on which we are wont to for these thinkers leave us with
rely
the contrary impression. If there is a break, it is only temporary. On a
new level, with different methods and different intellectual equipment,
the of the is carried on. Aristotle did not discover the
inquiry physicists
subjects with which he deals in his physical treatises. In the questions
which he takes up he is neither as free nor as arbitrary as some students
of his thought appear to believe, and in the answers which he provides
he is not as invariably original as he himself in the course of his argu-
ments lead us to think.
may
Having addressed myself to the task of connecting Aristotle with
the Presocratics, I soon realized the necessity of examining also the in-
fluence of Plato's later philosophy on Aristotle's scientific work. Thus
the study has grown, and the book has become longer than I meant it
to be; yet it still deals only with Aristotle's achievements in the realm of
physics. In the biological treatises the situation is comparable, and a
similar study could be undertaken; but the methods of analysis there
needed would have to be somewhat different.
For a long time I have wished to dedicate a book to my teacher and
friend Werner Jaeger as a small token of my gratitude for what I owe
vii
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