The Project Aristotle One and Many. The Arabic Pseudepigrapha (ArOMa) is a project on the works falsely attributed to Aristotle in Greek, Arabic, and Latin, with a special focus on the Arabic ones.
Main Challenge
This is one of Aristotle’s most famous images. This Renaissance Aristotle inherits from the Middle Ages the idea of authority in every branch of knowledge. We know that this idea derives from centuries of readers and commentators of the corpus, in Greek, Arabic, and Latin. In the early modern age Aristotle’s authority was shaken to its foundations. And nowadays scholars discuss whether or not his philosophy can be disentangled from his obsolete cosmology. But what has been the impact of the works falsely attributed to him in the rise of Aristotle’s authority? ArOMa aims at providing the basis for answering this question.
Knowledge gap
The works falsely attributed to Aristotle in Arabic are more or less 150. Significantly, Aristotle features in them as a devote pupil of Plato, as a teacher of kings, as an alchemist, as a geographer, to mention just some examples. Still, To date, Arab pseudo-Aristotelica have not been examined as a complex. Also their relationship with the Greek late Antiquity has not been systematically examined. Basically, this is what we plan to study.
What ArOMa will do
We will unravel, classify, and analyse all the Arabic pseudo-Aristotelica. We will also produce English translations with commentary of the most representative works.
Groundbreaking effects on the field and beyond
When this unexplored territory is better understood, the reasons for the rise and subsequent fall of Aristotle’s legacy will become better known. The Arabic pseudo-Aristotelica are a turning point, worthy to be investigated in itself and for its historical importance; but for the time being it is a jumble of treasures and cheap stuff. It is time to reconsider its importance the history of Aristotelianism, and this is what we would like to do with this project.