Note 43 — Chapter II · ARISTOTELIAN CANON.

Ueberweg (Geschichte der Philos. des Alterthums, vol. i. § 46, p. 127, 2nd ed.) gives a just and accurate view of ἐξωτερικοὶ λόγοι, as conceived by Aristotle. See also the dissertation of Buhle, prefixed to his unfinished edition of Aristotle, De Aristotelis Libris Exotericis et Acroamaticis, pp. 107-152 — which discusses this subject copiously, and gives a collection both of the passages and comments which bear upon it. It is instructive, though his opinion leans too much towards the supposition of a double doctrine. Bernays, in his dissertation, Die Dialoge des Aristoteles, maintains that by exoteric books are always meant the lost dialogues of Aristotle; and he employs much reasoning to refute the supposition of Madvig (Excurs. VII. ad Cicero, de Fin. p. 861), of Torstrick (ad Aristotel. de Animâ, p. 123), and also of Zeller, that by exoteric discourses are not meant any writings at all, but simply the colloquies and debates of cultivated men, apart from the philosophical schools. On the other hand, Forchhammer has espoused this last-mentioned opinion, and has defended it against the objections of Bernays (Forchhammer, Aristoteles und die exoterischen Reden, p. 16, seq.). The question is thus fully argued on both sides. To me it seems that each of these two opinions is partially right, and neither of them exclusively right. “Exoteric discourse,” as I understand it, might be found both in the Aristotelian dialogues, and in the debates of cultivated men out of the schools, and also in parts of the Aristotelian akroamatic works. The argument of Bernays (p. 36, seq.), that the points which Aristotle alludes to as having been debated and settled in exoteric discourses, were too abstruse and subtle to have been much handled by cultivated men out of the schools, or (as he expresses it) in the salons or coffee-houses (or what corresponded thereto) at Athens — this argument seems to me untenable. We know well, from the Topica of Aristotle, that the most abstruse subjects were handled dialectically, in a manner which he called extra-philosophical; and that this was a frequent occupation of active-minded men at Athens. To discuss these matters in the way which he calls πρὸς δόξαν, was more frequent than to discuss them πρὸς ἀλήθειαν.

Zell remarks (ad Ethica Nikom. i. 13), after referring to the passage in Aristotle’s Physica, iv. 10 (to which I have called attention in a previous note), “quo loco, à Buhlio neglecto, ἐξωτερικοὶ λόγοι idem significant quod alibi κοιναὶ δόξαι, εἰωθότες λόγοι, vel τὰ λεγόμενα: quæ semper, priusquam suas rationes in disputando proponat, disquirere solet Aristoteles. Vide supra, ad cap. viii. 1.” I find also in Weisse (Translation of and Comment on the Physica of Aristotle, p. 517) a fair explanation of what Aristotle really means by exoteric; an explanation, however, which Ritter sets aside, in my judgment erroneously (Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. iii. p. 23).