/ TRANSLATIONS

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afonasin@post.nsu.ru

EUGENE AFONASIN
Institute of World History (Moscow); Institute of philosophy and law (Novosibirsk)
THEOPHRASTUS ON THE FIRST PRINCIPLES
ABSTRACT. Cicero (De natura deorum 1.13.35), Clement of Alexandria (Protrepticus 5.58) as well
as Proclus (In Timaeus 35) inform us that Theophrastus [372287 BCE] inclined to identify
the god and the sky (the stars are animated therefore divine). In the article we will see that,
indeed, the student of Aristotle frequently professes ideas that would surprise the philoso-
pher of Stagira. For instance, he frequently insists that the kosmos is a living and ordered uni-
verse (the whole), and its innate movement is something which cannot be explained with the
help of hand-made teleological constructions, such as the first mover. The analysis of the
Metaphysics is supplemented in the paper by observations based on Theophrastus (Syriac)
Meteorology and a selection of the fragments of his lost scientific works. The Metaphysics is
translated into Russian for the first time. The reader is also adviced to consult Aristotelian
Movement of Animals, a Russian translation of which immediately follows this publication.
KEYWORDS: metaphysics, its foundation and ancient critics, the history of exact and natural
sciences, empirical method.
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