Abstract

For the composition of his Life of Aristotle Diogenes Laertius does not read Aristotle’s own works. Instead Laertius seems to reproduce an older synthesis of his philosophy, written, likewise, taking into account various sources. Most of his exposition traces down the opinions referred to logical issues and, above all, physical and ethical. The exposition of Aristotelian opinions comes from antique documentation various centuries before Laertius’ composition , even before Andronicus of Rhodes . Most of it also uses the well-known stoic division: he first analyses the logic, then the ethics and finally the physics. This is the most interesting part of Laertius composition for it lets us go back to the Hellenistic period in which scholarly manuals had not penetrated the Aristotelian corpus. On our behalf, we will center our study on the analysis of logic developed through the Laertian exposition of book V