Problems (Aristotle)

Problems (Greek: Προβλήματα; Latin: Problemata) is an Aristotelian or possibly pseudo-Aristotelian^[1] collection of questions about the world and answers to them. The collection, gradually assembled by the peripatetic school, reached its final form anywhere between the third century BC and the 6th century AD. The work is divided by topic into 38 sections, and the whole contains almost 900 problems.

Later writers to compose question-and-answer works in imitation of Problems include Plutarch, Alexander of Aphrodisias, and Cassius Iatrosophista.^[2] The medieval and Renaissance commentators of Aristotle's Problemata include Pietro d'Abano (whose Expositio of 1310 was reprinted in a number of early editions), Giulio Guastavini and Ludovico Settala.

Notes

^ It is marked by an asterisk in the contents of Jonathan Barnes (ed.), The Complete Works of Aristotle (Princeton, 1984), indicating that "its authenticity has been seriously doubted" (p. xiii).
^ Ann M. Blair, "The Problemata as a Natural Philosophical Genre," in Anthony Grafton and Nancy Siraisi, eds., Natural Particulars: Nature and the Disciplines in Renaissance Europe, p. 173