ABSTRACT
From the time of the frrst systematisation of the Corpus Aristotelicum by Andronikos of Rhodes• in the first century BCE and the beginning of systematic teaching of the Aristotelian philosophy in the schools of the Neoplatonists from the third century CE onwards,2 that is, from the very origin of the Aristotle commentary tradition, Aristotle was approached by starting from his logical works, regarded as representing the Organon, the general instrument of philosophical and scientific argumentation, and continuing with the teaching of the practical and theoretical disciplines, that is, ethics, physics and metaphysics. This same ancient scheme was basically preserved in the universities of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, where the teaching of philosophy in the arts faculty paved the way for the "business schools" of theology and medicine. The same scheme also shaped the career of the successful professor, which began with the chair of logic, continued with natural philosophy and metaphysics and ended with the professorship in theology or medicine, as we can see from the biographies of almost all the Aristotle commentators collected by Charles L0hr.3 Consequently it was the Aristotelian Organon to which
See F. Ueberweg, Grundrij3 der Geschichte der Philosophie: Die Philosophie der Antike, vol. 3: H. Flashar (ed.), Altere Akademie, Aristoteles-Peripatos, Basel 1983, 191-2.
