Walter Leszl

A general survey of Aristotle's contributions to physics (in the Ancient sense of the word), including his "De anima" but leaving out his zoological works, with some attention for the differences between his science and modern science.

The book is a reconstruction and detailed presentation (close to a commentary) of Aristotle's lost work On Ideas, based, in the main, on the testimony of Alexander of Aphrodisias in his commentary to the Metaphysics; Alexander's text is included in the critical edition by D. Harlfinger.

The paper offers a rather long discussion of E. Berti's book entitled Aristotele: dalla dialettica alla filosofia prima, questioning some important aspects of the approach he adopts. (He replied to my criticism in a successive issue of the same review.)

The paper offers a critical discussion of H. Happ's wide-ranging book entitled "Hyle. Studien zum aristotelischen Materiebegriff", Berlin 1971. While recognizing the importance of this contribution to Aristotelian scholarship I express some revervations to the approach adopted, which tends to make of Aristotle a continuator of the so-called unwritten doctrines by Plato.