A much-maligned feature of ancient and medieval political thought is its tendency to appeal to nature to establish norms for human communities. From Aristotle's claim that humans are "political animals" to Aquinas' invocation of "natural law," it may seem that pre-modern philosophers were all too ready to assume that whatever is natural is good, and that just political arrangements must somehow be natural. The papers in this collection show that this assumption is, at best, too crude. From very early, for instance in the ancient sophists' contrast between nomos and physis, there was recognition that political arrangements may be precisely artificial, not natural, and it may be questioned whether even such supposed naturalists as Aristotle in fact adopt the quick inference from "natural" to "good." The papers in this volume trace the complex interrelations between nature and such concepts as law, legitimacy, and justice, covering a wide historical range stretching from Plato and the Sophists to Aristotle, Hellenistic philosophy, Cicero, the Neoplatonists Plotinus and Porphyry, ancient Christian thinkers, and philosophers of both the Islamic and Christian Middle Ages.

A much-maligned feature of ancient and medieval political thought is its tendency to appeal to nature to establish norms for human communities. From Aristotle's claim that humans are "political animals" to Aquinas' invocation of "natural law," it may seem that pre-modern philosophers were all too ready to assume that whatever is natural is good, and that just political arrangements must somehow be natural. The papers in this collection show that this assumption is, at best, too crude. From very early, for instance in the ancient sophists' contrast between nomos and physis, there was recognition that political arrangements may be precisely artificial, not natural, and it may be questioned whether even such supposed naturalists as Aristotle in fact adopt the quick inference from "natural" to "good." The papers in this volume trace the complex interrelations between nature and such concepts as law, legitimacy, and justice, covering a wide historical range stretching from Plato and the Sophists to Aristotle, Hellenistic philosophy, Cicero, the Neoplatonists Plotinus and Porphyry, ancient Christian thinkers, and philosophers of both the Islamic and Christian Middle Ages.

Aristotelian philosophy played an important part in the history of 19th century philosophy and science but has been largely neglected by researchers. A key element in the newly emerging historiography of ancient philosophy, Aristotelian philosophy served at the same time as a corrective guide in a wide range of projects in philosophy. This volume examines both aspects of this reception history.

The book contains a new critical edition of the Greek text of Aristotle's De Motu Animalium and an English translation of the new text by Benjamin Morison, preceded by an introduction by Christof Rapp and Oliver Primavesi. The introduction comes in two parts: (i) a philosophical introduction by Christof Rapp that aims at drawing a kind of balance of more than three decades of scholarly debate on our treatise and related issues since the publication of Martha Nussbaum's edition and commentary in 1978; (ii) a textual introduction by Oliver Primavesi that sums up the history of textual research on the transmission of De Motu Animalium up to and including the discovery of a new branch of transmission.

Translations play a decisive role as the basis and trigger for more complex transformations a " both in the construction of science and for literature. In the fine arts and archaeology, it is a question of enquiring into forms of a ~translationa (TM) which bear resemblances to the functioning of textual translations although they are not based on the transmission of text.

Zu den grossen Editionsunternehmungen, die der Akademie Verlag bereits in den 1950er Jahren auf den Weg gebracht hat, gehoert die Deutsche Aristoteles-Gesamtausgabe, bestehend aus UEbersetzung und Erlauterungen mit ausfuhrlichem, am neuesten Stand der Forschung orientierten Kommentaren, begrundet von Ernst Grumach, damals Professor an der Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin. Die nach seinem Tode (1967) von Hellmut Flashar weitergefuhrte Ausgabe ist, nachdem die ersten Bande 1956-1958 erschienen waren, uber alle z.T. widrigen Zeitumstande hinweg dank der Mitarbeit fuhrender Aristotelesforscher stetig gewachsen und hat sich mit bisher 30 erschienenen Banden eine hohe internationale Anerkennung erworben. Obwohl die Ausgabe noch nicht abgeschlossen ist, kann sie schon jetzt als Spiegelbild des Logik, Ethik, Metaphysik, AEsthetik und Biologie umfassenden, wahrhaft enzyklopadischen Werkes angesehen werden, mit dem Aristoteles wie kein anderer Philosoph nicht nur abendlandisches Denken gepragt, sondern auch in der judischen, arabischen und islamischen Tradition starke Spuren hinterlassen hat.