Chapter 1 Detheologization
Aëtian Chapters and Their Peripatetic Background
In: Studies in Early Greek PhilosophySearch for other papers by Jaap Mansfeld in
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Abstract
The doxographical tradition is a body of doctrine with pronounced ‘secular’ features. I shall look at individual Aëtian chapters where the secularization is comparable with that in Aristotle (or Theophrastus), or has gone even further. The chapters chosen for this exercise can be linked with passages in Aristotle dealing with the same themes. What happened is that the ancient poets, or theologoi, listed in several of Aristotle’s dialectical overviews have almost entirely been eliminated. Apart from a few isolated passages Aëtius confines discussion of the divine to his chapters on principles and theology. I shall also look briefly at the abstracts in Damascius from Eudemus’ discussion of early theologies, both Greek and Oriental, and compare them with a passage in Aristotle and a chapter of the Placita.