Talk:Recovery of Aristotle

Philosophy: Literature / Medieval Redirect‑class Mid‑importance

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Aristotle thought the earth was flat?

I thought that by the time of Pythagoras or Aristotle it had been reasoned that since there was always a circular shadow cast on the moon during lunar eclipses that the earth had to be a sphere. Can we get a more direct citation of Aristotle's thoughts on this issue? Qed (talk) 18:45, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for noting that issue. I have removed the unsourced text about Aristotle and flat-earth concepts, after failure to find any WP:RS sources. It is likely that some had misinterpreted Aristotle's writings as stating beliefs when, perhaps, his ideas were actually taken out of context from Aristotle explaining why the flat-earth notions of Democritus had been disproven. There have been some concerns that Aristotle has been used by flat-earthers to justify the idea, and that is why I think Aristotle's text was taken out of context when he explained how the flat-earth concepts were rejected, in his time period, while other text advocated the idea of a spherical earth. -Wikid77 19:13, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Arabic was not the only source (POV tag)

Since 1095 (first Crusade) and after the 2nd Crusade via Venice, original Greek manuscripts came into the hand of scholars. The role of the Iberian Arabian re-translations is overstated. This needs work. Gschadow (talk) 04:12, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Added POV tag. It really needs fixed. See Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Medieval Philosophy for a much better description of this concept. Under New Translations, which is not the only factor, are still listed 3 sources:

Sicily, which was at this time a melting-pot of Latins, Greeks, Jews, and Muslims. Euclid and Ptolemy were translated there, as well as other mathematical and medical works.
Constantinople. A few Western scholars journeyed to Constantinople, notably one James of Venice in roughly the late 1120s, an important translator of Aristotle's logical and other writings. Nevertheless, political tensions between the West and Constantinople at this time guaranteed that such contact was not widespread (see Byzantine Philosophy). "Political tensions" not present with Islam? In reality texts such as the "Politics" came straight from the Byzantines (the various Italian states had trading links the Greeks from the start) - but Byzantines are not likely to turn up and riot on campus, so we have to pretend the works of Aristotle came from the Muslim world.90.195.127.168 (talk) 20:03, 12 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Spain. An extremely important school of translators emerged at Toledo, under the direction of Archbishop Raymond (d. 1151, although the school survived him).

The Constantinople - Venice axis is probably underestimated even in the entry I cite here. One should note that there was a special relationship between Venice and Constantinople under Emperor Manuel, this has exported a lot of Greek culture to Venice and from there to all Europe. Gschadow (talk) 04:21, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't only about translation

Recovery of Aristotle was not recovery of the texts. The texts were fine in the East Roman libraries. Just the western philosophy had neglected them. This is not so much a matter of availability than of interest. Gschadow (talk) 04:14, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This article seems mostly about the translations of Aristotle into Latin, if even that, rather than "recovery". Perhaps it should be rewritten as "surviving texts of Aristotle" with some notes on how they survived. I imagine most texts have survived in Greek. It would have been practically impossible to accurately reconstruct the original text in Greek from Arabic or Latin translations. A scholarly account is probably too much to expect in wikipedia but a reference the history of the texts would be useful. Skamnelis (talk) 10:22, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Aristotle wasn't lost in the first place

Many aristotle texts were already in the hands of the byzantine empire and the holy roman empire. Which particular texts have been proven to be solely in the custody of arabs? And even if they were, it's only because arabs sacked the cities where the texts were. It's not like they actually contributed anything.2600:8801:0:1530:B5DD:47:F727:3125 (talk) 07:16, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]