The Aristotelian Problemata Physica Philosophia Antiqua A Series of Studies on Ancient Philosophy Editorial Board Ch. Wildberg (Princeton) K.A. Algra (Utrecht) F.A.J. de Haas (Leiden) J. Mansfeld (Utrecht) C. J. Rowe (Durham) D.T. Runia (Melbourne) Previous Editors J.H. Waszink† W.J. Verdenius† J.C.M. van Winden† VOLUME 139 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/pha The Aristotelian Problemata Physica Philosophical and Scientific Investigations Edited by Robert Mayhew LEIDEN | BOSTON Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Aristotelian Problemata physica : philosophical and scientific investigations / edited by Robert Mayhew.   pages cm. — (Philosophia antiqua, ISSN 0079-1687 ; volume 139)  Includes indexes.  ISBN 978-90-04-28085-4 (hardback : acid-free paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-28087-8 (e-book) 1. Aristotle. Problemata. 2. Science, Ancient. I. Mayhew, Robert, editor.  B469.7.A73 2014  185—dc23 2014047437 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 0079-1687 isbn 978-90-04-28085-4 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-28087-8 (e-book) Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Contents Editor’s Preface  vii Contributors  xi Abbreviations  xiii 1 The Problemata physica: An Introduction  1 István Bodnár 2 Democritus, Aristotle, and the Problemata  10 Stephen Menn 3 Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics and the Aristotelian Problemata  36 James G. Lennox 4 The Problemata’s Medical Books: Structural and Methodological Aspects  61 Katerina Oikonomopoulou 5 Creating Problemata with the Hippocratic Corpus  79 Oliver Thomas 6 On Problemata 3: Wine-Drinking and Drunkenness  100 William W. Fortenbaugh 7 Material and Teleological Explanations in Problemata 10  124 Byron J. Stoyles 8 Sound Reasoning in Problemata 11? Disentangling the Components of Voices  151 Stefan Hagel 9 Understanding Odours in Problemata 12–13: Peripatetic Problems Concerning the Elusive Sense of Smell  172 Han Baltussen 10 The Ethnography of Problemata 14 in (Its Mostly Aristotelian) Context  190 Mariska Leunissen vi contents 11 Problemata 15: Its Title and Agenda  214 Alan C. Bowen 12 Musical Pitch and the Enigmatic Octave in Problemata 19  226 Andrew Barker 13 Food and Health in Problemata 21–22: Cooking (pepsis) in the Kitchen and “Cooking” (pepsis) in the Body  255 John Wilkins 14 On Problemata 23: Little Problems on the Vast Sea  272 Malcolm Wilson 15 Problemata 26 and Theophrastus’ De ventis: A Preliminary Comparison  294 Robert Mayhew 16 On Problemata 27: Problems Connected with Fear and Courage  311 William W. Fortenbaugh 17 On Problemata 28: Temperance and Intemperance, Continence and Incontinence  321 Bruno Centrone 18 Problemata 29 and Athenian Law  337 David C. Mirhady 19 Black Bile as the Cause of Human Accomplishments and Behaviors in Pr. 30.1: Is the Concept Aristotelian?  357 Eckart Schütrumpf 20 Homo numerans, venerans, or imitans? Human and Animal Cognition in Problemata 30.6  381 Jason G. Rheins 21 ‘Problematising’ the Problemata: The Problemata in Relation to Other Question-and-Answer Texts  413 Liba Taub Index locorum  437 Index nominum  463 Editor’s Preface The Problemata physica is the third longest work in the corpus Aristotelicum, but among the least studied. While working on a new Loeb Classical Library edition of the Problemata, I became more convinced than ever that this long- neglected work merited further study, as it has much to tell us about the specific nature of philosophical and scientific inquiry in the Lyceum during Aristotle’s life and especially in the years following his death.1 The Problemata consists of thirty-eight books, and over nine hundred chapters. There is a rough order of presentation of these books (more on this shortly), though the chapters within each book are almost always presented in no particular order. Nearly all of these chapters begin with a question—and specifically with the words διὰ τί (‘why?’ or ‘on account of what?’)—followed by one or more (often provisional) answers and/or follow-up questions. The range of subjects covered is vast and varied: medicine and music, sex and salt water, fatigue and fruit, animals and astronomy, moderation and malodorous things, wind and wine, bruises and barley, voice and virtue, etc. A single vol- ume collection of essays covering all thirty-eight books and most of the top- ics explored in them is likely not possible. Most of the major sections of the Problemata are covered, however, and this collection does a great deal to rem- edy the general neglect of this work. Of the twenty-one essays in this collection, the first three provide an intro- duction to and overview of the Problemata, as well as much of the context necessary for understanding it (and they obviate the need for me to say more 1  There are important exceptions to this neglect: H. Flashar, Aristoteles: Problemata Physica (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1962; 4th ed., 1991); P. Louis, Aristote: Problèmes, 3 vols. (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1991–94); B. Centrone, ed., Studi sui Problemata Physica Aristotelici (Naples: Bibliopolis, 2011). Still useful is E.S. Forster’s heavily annotated translation of the Problemata in The Works of Aristotle Translated into English Under the Editorship of W.D. Ross, vol. 7 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1927). G. Marenghi has produced a number of volumes containing text and translation of parts of the Problemata, based on a careful study of the manuscripts: Aristotele: Problemi di Musicali (Florence: Fussi, 1957); Aristotele: Problemi di Fonazione e di Acustica (Naples: Libreria Scientifica, 1962); Aristotele: Problemi di Medicina, rev. ed. (Milan: Massari, 1999); [Aristotele]: Profumi e Miasmi (Naples: Arte Tipografica, 1991). Note that the books on music (11 & 19) and the chapter on melancholy (30.1) have not been as neglected as the rest. (See Flashar’s commentary on these books and this chapter for further details.) viii editor’s preface in this preface about its nature):2 István Bodnár’s “The Problemata physica: An Introduction”; Stephen Menn’s “Democritus, Aristotle, and the Problemata”; and, James G. Lennox’s “Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics and the Aristotelian Problemata.” With the exception of the last chapter, each of the remaining essays focuses on some book(s) or chapter of the Problemata, and their appearance in this volume follows the order of that work. The first nine books (give or take) are on medicine and human physiology,3 and three essays are devoted to all or part of this section of the work: Katerina Oikonomopoulou’s “The Problemata’s Medical Books: Structural and Methodological Aspects”;4 Oliver Thomas’s “Creating Problemata with the Hippocratic Corpus”; and, William W. Fortenbaugh’s “On Problemata 3: Wine-Drinking and Drunkenness.” Books 10–19 deal with miscellaneous subjects, though within this fairly ran- dom grouping some books have clearly been placed together for a reason. The subject matter of the longest book (10), despite the absence of any reference to animals in its title,5 is biology. This material is covered by Byron J. Stoyles’s “Material and Teleological Explanations in Problemata 10.” Books 11 (on voice) and 19 (on harmonia) are often treated together, as they both deal with aspects of music. Each is the subject of an essay in this volume:6 Stefan Hagel’s “Sound Reasoning in Problemata 11? Disentangling the Components of Voices,” and Andrew Barker’s “Musical Pitch and the Enigmatic Octave in Problemata 19.” Books 12–13, on good odors and bad odors respectively, are the subject of Han Baltussen’s “Understanding Odours in Problemata 12–13: Peripatetic Problems Concerning the Elusive Sense of Smell.” Two other essays each focus on an individual book from this miscellaneous set: Mariska Leunissen’s 2  But see my introduction to the Problemata in R. Mayhew, Aristotle: Problems, vol. 1: Books 1–19 (Cambridge, ma: Harvard University Press, 2011): xiii–xxiv. 3  Re. “give or take”: This depends on who you ask. Marenghi’s Aristotele: Problemi di Medicina (see n. 1) contains Books 1, 6–9, 14, 27–28, 31–38. Philip van der Eijk, “Between the Hippocratics and the Alexandrians: Medicine, Philosophy and Science in the Fourth Century bce,” in R.W. Sharples, ed., Philosophy and the Sciences in Antiquity (Aldershot, uk: Ashgate, 2005), includes in his list of medical works Books 1–9 and 31–38. And see the following note. 4  As Katerina Oikonomopoulou’s conception of what counts as a medical book extends well beyond the first nine (she includes 1–11 and 31–38), her essay is in fact transitional between those providing an overview of the background, nature, and methodology of the Problemata as a whole, and those focusing on books 1–9. The same could be said of Oliver Thomas’s essay. 5  Epitome of Natural Problems or Epitome of Natural Things (Ἐπιτομὴ φυσικῶν). 6  I mention them together here, though their appearance in the volume follows the order of the Problemata. editor’s preface ix “The Ethnography of Problemata 14 in (Its Mostly Aristotelian) Context,” and Alan C. Bowen’s “Problemata 15: Its Title and Agenda.” Books 20–22 were grouped together because they all deal in some sense with plants—particularly as sources of nutrition. John Wilkins discusses the con- tent of two of these books in “Food and Health in Problemata 21–22: Cooking (pepsis) in the Kitchen and ‘Cooking’ (pepsis) in the Body.” Meteorological problems are treated in books 23–26, two of which are the subject of the fol- lowing essays: Malcolm Wilson’s “On Problemata 23: Little Problems on the Vast Sea,” and my “Problemata 26 and Theophrastus’ De ventis: A Preliminary Comparison.” Books 27–30 are devoted to moral philosophy, and particularly to issues (often physiological) associated with the major virtues and related states of the soul. They are covered by five essays: William W. Fortenbaugh’s “On Problemata 27: Problems Connected with Fear and Courage”; Bruno Centrone’s “On Problemata 28: Temperance and Intemperance, Continence and Incontinence”; David C. Mirhady’s “Problemata 29 and Athenian Law”; Eckart Schütrumpf’s “Black Bile as the Cause of Human Accomplishments and Behaviors in Problemata 30.1: Is the Concept Aristotelian?”; and, Jason G. Rheins’s “Homo numerans, venerans, or imitans? Human and Animal Cognition in Problemata 30.6.” The Problemata physica ends with a set of brief books (31–38) on human anatomy. None of these is the subject of an individual essay in this collection; but as they fall under the purview of Katerina Oikonomopoulou’s and Oliver Thomas’s essays, they receive general coverage there. Although the focus of this collection was by design on the content of the Problemata and not on its influence or afterlife,7 I wanted to end the volume with one essay that locates the Problemata in the context of texts of the same sort in later antiquity: this aim is served by Liba Taub’s “ ‘Problematising’ the Problemata: The Problemata in Relation to Other Question-and-Answer Texts.” Jonathan Barnes ends his study of Aspasius’ commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics: “Since it is customary to round things off with a final banality, here is one: Aspasius has baked a dry pie—but a probing thumb will pull out a plum or 7  On the influence and reception of the Problemata, up to and including the Renaissance, see Peter De Leemans and Michèle Goyens eds., Aristotle’s Problemata in Different Times and Tongues (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2006).