On Breath
On Breath (
Corpus Aristotelicum but usually regarded as spurious. Its opening sentence raises the question: "What is the mode of growth, and the mode of maintenance, of the natural (or 'connate': emphutos) vital spirit (pneuma
)?"
Authorship
Among the ancient catalogues of
Hellenistic medicine.[2]
In 2008, however, Bos and Ferwerda published a commentary in which they maintain that On Breath is a genuine work of Aristotle whose doctrines respond to those of Plato's Timaeus and constitute an important part of Aristotle's philosophy of nature. They list a number of positions that On Breath defends such as that fish don't breathe because there is no air in water that Aristotle is known to have held.[3] They also consider the position on the soul to be that of Aristotle.[4]
See also
Notes
References
- Commentaries
- Daniel Furlanus, Theophrasti Eresii, Peripateticorum post Aristotelem principis pleraque... (Greek text with Latin translation and commentary), Hanover, 1605 (available online).
- Amneris Roselli, [Aristotele]: De spiritu (Greek text with Italian translation and commentary), Pisa: ETS Editrice, 1992.
- Abraham P. Bos and Rein Ferwerda, Aristotle, On the Life-Bearing Spirit (De Spiritu): A Discussion with Plato and his Predecessors on Pneuma as the Instrumental Body of the Soul (with English translation and commentary), Leiden: Brill, 2008.
External links
- English translation: J. F. Dobson's 1914 Oxford translation bound with De Mundo, pp. "32" ff. (archive.org)
- Greek text: Teubner text available in HTML format via Greco interattivo
- De Spiritu, translated by J. F. Dobson (Sharper Scan of 1931 Edition)
On Breath public domain audiobook at LibriVox
